Chapter 53
vera
Someone banged on the door behind me. I’d heard them racing my way, tracking them in the back of my mind, but I didn’t care about anything right now, just ritually cleaning my gun, the parts of it laid out on the surface in front of me.
“Dammit, Vera,” Petra shouted through it. “Open the damn door!”
“I don’t feel like chatting,” I said.
“You’ll feel like something else soon enough,” she said. “Elaine left!”
An awful sensation hooked in the pit of my stomach, dragging down. My blood ran cold.
Elaine.
I told her to go. But not like this.
“She left?” I stood up slowly. “What do you mean, she left?”
“Caitlyn caught camera footage from the south side of her sneaking out and catching a car.”
Elaine.
“A car where?” My voice boiled.
“If I knew, I’d be halfway there already, Wolf. None of us have any fucking clue where she’s gone!”
Dammit. This wasn’t what I meant.
She was leaving because of me. Because I’d turned her away. Because I’d broken her heart.
Because I loved her and I wanted to keep her safe.
I gripped the desk tightly in my hand. “How long ago?”
“Footage was from half an hour ago. We hadn’t been checking on her because we knew she needed space, and by the time we noticed…”
Half an hour. She could be anywhere.
Bottom of the river, for example.
Or falling.
Falling in front of me, screaming as she went.
Falling.
Elaine.
I squeezed the desk tighter, tighter, tighter, until the wood splintered and snapped under my hand.
“Vera,” Petra started, but more footsteps raced in, and Yulia’s voice cut in.
“We traced a call,” she said. “Just before leaving, Elaine got a call from her mother. The car was last seen heading in the direction of her mother’s house.”
Of course.
They knew the mother. Knew the dynamic with her and Elaine. It was in the report I’d been given.
Once they’d attacked the manor and driven a wedge between me and Elaine, they would have paid off her mother to call her, beg her for help, to come back to the house.
Elaine.
Images flashed through my head: a knife to the throat, a bullet through the skull. Elaine’s body getting dumped in the river, dropped from a cliff, falling.
I had to believe she was still alive. I had to find her.
And if anything had happened to her… anything…
There wasn’t going to be one Blackbird left alive.
Not one.
I finished putting the gun back together with a click. “No signs on the car she went in?”
“We’re still working on tracking it,” Yulia said. “Bad camera footage, but we’re scanning the database.”
Didn’t matter. I didn’t need any of them.
I’d done this to Elaine.
I could do this myself.
elaine
I thrashed against the restraints the whole time, trying to bite at the muffle tied around my face, wriggle my hands to grab the ropes around my wrists, but nothing worked.
I was going to be sick. I didn’t even know where we were going.
When I refused to cooperate, Quayle knocked me down in one motion so fast I didn’t even register what was happening until I had my hands tied behind me and a gag around my mouth, and then a cloth pulled down over my face until I couldn’t see and every noise I made was muffled.
Glenn and Quayle walked me out, and I got shoved into a car, where we drove with my heart pounding wondering where they were taking me.
And why they were taking me. Were they going to force me to give up the South Yard somehow?
Would they torture me?
And if they did, would I have the willpower not to give in?
Horrible visions flashed through my mind the whole drive, and then while I was ripped out of the car again and walked into what must have been an elevator, but when I was down on my knees again and they finally pulled the cloth off my head, it wasn’t the sight I was expecting.
A construction site, high up off the ground—the frame of a skyscraper.
It took me a second to remember the project, the Phoenix Building, an ambitious shot at the city’s tallest building here in downtown.
I-beams ran in webs around, scaffolding in various stages, and the wind was intense, whipping at my face, lights on around the perimeter as the sun was getting low on the horizon.
And in front of me was Glenn, standing over me with a cruel smile.
“You look better on your knees than trying to resist, Elaine,” he said. I bit down on the gag, gritting my teeth, and I cringed and tried to pull away when he stroked my hair. “Now, now. Be a good girl, and this will go much smoother for everyone involved.”
I tried my best to give him a defiant look, but it was hard when I felt like I was about to throw up. He nodded past me.
“Quayle, take her muffle off. I want to have a conversation.”
It slipped off of me, dropping to the floor, and I gasped, choking on the feeling. Glenn knelt in front of me, his hand caressing my chin.
“Tell me what you want, my dear,” he said, and I gritted my teeth.
“I want you to end this,” I spat. “I want Horizon gone. And I want you to leave my wife alone.”
He chuckled. “That much, I’m afraid we can’t do.
But I know your loyalty has a price. Everybody’s does.
So don’t be shy. This is a good opportunity for you.
No, I can’t buy the South Yard… but I could make you a member of the Horizon team.
All you need to do is go away to a luxurious retirement destination of your choice and stay there while we build our future. ”
“You’re not building your future. You’re destroying everyone else’s. I’m never working for you.”
His eyes darkened. “Do you realize what’s happening in this city?
Just because you won’t look doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
If we didn’t do it, somebody else would.
And if they didn’t, somebody else would.
This isn’t a place where we all hold hands and sing together.
The real world isn’t like that. These are killers, thieves, liars and cheats, Elaine.
Weapons are already falling into everyone’s hands.
If we had them all… there would be no more need for violence, no more need for threats.
We want to bring peace to Merona. Just like you do.
So, what do you say?” He brushed his fingers under my chin again, and I wanted to throw up.
“Hawaii? Santorini? Bali? Where would you like to spend the rest of your days safe, pampered, and blissfully free from all this?”
I clenched my jaw. “You can’t buy me, Glenn.”
He chuckled darkly, brushing a thumb over my cheek. “Everyone is for sale, darling. You just have to find their price. Vera’s price was very high indeed… but she’s been an excellent investment. Your price, I suspect, may be higher still. But I’m willing to pay it.”
Another voice called out from behind him as two people came up on a lift. “Sir,” one said. “We’ve identified the movement routes and triangulated their location. It’s a Whitecliff safehouse in an old church, on the west side.”
Glenn turned back to them. “Good,” he said. “Any sign of activity?”
“Yes, sir. We believe the Wolf is en route to Ms. Whitner’s house.”
My stomach leaped and sank all at once.
Vera. Was she coming for me?
Was she coming alone?
If she blamed herself for this, she’d have tried to handle it without asking anyone else for help. But in a place like this, against Quayle…
Glenn must have seen the fear in my eyes, because he smiled cruelly at me. “You hear that?” he said. “Your wife is coming to see you. One last happy reunion…”
I clenched my fists, straining against the bindings. “If you do anything to Vera, I will never, ever help you.”
“When the dog bites the master… some discipline is required.” He wrinkled his nose. “I had underestimated your abilities, Elaine. It’s a shame to lose our best operative. But she swore an oath to us… and we know what happens to people who betray the family.”
“You’re not a family. You’re a thief who stole her life away from her. She never owed you anything.”
He slapped me across the face—a stinging impact flat along one cheek that left me ringing.
“Don’t talk as if you know anything,” he growled.
“Soon enough, Vera will take the bait and walk straight into our trap. And she’ll be powerless in a place like this…
” A sick smile spread over his features.
“It always does some good to make sure an operative like her has a weakness. So that if they ever go out of control…”
I swallowed hard, tears stinging at my eyes.
He was a monster. If there was any doubt left in my mind, it was gone now. Everyone was just an asset to him, an item to be catalogued and amortized. And I would die before I let him turn into a weapons magnate to rule over the city.
“What do you say, Elaine?” he said, kneeling in front of me again, caressing his hand over my cheek. “Join us… and we just might spare your wife.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, tears hot on my cheeks.
There was only one thing I could do.