Chapter 46 Jade #2
I see the awe in her eyes, but I don’t feel it the same way she does.
Remembering the days I spent dreaming of being rescued leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I’d been weak, hoping for someone else to do what I eventually learned to do myself.
But I won’t hold that against her. How could I when the girls I saved often had the same awe when they looked at me?
We had just grown to be two different types of people, and there was nothing wrong with that.
“I offered to help him. It didn’t take much to convince him, and that night, I left with him. He purchased me outright on the spot, and we got to work trying to find Emma. But it wasn’t necessary.”
She sighs, and the sound is so deep, so tired, that I reach out, clasping her hand in my own in a show of support. She squeezes back, and it settles me, knowing I’m able to give her some comfort after all these years. I owe her so much; I’ll never be able to repay it, but I’ll never stop trying.
“In two years, we were only able to take down one ring in New York, and while we saved a lot of girls, we still didn’t have any kind of lead on Emma.
Nobody had seen her. She was like a ghost in the wind.
Until one night, he got a call from a police station in Illinois.
Emma had been found.” Her grip on my hand tightens, and I watch as her eyes harden at the memory.
She doesn’t say it as if it’s a good thing, the way Elio does.
“That was you, wasn’t it?” she asks, and I know she already knows the answer. I see it in her eyes as she stares at me, but I nod anyway.
She nods back, squeezing her eyes closed as a sob works its way free from her throat.
“I thought Elio would be done with me. Send me back to the rings now that he had his sister back,” she chokes out the words as she sniffles and tries to fight back her tears, but they just keep coming.
“I… I was wrong,” she shudders. “I was so wrong, but I was afraid. I couldn’t go back to that life, Jade.
Please understand that I never intended for this to happen,” she begs, and it breaks my heart.
I nod, murmuring soothing words. Anything to get her to stop.
Nothing she could have done can be this bad, not compared to what I’ve done.
We all do what we have to in order to survive. I could never hold that against her.
She lets my hand drop, reaching behind her, and I watch as she bites her lip, looking pained, as she pulls a towel off the edge of the bed.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and the need to run kicks in hard enough that I back away slightly.
“Please, please don’t run,” Ashlynn pleads, holding the rag up between us but making no move forward. “He’ll kill me,” she says, her bottom lip quivering, before her other hand drops to her stomach. “He’ll kill us both.”
I’d been so shocked by her sudden appearance that I hadn’t paid close attention to her actual physical appearance, but looking at her now, I see it. The tiniest hint of a baby bump, hidden away beneath her dress.
“Wh... How? Who?” My words are a mess, just like my thoughts, as I try to figure out what to say and how to use this new information.
“I ran. Elio was gone in the blink of an eye to get Emma, and I panicked. I thought he wouldn’t want me, that I failed him, and I’d find myself right back in that hell.
I wasn’t thinking straight. I know that now, but the fear was all-consuming.
I couldn’t see a future where he would come back and still want to look at me, still let me be free.
My time with him was the best two years of my life, more than I could have ever dreamed of and…
” She trails off, her head hanging in shame, and I fight back the urge to go to her.
I don’t want to believe she would hurt me, but I can’t be sure. Desperation makes people do crazy things, and Ashlynn is clearly desperate right now.
“I love him, Jade,” she whispers the words as if she’s afraid to admit them.
“Is the baby his?” I ask, trying to make sense of this. I feel like I have a puzzle with half a dozen missing pieces. So much isn’t adding up.
“Yes,” she shouts, quickly turning to the door when she realizes how loud she was. It doesn’t matter, though; nobody’s coming. The party is too loud for anyone to hear her.
“I want to help you, Ashlynn. Really, I do, but I need to know what’s going on,” I tell her truthfully but firmly. Whatever is going on has her terrified, and she seems to think I can help, but I don’t understand why. What would draw her to that conclusion?
I’ll help her; I’ll do whatever I can, but I need to know what that looks like.
“I ran, but I didn’t have anywhere to go.
I’d never been to Italy except for my time with Elio, and while we went out, it wasn’t like we saw everything, and I hardly spoke the language.
I stowed away on a boat back to the mainland, but I picked the wrong one.
I thought it was just a cargo transport for supplies, but it wasn’t.
It was a mafia ship. Of all the boats I could have picked, I ended up on one that was used by the Bratva to transport guns and drugs. ”
Ashlynn’s speaking so quickly, it’s a miracle I even catch all of that, but with every word, things fall into place.
“Ivan,” I whisper his name. I’m not sure how he keeps popping up, but he does, and I don’t need her to confirm it. The second she said Bratva, I understood the fear in her eyes, the fear she feels for her unborn child.
It’s a fear she has every right to feel.
“Yes,” she says, nodding, and I can see her confusion, but she pushes it aside and keeps going.
“His men found me, and I thought they would kill me, but they didn’t.
They seemed to know who I was, and the next thing I know I was on the phone with him.
He gave me two choices. He could have his men kill me, send me back to Elio as a warning, or… ”
Her words trail off, and my mind runs wild with the endless possibilities of what he could have propositioned her with. None of them is good. I’m two seconds from demanding she tell me just to stop my brain from its downward spiral when she finally speaks up.
“Or I could owe him a favor.”
Just like that, everything makes sense, clicking into place with a clarity so crystal-clear that I almost want to smack myself for not seeing it sooner.
Ivan knows I’m here. I’m not sure how, but it doesn’t matter. He knows, and he’s calling in his favor to get me where he wants me.
Fuck.
“What are you supposed to do?” I ask, my words coming out harsher than I intended, causing her to flinch away. I feel bad, but I don’t have time to comfort her right now. We need to end this, and in order to do that, I need her to tell me what he expects of her.
“Um…” She holds up the towel between us, looking down at it as if it might attack her. “I’m supposed to knock you out, then text the number he gave me and open the window.” She looks to the window over the bed.
I snatch the towel from her and bring it to my nose even as she tries to stop me.
“Chloroform?” I ask, pretty sure that’s what it is, but not positive.
Chloroform isn’t the best choice here, though.
It wouldn’t make sense that he’d have her try it when I could easily evade or overpower her.
Unlike what the movies would have you believe, it actually requires quite a bit of time to knock someone out with it.
It’s not as simple as pressing a cloth to someone’s face and taking them down in seconds.
Ashlynn doesn’t respond, instead watching me intently.
My vision swims, and I press my eyes closed as a wave of dizziness hits me, only to pass almost just as quickly as it started.
What the hell was that?
It only takes me a moment before I know the answer.
Flying forward, I grip the front of Ashlynn’s dress, yanking her toward me. “What did you give me?” I demand, and this time, when she cringes away, I don’t feel as bad. Or at least I shouldn’t, but damn it if I don’t still.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“It wasn’t me,” Ashlynn says in a rush, raising her hands in surrender as she looks down at me with genuine fear in her eyes.
“Ivan said he would handle everything, that he had a guy inside, and all I had to do was push you over the edge with the rag and open the window. I swear!” she says, sounding nearly hysterical.
I hold onto her for another moment as I search her eyes for a lie, shoving her back a step when I don’t find one.
“What does he want?” I ask her, rubbing at my head as it begins to pound. I don’t know what the fuck he gave me, but it’s got to be pretty fucking strong to be hitting me like this.
“I… I don’t know. He said if I helped him with this, my debt would be repaid,” she mutters pathetically, and it only makes my head throb harder.
“Oh!” she gasps loudly, making my head snap up to look around, worried that something is wrong. The sudden movement makes my vision swim once again, and I force myself to take a deep breath and count to three before it finally passes. Damn it, the effects seem to be getting stronger by the minute.
Whatever I’m going to do, I need to do it now.
“I almost forgot. He said if you tried to put up a fight, I should tell you he has something of yours. Something he’s more than happy to dispose of should he feel the need.”
Fuck. That doesn’t sound like he has a lost pocket watch. It sounds like he has someone.
“Okay, okay.”
I take a step forward, stumbling slightly before I right myself again.
Ashlynn looks at me, her eyes full of worry, but my need to comfort her is long gone.
She set this up; she made this choice, and while I understand it, understand how it came to this, she has to deal with that.
Actions have consequences; doesn’t matter who you are. Eventually, we all pay for our shit.
“Let’s get this over with,” I tell her, plopping down on the edge of the bed and waving her toward me.
Her eyes widen at my words before she looks down at the towel I still clutch in my hand.
“Jade…” She trails off as if she’s unsure what to say.
That’s because there isn’t anything she can say. This is what it is, and we’re going to handle it the only way we can. I intended to confront Ivan one way or the other tonight. I guess it doesn’t really matter where that happens.
“Just do it, Ashlynn,” I growl, out of patience and almost out of time.
“I really am sorry, Jade. I’m so, so sorry,” she tells me as she closes the distance between us, grasping the rag with shaking hands, and I believe her.
“So am I,” I tell her as she presses the wet towel to my face.
I force myself to pull in long, deep breaths even as my brain screams at me to knock her arm away—run, scream, something, anything.
I don’t. Instead, I stare up into the eyes of the one person I used to think loved me, the one person I trusted over all else from the beginning.
Tears rush down her cheeks as she sobs, shaking her head slightly as she continues to whisper her apologies. I feel a tear slip out, unable to hold it back as unconsciousness creeps up on me, and I embrace it.
Out of one hell and into another.