18. Gemma
Chapter eighteen
Gemma
T he first thing I notice when consciousness slowly creeps back in is the disgusting taste in my mouth. God, I hope Eoghan is still asleep so I can brush my teeth really quick. No way in hell am I giving him a good-morning kiss with this breath. When my heavy eyelids peel open, the tightness in the rest of my body screams at me. What the hell?
I blink a few times and stare up at a stained white ceiling, the sheets beneath me feeling scratchy as hell and certainly not the ones I have on my bed. I jolt upright, and my head swims for a moment before I can focus on where I am. Taking a look around the old dingy room, I realize I have no fucking clue where that is. Then the memories come crashing back. Walking to my car, leaving Alessia a message, and Andrei showing up as I was about to get in my car. He said my father wanted to meet with me, and when I started to tell him off and move to get in my car and the hell away from him, a hand clasped around my mouth, and I inhaled something. Those motherfuckers used chloroform to knock me out and kidnap me.
I’m going to kill all of them.
I swing my legs off the bed and stand, still a bit woozy from the drug. Shit, good thing they didn’t overdose me if I feel this bad after however long it’s been since they took me. On shaky legs, I make my way to the door and twist the handle. Locked. Of course it is . I walk over to the one window with heavy drapes over it, stepping lightly so as not to alert anyone to the fact that their captive is awake and moving around.
When I part the heavy curtains, I’m met with bars on the window and the dark sky. I’m effectively caged in this room.
Double shit.
Next, I scan the room for anything that can be used as a weapon. There are a few boxes in the corner, but when I open them, they’re filled with women’s clothes and nothing else. Not even a pair of heels I could use to shove into someone’s eye socket. Why the hell are there a bunch of women’s clothes? A memory blinks in my mind; Nikolai saying something about shutting down his father’s trafficking operations. Is this where they take the women before they’re sold to whatever sadistic piece of shit who thinks buying human slaves is just fine and dandy?
Footsteps sound in the hall, and before the door opens, I scurry back to the bed and pretend to be asleep, not wanting to give anyone the impression that I’m awake and already trying to find a way out of this hellhole. My eyes close, and I attempt to relax my tense body to make it look like I haven’t woken yet.
Whoever opens the door shuts it before their heavy footsteps take them to the side of the bed.
A hand slaps my cheek a few times. “Wake up.”
I open my eyes and see Andrei staring down at me with a harsh coldness in his gaze.
“Where are we?” I croak out, pretending that I just woke in confusion.
“Safe house. One not even your traitor of a brother knows about. Here.” He throws a paper plate with a sandwich and an apple on the bed, then a bottle of water. My stomach roils at the sight of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So many dinners consisted of just that when I was growing up with my mom. I haven’t touched the stuff since leaving Virginia. But I do grab the water and unscrew the cap, grateful for the cool liquid running down my burning throat. Chloroform fucking sucks.
“Do you feed all your captives before killing them?”
A disgusting smile spreads across his face as dark as the night sky outside the barred window. “This isn’t where we bring girls to kill them. This is where we prepare them for their new owners.”
So I was right. And that knowledge brings me absolutely no relief.
“I thought Viktor just wanted to talk to me,” I say before taking another sip of the cool water.
“He does. He wants to tell you what happens when you disobey his orders. He gave you a chance, girl, and you fucked it up. Now it’s time to pay the consequences.”
God, are Giada and Alessia here too? He made it clear if I screwed him over, they would pay, same as me.
“Am I the only one here?” I doubt he’ll tell me anything, but I need to know if I got my friends killed. Or worse.
“Nope. There’s someone who’s dying to say hello downstairs waiting for you.”
It can’t be Giada. She’s in Italy with Luca. She just sent me a picture of her and her husband in Naples eating from a bowl of pasta, Lady and the Tramp style. There’s no way they could have gotten her here that fast, right? But that means if it’s not Giada, it’s Alessia. Maybe that’s why she didn’t answer her phone when I called. Maybe they got to her the same time they grabbed me. And that means they had to get through Enzo to get to her.
Fuck, fuck, fuck .
Calm down, Gemma. Freaking the hell out isn’t going to save you.
“Get up. Time to talk to your father.”
Andrei turns from me, and I take the opportunity with his back facing me to make my move. I jump from the bed and race toward the door, knocking him over as I pass. My hand grabs the handle, and I twist. It’s fucking locked. Goddamnit, I didn’t hear him lock it again when he came in.
I whirl around and Andrei is standing upright with a set of keys in his hand. He shakes them at me with a caustic laugh.
“This isn’t my first rodeo,” he informs me.
I jump at him, attempting to grab the keys, but he lowers that arm and raises the other one, grabbing me around the throat before I can make contact with the keys. My fingers claw at his arm, my legs kick out, trying to find purchase on any part of his body, but his grip never loosens.
“I knew you were going to be a pain in the ass,” he says with a sneer. The last thing I see is his fist flying toward my face, and it’s lights out again.
The next time I wake, my head is pounding a hell of a lot harder than it was the first time I woke. I’m also no longer in the room with cheap-ass sheets but handcuffed to a folding metal chair in a damp basement. I shake my head a few times, but the only thing that does is make it pound even harder. There’s one light about ten feet from where they have me restrained. It doesn’t do much to illuminate the space we’re in, as though the darkness of this house is absorbing any light.
“Jenny,” I hear a familiar voice say next to me.
There’s only one person who still calls me that.
“Mom?” I squint my eyes, but it’s still dark as hell, or it could be he hit me so damn hard my vision is fucked to hell now.
I make out her silhouette a few feet from where I am. The harder I focus, the more I see. She looks like shit, even in the poorly lit space. Her hair is a mess of shaggy blonde strings, and there’s black makeup running down her cheeks. I can’t make out much more than her too-skinny body slumped over in the chair she’s restrained in.
“Yeah, it’s me,” she answers. “Those bastards grabbed me yesterday and knocked me out good. I tried to tell them I hadn’t done anything. That I gave Viktor what he wanted and I wasn’t asking him for anything else. But they wouldn’t listen.”
Trying to save her skin, as usual.
“They figured out we were working against him. That’s why he took you. He told me if I double-crossed him, he would come after you.”
“But you did it anyways?” she screeches before a raspy cough shakes her body.
“Still smoking like a chimney, I see.”
“Don't change the subject. God, what were you thinking? How could you do this to me? I can’t believe you were so stupid to think you could get away with this.”
A humorless chuckle falls from my mouth. “That’s right, Angela. Blame me for this shitstorm we’re in. It couldn’t possibly be because you opened your fucking mouth and brought a dangerous criminal into our lives for a quick payout.”
“This is your fault as much as mine, Jenny. Or should I call you Gemma? That’s who you are now, right? Some fancy stuck-up bitch who doesn’t give a shit about the position she put her mother in.”
“Again,” I grit out. “This was you.”
“I gave you everything. It was only fair that your father paid me back for all the money I spent on you throughout the years. I considered it back child support. But oh, no. You couldn’t just trust your parents to do what was right for you.”
“You are fucking delusional. The drugs have rotted your goddamn brain. You never did shit for me when I was growing up. The only thing you ever did right was get out of New York and keep your slimy pedo boyfriends from taking it too far with me. That’s the only reason I had Nikolai send a guy to protect you. Otherwise, I would have handed you to Viktor myself.”
“You ungrateful—”
“Family reunions are so much fun,” a disembodied voice calls from the other side of the darkened basement. When the man steps from the shadows, I see a face so similar to mine staring between my mother and me.
“Viktor, I gave you what you wanted. Why did you bring me here? Jenny is the one who fucked up, not me.”
“Gemma didn’t live up to her end of the bargain. I was very clear what the consequences would be, was I not?” he asks, turning his attention to me.
I remain silent. There’s nothing I can say that will get me out of whatever he has planned for me, and I refuse to give him the satisfaction of witnessing my terror. Men like this thrive on it, get off on it. He’s the same as all the men my mom had parading through our small apartment when I was growing up, just in a better suit.
“Viktor, if you let me go, I’ll disappear. I won’t tell anyone where she is. I swear. Or maybe we could work something out. I was your favorite once. You told me that. I could be your favorite again.”
The man looks at my mother with disgust smeared across his face. “You’re about thirty years too late, Angela.” He pulls his gun from the holster at his hip and shoots her between the eyes before she can utter another useless, pleading word. I barely hold in the scream that threatens to erupt from me. He just killed the woman who gave birth to me like it meant nothing to him, which I suppose it doesn’t. In his mind, her death was probably a long time coming.
“God, now I remember why I was ready to cut her loose in the first place. The woman is annoying as hell. Well, was , I suppose.” He looks at her body slumped in the chair, a pool of blood and brain matter on the floor around her dead body. “She knew how to use her mouth in other, more creative ways, though. Pity.”
Disgust churns around my stomach. Viktor turns his gun toward me, and I’m convinced these are my last moments on earth and definitely the last place I ever pictured myself spending them. Just yesterday, I'd pictured myself growing old with Eoghan and being surrounded by the people I loved. Maybe even having a couple kids with the infuriating man. The man I love more than the life that’s about to end, and I never told him. I have no regrets about anything except that. I'm going to die, and he’ll never know about the future I wanted with him more than anything else in the world.
“I would have given you a husband. A life where you wouldn’t have to worry about anything. You would have been set up. Now I have to punish you, then your brother, for betraying me. Stupid Nikolai. That boy always trusted too easily. He didn’t even see the discontent some of his men had when he started working with the Irish. Even the most loyal can be pushed too far, and working with Irish scum like your boyfriend was too far for a few. ”
I’m still silent, staring at him with blazing hatred rolling off me.
“You don’t have anything to say for yourself?” He sounds like a father chastising his daughter for sneaking out past curfew or getting a bad grade on a test. It’s fucking creepy.
“What would you like me to say, Viktor? Sorry for not rolling over and doing your bidding? Sorry for not wanting a husband who would probably be as evil as you? Sorry for being loyal to the family that I chose, that I love? Take your pick.”
“You could have been showered in riches beyond your wildest imagination. You could have bore sons and daughters that would have made your husband proud. Now you’ll die a drugged-up junkie like your mother. Well, after the men who intend to buy you are finished. At least they like their girls compliant, so you won’t have to sell yourself on the corner for the shit they’ll gladly push in your veins.”
He nods his head, and Andrei steps out of the shadows. “Take Gemma to where the rest of the girls are, then have someone clean up this mess. The buyers are going to be here first thing in the morning.”
Viktor turns back toward the shadows and disappears from sight before Andrei steps closer to me. He kneels in front of me, pulling out a key, presumably for the cuffs around my ankles.
“Don’t get any ideas. Not only will it piss me off, but Viktor will have no problem handing you over to his men until the buyers get here. Actually”—he looks at me with a sinister grin—“maybe you should fight me. At least a little.”
I keep my mouth shut and let him unlock the cuffs. It takes everything in me to not kick this disgusting piece of shit in the face.
He grabs me roughly by the arm and hauls me from the chair, his grip digging into the muscles of my arms. After leading me to the other side of the basement, he takes out his keys and unlocks a door, flipping on a light switch. What I see in the bright room has my heart dropping into my stomach. Cages. Four of them, two on each side of the wide room, with two scared-looking women in each. They don’t say anything; most of them try to hide their faces, but a couple look at Andrei with hatred brimming in their gazes.
Unlocking one of the cages, he unceremoniously throws me in, pulling the door closed and locking it again. Then, without a word, he walks out the metal door and slams it shut, locking us in here.
I look around the room at the girls, all of whom are staring at me. Some of them don’t look to be more than fourteen, some maybe in their twenties.
“Does anyone know where we are?” I ask the group, searching their faces.
“I'm not sure, but I think somewhere between New York and Massachusetts. They took me from New York City and we only drove a couple of hours. Three at the most.”
“Do you know which direction they drove in?” I ask.
“North, maybe? They shot me up with something, but it wasn’t enough to knock me out. I have a higher tolerance than that.”
The girl can’t be more than eighteen. When I look at her too-thin arms, I see track marks. I also notice a thin sheen of sweat covering her entire body. She must not have had a fix for some time. The other girls start chiming in from where they were picked up. Three of the other girls were from the city. Two from Albany, and they both said they don’t think they were in the van for very long, but can’t be sure, then two from Baltimore. They were in the car the longest. There was a third with them, but she had a reaction to whatever they gave her and died before they made it here. The two girls watched as Andrei hauled her over his shoulder and threw her on the ground a few feet from the house like a pile of trash. Neither of the girls saw what they did with her after that.
Fucking animals.
Andrei said we were somewhere Nikolai doesn’t know about, but we’re still on the East Coast and most likely still in New York, though I suppose Viktor could have set something up anywhere. I’m not sure how far out of Boston we are since it was starting to get dark when they took me, and then it was pitch black when I woke up in the room before being carted to the basement. Viktor also told Andrei the buyers would be here in the morning, so that means it’s possible it’s before midnight, which also means we’re only a few hours from Boston. Not that it will make much difference if no one knows where to look. The more I think about it, the more the dread creeps in. Eoghan has to know I’m missing by now, but what can he do if he’s searching for a needle in a two-hundred-mile-radius haystack?
If we’re going to get out of here, I need to think of something and fucking fast. In a few hours, my life and the lives of the other eight girls in this place are going to be sold to the kinds of people nightmares are made of.
I can’t let that happen.
I won’t.
But I have no clue how to stop it.