Chapter 43
SASHA
Someone’s screaming in my ear.
I turn my head left and right, then cry out. It’s not screaming; it’s a ringing in my ears. My head throbs. So does my shoulder. And my wrists and ankles.
God, that ringing.
I blink my eyes open. It’s dark, but I can make out some shapes in front of me. A window, with a curtain drawn. Cheap wood paneling. A couch with a tuft of filling spilling out from a tear in its arm. There’s a rank smell filling my nostrils, too. Rot and mold. Dampness.
I lift my arms to cover my mouth—or at least I try to. Pain screams from my wrist. My arms don’t move.
I’m stuck.
I look down. I’m sitting on a chair. My ankles are strapped to the legs.
Panic shoots through me.
“Help!” I scream, before realizing that’s a stupid thing to do. It makes my head throb, too.
“Sasha!” a voice whispers.
I look up, searching for whoever that was.
But my attention’s drawn to a tromping sound outside.
A moment later, a door I didn’t know was there bangs open.
A hulking figure fills the doorframe. “You’re awake,” the voice says.
It’s low and rumbly, but so far from the way Griffin’s low and rumbly voice sounds.
It makes me want to vomit. “Fucking finally,” he tacks on, spitting a glob of saliva onto the filthy linoleum floor.
A light flicks on. I’m momentarily blinded. I squint, ducking my head.
Boots sound around me. When I blink and look up, my stomach drops.
There, in a chair across from me, sits Sam. He’s bound like I am. His face is half covered with blood, his hair hanging over his eyes, one of which is swollen shut and purple.
My heart pounds heavily in my chest as the man tromps across the floor toward me.
“No!” Sam cries from behind him. I can hear the scrape and thud of his chair.
“Stay still!” the man shouts. “I already told you what would happen if you moved again.”
Sam’s chair doesn’t move. “Don’t fucking touch her.”
The man ignores Sam. He takes another step toward me until he’s right in my face.
The shock of recognition hits me then. “It’s you,” I croak.
Creelman’s goon from the restaurant. He smiles at me. It’s grotesque. His beady eyes pin themselves to mine. “Only I don’t see your little fireman anywhere, sweetheart.”
My stomach roils. “Don’t you dare fucking call me that.”
The beast’s eyebrows rise up. “I see why Vince liked you so much.”
I glare at him, my whole body shaking. “I don’t know what you want from me, but I’ve got nothing for you. I don’t know anything about…” I was going to say my brother’s business, but I still can’t throw Sam under the bus, even when my life is clearly at risk. “I don’t have anything you want.”
“Oh, I know that. But our friend over here does. And you’re going to be his persuasion.”
“I’m surprised someone like you knows a word so big,” I spit out.
I’m being beyond foolish. But he’s going to kill me no matter what. I know that now. And going down on my knees is not going to happen. Like Chester said, this might be my last chance to tell the truth. And the truth is, I’m done with being scared.
The man stands up. Then he shocks me by tossing his head back and laughing. If his smile is terrifying, his laugh is more so. It’s unhinged. I suddenly don’t feel so brave.
“Sasha,” Sam says behind him.
The man abruptly stops laughing. He turns around, tromps toward Sam, and rears his arm back.
There’s a sickeningly wet thud as his fist connects with Sam’s face, followed by the splatter of blood on the floor.
“No!” I cry, wrenching myself against my ties.
“So you do care about your piece of shit brother,” the man says. “Vincent never thought you did. But he was wrong about a lot of things.”
I crane my neck around the man, but I can only see Sam’s shoulder where it’s twisted behind him and the top of his head where it hangs.
Sam. My feelings don’t make any sense.
But I have no time to parse them, because the man’s in my face again, looming over me. “Macklin.”
He says it loud enough that I know he’s not talking to me.
My brother makes a gurgling noise behind him.
“I’m all about equality. That means it’s time to tell me where the money is, or I’m going to mess up this pretty girl’s face just like yours.”
Sam makes a grunting sound.
The man cracks his knuckles. I look around, panicked. But there’s nothing I can do. I’m tied to this chair. I make a whimpering sound but bite my tongue quickly. I can’t let him see I’m scared. I begin to squeeze my eyes shut as he pulls his arm back.
No!
I sit up straight, chin up, even as my lip’s trembling. “You want to hit me? Hit me,” I spit.
“My fuckin’ pleasure,” the man says.
He swings, but Sam shouts, “Stop! I’ll tell you.”
The man’s fist is inches from my face. He smiles again, and I can’t help shuddering.
Then he turns his back on me.
Sam gives him an address. “Thirty minutes. Maybe less. There’s a loose panel in the closet…”
The man stands there a moment, then slips his hand under his coat and pulls out something black and shiny.
My stomach turns when I see what it is.
A gun.
I tighten my fists. I have the insane thought that I can somehow wrestle it away from him. Point it at him and call the cops. I’ve shot a gun before. It wouldn’t be my first time.
Chester.
He must be losing his mind right now.
Everyone must be. Cass would have called Griffin because I never showed up at her place. Or maybe Chester’s called him.
Either way, I can almost see Griffin now, speeding toward me on the freeway, too many hours away.
I picture him finding me right here on the floor, a bullet between my eyes just like the woman he lost before.
Did he love her too? He had to have.
Griffin. My heart hurts so badly it’s hard to breathe.
The man is saying something to my brother. I focus, needing to hear.
“If I don’t find the money exactly where you say it’s going to be, you’re fucking dead, Macklin. So is your pretty sister—and her fireman, too.”
My stomach turns again. He was more observant than Vincent Creelman. He knew I knew who Griffin was that day. He just didn’t know who he was. Does he know now?
I swallow down the sob caught in my throat. Or is it a scream? I can’t tell. Terror and rage are at war inside of me.
Please be telling him the truth, Sam. Please.
“You’ll find it,” Sam snarls. I can hear the rage in his voice, too.
The man’s still a minute longer, then he shoves the gun back in his waistband and disappears through the door.
For a moment, everything is still. Then I can’t help it, a sob chokes out of my chest.
“Sasha—”
“No!” I yell, turning all my anger on Sam. The pain of yelling makes my eyes burn with tears. I look away. I don’t want him to think I’m shedding tears for him. He got us into this. “Don’t talk to me.”
“There’s no money, Sasha.”
My breath catches.
Then my stomach sinks to the floor. Of course. He was lying. He’s killing us both. “You’ll never stop, will you?” I whisper. “It’s always about you—”
“God dammit, Sasha. Would you give me a chance to explain?” Sam yells.
He spits a dark glob onto the floor, wincing.
For a moment, I can’t speak. All I can think of is Griffin, back in the city. Maybe on his way here. Hours, miles, years away from me.
And I never got to tell him I love him.
“We have time,” he says, “but not much. He’ll be back in under an hour.”
“Then we need to find a way to get out of here.”
I look around wildly. This is less a cabin than a shack—maybe an old hunting shack or something.
There’s a hollowed-out space where it looks like there used to be cupboards.
An overturned bucket lies in the corner, along with a pile of rags.
And there’s the couch—an ugly, stained love seat that looks like an animal’s nested in.
There’s nothing sharp. Nothing to even rub these ties against.
Hopelessness threatens to settle in, but I refuse to let it. I wriggle once more in my ties, each bit of movement sending pain ricocheting through my skull.
There has to be a way out.
“I’ve been here all day,” Sam says, his voice resigned. “There’s nothing. All I can do is tell you my side of things before Brick gets back.”
“Brick?”
“That’s what they call him. Please, Sasha. I can’t—we can’t—” His voice cracks. “I need you to know the truth.”
His voice is so full of pain I stop wiggling and meet his eyes.
No, his one working eye. He’s a mess. Besides his face, I notice his right shoulder bulges strangely.
“What’s wrong with your arm?”
“My shoulder’s dislocated,” he says.
I swallow. The pain must be indescribable. To be contorted that way, his shoulder out of his socket. “When?”
“When he tied me up. I only managed one hit before he knocked me out. A hard blow to the temple. I’m guessing the same thing he did to you.”
I nod, pain rattling through my head once more at the movement.
I remember the fist flying at my head. I glance toward the door, as if the man’s going to come bursting back in at any moment.
It’s still. I let out a breath, willing myself to settle.
“Fine,” I say, resigned for a moment. Using up my strength isn’t doing anything useful right now anyway.
Sam clears his throat. “A few months ago, Vincent Creelman found out I was working with Lionel McCrae.”
He sees my confusion and nods, wincing. “Good. It’s smart he didn’t tell you.”
“Vincent?”
“Your husband. Lionel McCrae is your husband’s boss. Or was.”
I feel completely out of the loop. But I know Griffin wouldn’t keep me in the dark because he didn’t trust me. “You’ll need to explain that to me.”
“I never worked with Creelman, despite what the headlines said. I never even met him until McCrae came to me.” He pauses, as if still rolling it over in his mind.
“I don’t know how Creelman knew we were working together.
The only thing I can figure is one of his men must have seen us meeting somewhere.
They keep tabs on local politics just like they keep tabs on cops.
They’re smart. It’s how they keep two steps ahead of everyone else. ”