Chapter Twenty-Four
BECCA
T he first thing I notice is the smell—musty, damp, and stale, all three a frightening reminder of…
I squeeze my eyes closed even tighter, the memory of waking up to concrete walls weighing heavier than the stench. But then, I hear the steady hum of the engine. I feel the rough carpet under my cheek.
My eyes feel heavy and gritty. I struggle to open them, only to be met with more darkness. I swallow, fighting the wave of nausea creeping up my throat. Every part of me aches—my stomach, my muscles, my head…
Oh, God, my head.
I wince. It feels like an ice pick being drilled into my temple. I go to cradle my hand over it, then freeze. My hands won’t move because my wrists are tied. I kick my feet, but my ankles don’t move either .
Shit.
I scream, but it’s immediately swallowed by the roar of an engine. “ Don’t panic ,” I tell myself, but it’s too late. The more the haze dissipates, the clearer and more bleak things become.
I’m bound in the trunk of a car.
I dig through my cluttered mind for any fragment of a memory. I remember arguing with the two FBI agents. They tried to get me to turn against Gianni, so I walked out, and…
I saw him.
My monster.
My nightmare.
My mother’s killer was waiting for me.
Everything about that moment comes rushing back. My eyes go wide because even in the pitch darkness, I know what’s happening. I know how this ends.
But then I hear Gianni’s voice in my head.
“ Concentrate and find your center. Survivors fight, Becca. Victims fall.”
It’d be so easy to slip behind that glass frame again, but too many have lost their lives protecting mine for me to just give up.
Blinking back my tears, I fight against my restraints to no avail. Whatever I’m bound with isn’t coming loose on sheer will alone. Desperate, I drag my arms across every available inch of the trunk, blindly searching for anything I can use to cut through it.
“Fuck!” I clench my teeth around the curse as a piece of metal slices into my forearm.
Of course. Getting tetanus before being murdered makes perfect sense.
I still as blood rolls off my wrist. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing.
Slowly and gingerly, I pat my bound wrists in the general area, sucking in another curse as the same piece of jagged metal stabs the back of my hand. From what I can tell, it’s a broken part of the framework.
Please let this work.
I carefully position my wrists on what I hope are the outside edges of the exposed metal and hold my breath as I scrape them down the side.
There’s a scratching noise, and no pain.
Adrenaline pumping, I saw harder and faster. I have no clue if I’m making progress, but at least concentrating on it keeps me focused and my mind occupied. A few times, my aim slips and I slice another layer of skin, but I immediately correct my form and keep going.
Saw.
Breathe.
Saw.
Breathe.
I can feel the pressure lessening, the tightness relaxing. My pulse kicks up, determination overriding fear… And then, the car stops. The hum of the engine silences, and I hear a door open. My heart thunders against my ribs as it slams closed, and heavy footsteps draw close.
“Shit.” I twist my wrists. While my binding has more “give” to it, it’s not enough to break while lying on my back in the trunk of a car. Panicking, I throw myself onto my other shoulder and search for anything I can use as a weapon.
The footsteps stop. There’s a heart-stopping beep, and the trunk rises just as my hands land on what feels like a ballpoint pen. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. Wedging it between my palms, I shove it under the wristband of my watch, then do the hardest thing I’ve ever done—wait.
I’m fighting, Gianni. Please hurry.
A splash of fluorescent light floods the trunk as I roll over and stare into the face of my monster.
It’s the fourth time I’ve faced him, but somehow, it’s the most terrifying.
Maybe that’s because I’m completely at his mercy.
There’s nowhere to run, no one to help, and no way to fight back.
But I think the main reason is that for the first time, my nightmare has a name.
Declan Flynn.
It sounds so normal, so human . However, the man glaring down at me is anything but human. His small, close-set eyes are empty black voids emitting nothing but hate. His face is sweaty and littered with scars, his oily red hair hanging in strands. He reeks of dirt and death.
But it isn’t until his lips pull back in a vicious smile that my stomach drops.
Those disgusting yellow teeth seem bigger, longer, sharper.
“Rise and shine.” He pulls a knife from his back pocket, and I fold like a pretzel, doing what little I can to protect my vital organs.
His low, condescending laugh scrapes across every raw nerve as he angles the blade at my feet and slices through the binding at my ankles. “Sit up. I’m not fucking carrying you.”
I push up onto my elbows, eventually making it to my knees. I’m taking a risk by moving slowly, but I need time to get a handle on my surroundings. With me being unconscious for so long, we could be in New Jersey or New Mexico.
I blink. More fluorescent lights.
I straighten one leg over the trunk. There’s salt in the air.
I balance my forearm on the opening. I hear waves hit concrete.
“I don’t have all damn night.” In a blur of motion, he grabs a handful of hair and drags me out of the trunk.
My knees hit the asphalt with a jarring thud, quickly followed by my glasses.
No! Biting my tongue, I stretch my fingertips toward the ground only to have my vision darken as he jerks me to my feet by my hair.
“Leave them.” He chuckles. “Trust me. You don’t want to see what’s coming. ”
His fingers stay wrapped around my hair as he shoves me away from the car. I’m cataloging more scenery when a glimpse out of the corner of my eye registers a cargo ship.
Oh, God. I’m at a shipping dock.
My lungs burn with fear, but I force myself to stay alert and search for anything that tells me where he’s taken me. I’m losing the battle when I see a sign off to the right near an empty cargo berth. Without my glasses it’s fuzzy and distorted, but I can still make out the words.
Elizabeth Marine Terminal
I exhale in relief. We’re still in New Jersey. Unfortunately, there’s no hope of someone seeing us. EMT is under Marchesi control, which means wherever we are is unregulated and unmonitored. Perfect for using Gianni’s own operation against him.
“Be quiet and walk normal,” he snaps, shoving something hard and cold into my spine. “Or I’ll slit your throat and throw you in the water.”
No, he won’t. He’s getting off too much in anticipation of what’s coming.
The more we walk, the more things change. The night sky bleeds a scarlet hue. The salty, ocean air turns metallic. A crimson river seeps through the cracks in the asphalt.
It’s all red.
And when he pushes me through a door, I know why.
It’s not huge by warehouse standards, big enough to house one, maybe two cargo ships’ worth of inventory. But I don’t care about anything but the shipping container in front of me. I don’t have to see inside to know what’s in it. Fear and hopelessness are familiar shadows.
Like me, they’re casualties of sick men’s games.
Like me, they’ve had everything stolen from them.
Like me, nobody’s coming to save them.
He isn’t killing me. He’s going to do what he threatened twenty-two years ago.
He’s going to traffick me.
My panic calms as purpose digs its way to the surface. I wonder if this is what my father felt when he first heard their screams. His attempt at doing the right thing failed, but there’s no more Reeses to threaten. I’m the last thread.
Whatever happens here, it ends with me.
I wiggle my wrists, testing the strength of what I see is a zip-tie as inconspicuously as possible.
It’s sliced through more than I thought.
One strong pull should break the final piece, but I have to wait until his attention is diverted.
Timing is crucial. Once I’m inside one of those containers, the fight is over, and everything my father sacrificed will have been for nothing.
I’ll never see Gianni again…
My heart squeezes when I think of what this will do to him. He’ll turn inward. The goodness he’s so desperate to bury will collapse under his darkness. Mercy will end. Violence will reign. His demons will corrode him, and the world will burn.
Just the image strengthens my determination. Gianni and I have come too far and fought too hard to let his father destroy us from the grave.
However, when Declan unlocks the shipping container and opens the door, all that bravado thins into a sharp gasp.
It’s filled with at least ten women, all scattered around the dirty floor like roadkill.
They look emaciated and gaunt, all dressed in thin gray shorts and tank tops, their feet bare except for one glaring addition…
A dark stain on the outside of their ankles—crude, black, and hastily drawn. I don’t need my glasses to recognize it. There’s a sick kinship in having one’s skin branded against one’s will.
A rose and dagger tattoo.
My eyes blur. They’re not even people to these bastards, just merchandise to be inventoried. Their blank stares and total disconnect tell me they’ve been drugged, kept weak and incoherent to ensure they’re silent and passive.
A bleak sisterhood I know I’m moments away from joining.
My stomach twists. I have to time this perfectly. One move too fast ends with a bullet hitting one of them, while one too slow ends with a lifetime of torture and rape.
The gun slams into my back, and my hands twitch, the pen pressing against my skin like a ticking time bomb.
“Move.” He shoves me forward, forcing me closer to the container.
Think.
A few girls roll their heads toward me in sluggish interest, and my heart leaps into my throat. My control slips, fear overpowering my survival instinct. It’s the same thing that happened at Marcello’s service when I came face-to-face with Benito Toscano.
I stiffen as I remember Gianni’s gentle scolding afterward.
“He’s trying to get in your head. You can’t let him.”
“You’d think that wouldn’t be a problem, but I’ve never met anyone like that before.”
“You’re a psychiatrist. Flip the script on him.”
He’s right. The only way to deter a monster is to become one.
“ Move back ,” I mouth at the dazed women. A few of them are lucid enough to inch backward, dragging the less conscious ones with them.
I let Declan push me a couple more inches, my pulse racing as he shoves me to the concrete and pins me to it with a boot to the stomach.
I groan, fighting the urge to curl into a ball when he pulls a syringe out of his pocket.
Instead, I watch him flip the cap off the top and push his thumb into the bottom part, sending a stream of liquid squirting out of the top.
Turning my palm toward me, I slowly slide the pen out of my watchband, my eyes locked on the needle.
It all comes down to this…
One moment.
One chance.
One final showdown.
This is my redemption story… And this time, I’m writing the ending.