42
Lia
“Iknow you took her. Eighteen years ago, you took my child. Where is she? Answer me!”
I’ve been keeping up a steady stream of curse words and accusations for the past ten minutes, but he never once acknowledges me or the fact that he’s tied me up and dumped me across his motorcycle seat in a humiliating position.
I don’t expect him to answer, anyway. The bikers never did. And I know that the black hole kidnapping me is bad news, but I’m seething with so much anger that I don’t have time to be terrified.
Still, his silence is wearing on me, and at last I change tracks, even though I have a feeling it’s just as useless. “So what? You gave me back my memory, and now, you’re going to kill me?”
“Hmm.”
I startle at the sound that’s left his parted lips. Pausing in my fruitless attempt to wriggle out of my bonds, I ask, “You speak now?”
“We’ve always spoken. Just not to you.”
I wince as he skids around a hairpin bend in the road. “Uh, okay. Why not?”
“There’s no point in speaking to someone who won’t remember, is there? There’s no point in killing someone who doesn’t remember why either.”
“Oh.” I shudder. “So I guess that’s why you restored my memory?”
“Hmm.”
He parks in front of a large, unassuming whitewashed brick house, tumbles me over his shoulder, and walks up the steps leading to the red door.
“Hey. I can walk, you know! And I’m not my father, so get your hands off me! What did you do to my daughter? To Jane? I don’t get it!”
“That’s okay; you don’t need to get it.” He leads me through the house, and I spot a number of black holes milling around, chatting in a surprisingly relaxed way, many, but not all of them, wearing masks. And then, in a corner…
One of the black holes takes his mask off, wiping the sweat on his face, and my mouth drops.
Although I only see him upside-down, hanging over my black hole captor’s shoulder, I’d recognize him anywhere.
He’s in the mafia. Or was. A henchman of Coltello’s, and I have no doubt he remained loyal to him when the latter betrayed Moretti.
And when Coltello was in that hospital, the morning I gave birth to Aurora…
he was there. He was there, and he must have been thinking the same murderous thoughts as Coltello.
“What the fuck?”
The mobster turns slowly to me, a leering grin on his face. “Got her at last, huh, Archie?”
Before I can push through my surprise to find an answer, my black hole carries me to the room beyond, a sparsely-decorated space. In fact, there are only two objects inside: a wooden chair and, on the other side of the room… a bazooka.
“What the fuck?” I say again. “Is that why you want me dead? Did the mafia make you do it?”
“The mafia didn’t make us do anything,” he answers in his slow way. “There is no mafia anymore. Only the Puicin Gang.”
I frown. “But that man… he’s in the mafia.”
“Was. He joined us, like the others did. They needed protection from Devil. People turn to us when they need protection.”
“I see.” I don’t really see, even though his words bring back vague memories, conversations that seem to belong to another life. “What are you doing?”
He’s just set me down on the chair, and now, he makes dotted lines around my ankles with his sharpie. He doesn’t answer my question, instead stretching my still-cuffed arms behind my back and tying them to the chair as well. Then he secures each of my feet to a chair leg.
“Are you going to kill me with that bazooka? Is that what this is about? What are you doing to my feet? What are those dotted lines?”
I keep up a flow of questions, wriggling desperately to try to free myself of my bonds, but they’re far too tight. At last I give up, panting.
He takes a few steps back. “You may leave this house with your life,” he says at last, his voice reaching me slightly muffled from behind his pitch-black mask. “But you will not leave it with your feet.”
“Oh.” I swallow nervously. “Okay, then.”
Moments later, another biker enters, gesturing at a clock on the wall. “You have an hour,” he drones.
“Uh… to do what?” I try to wriggle out of my bonds again, but there’s just no way I’ll be able to free myself.
“To make a decision.”
“What kind of decision? And what have you done with Jane?”
The black hole who took me now eats up the distance between us. “She’s alive. It doesn’t matter what I’ve done with her. All that matters is that you have a decision to make.”
I’m starting to guess at what that decision will be. And I don’t want to make it. I can’t.
But what if I don’t have to? What if Logan saves me?
No. He thinks I ran. He’s furious with me. Maybe he’s hunting me down with his gun. Maybe he’ll kill me if he finds me. Or lock me away in his cage. Isn’t that what he does when I try to escape?
I hang my head down, trying not to show them the signs of my suffering.
Maybe I can save myself.
That seems even less likely, but I have to try. Especially if the only alternative is… making that decision.
“Why did you take Jane?” I insist, before he can speak again.
The bikers exchange a glance, before my captor says, “Your father is indebted to me. I gave him eighteen years to pay. The payment is now overdue.”
“Eighteen years?” I echo in confusion.
“Your father is a coward who hid behind powerful organizations all his life. He never meant to pay me; I found that out soon enough. He sacrificed Jane, and he sacrificed you. I and my men are not the villains; we are only here to collect our debt. Your father is the one to blame.”
I know it already, but it hurts to hear it said so plainly.
My father saw me only as an object, to use when convenient, to sacrifice when necessary.
His whole life was spent trying to protect himself.
And when he went into hiding, he took me with him, but not because he loved me. Because he viewed me as a possession.
If he’d loved me, he’d have given me the choice.
If Logan loved me…
I close my eyes, unwilling to finish the painful thought.
“Please tell me…” I swallow. “Please tell me how much my father owed you.”
There’s a pause, and then my captor says, “The payment can no longer be made in money. Only in life.”
With those words, he turns toward the door. “If you make your decision before the end of the hour, only one will die. If you do not, both of them will. In either case, my patience has run out. I will collect my final debt tonight.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to shut out the words that mean the nightmare is real.
But I can’t prevent him from speaking them. Or keep myself from hearing them.
I already know what it is, before he speaks the words. And I already know that I will never make the decision. I know it even before I see the golden key dangling from his neck as he walks toward me.
“You must decide which of your two daughters to sacrifice. You have one hour to choose the daughter who will die for the sins of your father.”