38. Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Carys
M y head pounds, and when I try to open my eyes, the bright lighting causes a groan to escape. I’m sitting up, and my neck is stiff, sore, not happy about propping up my head.
“She’s waking up,” a female voice cries.
Is that—is that my mother? Where am I?
“Mom?” I crack open an eye to squint in the direction I heard her speak. The woman across from me is my mother, but she’s dirty. Makeup is smeared across her face, and her hair is in disarray. Do I look that awful? “Where are we?” Beside my mother, my father stares blankly, his mouth taped shut.
I glance around the white room. The tiny window to the right makes me think we’re in a basement. The sky and the canopy of a mature tree are visible from where I sit.
“I don’t know.” My mom sniffles. “I got a phone call from your father a few days ago to meet him for dinner in Kilkenny. But the restaurant didn’t exist, and when I got there—” She starts to cry, and her sobs drown out the last of her words.
No need to tell me the rest since the same thing happened to me.
“Why is Dad’s mouth taped?” I peer at him. Although he’s awake, he doesn’t seem to be following my conversation with my mom. His stare is sightless.
“He’s—” She hiccups. “He’s drugged.”
“How long has he been here?” His doctor friend, John, said he spoke to him a week or so ago, and didn’t Connor say the same thing? I tried to get in touch with him for days with no luck. Has he been in this basement for a week? How has no one noticed or reported him missing?
Tears run unchecked down my mother’s cheeks, and she shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
Her helplessness annoys me. I test whatever is holding my arms secure behind my metal chair. There’s no give to the plastic, and they’ve placed it above my cast on one side, so I’m forced into a weird angle. My ankles are also restrained. My mother and father have thick plastic bands around their ankles, and I have to assume mine are the same. Not easy to bend, break, or saw. Not that I have tools or anything else to get me out of here. Am I in Ireland or somewhere else?
“When did I get here? What day it is?”
She shakes her head, but she consults what must be a clock behind me and reads off the time. I realize wherever they’ve taken me, assuming today is the same day, we haven’t gone more than a couple hours. If I can keep a level head, despite its pounding, I might figure a way out of here.
The door at my rear clicks open, and the strike of heels on concrete makes me tense. It has to be Jade, here to gloat or threaten. Maybe both. She hasn’t killed either of my parents. She took me alive. So, what does she want? Do I already know?
She’s carrying a knife when she comes around me so I can see her. It’s the same knife I saw Pierre-Jacques take out of his pocket many times. Sharp and tiny. The kind meant for carving or covert stabbing. Death by a thousand cuts.
“You’re awake.” She smiles, but there’s no greeting in her expression. “I thought maybe the high-speed chase took too much out of you. Thomas gave you more protection than I anticipated.” She tilts her head, examining me. “In the end, it didn’t matter.” She slides the knife across my cheek, and I flinch. Blood trickles down from the cut.
My mother cries out, and Jade spins on her heel to address her. “Don’t worry. It’s not deep enough to scar.” She turns back to me, her mouth twisted with calculation. “Not yet, anyway.”
“It’s fine, Mother.” I maintain eye contact with Jade. “When Finn finds me, she’ll regret every single drop of my blood she shed.”
“Sassy even when confronted with your imminent death.”
I feel the color drain from my face, but I can’t do anything about the bolt of shock and despair racing through me at her words. Bluffing is all I’ve got. She wants fear, and I won’t show her a wisp if I can help it.
“I must say.” She taps the tip of the blade with her nail. “I was worried you were too much of a damsel in distress to handle being kidnapped. It’s nice that you’re trying not to be afraid. It’ll be so much more satisfying when I break you.”
“Leave her alone,” my mother pleads. “Break me instead. Leave her alone.”
Jade glances over her shoulder. “You’re already broken. What’s the fun in that?”
“Do your worst,” I mutter. “I can guarantee for every torture you inflict on me, Finn will find a way to repay in kind.”
She circles me, and her blade slides into my other cheek. This time, I don’t wince. A paper cut. A sharp sting, but if I ignore the pain, it’ll go away. From behind me, the chair screeches on the floor as she draws it around close to me and sits down.
“Since you keep bringing him up like he’s some kind of savior, let’s talk about Finn. Did you realize he killed my boyfriend?”
Do I want to participate in this conversation? If Finn does come for me, and we make it out of here, I might learn something important about her plan or her motives. “I did.”
“I was in the pub the night you were stabbed. Sometimes I wonder if that episode is why I became fascinated with powerful men being absolutely terrified. Do you remember the expression on his face when he realized the knife was protruding out of your chest?” She crosses her legs and puts her chin in her palm.
I’m not giving her that memory or any other memory she tries to drag out of me where Finn is concerned.
“God, his face.” Her sigh of satisfaction is chilling. “To see it morph to absolute, all-encompassing rage the minute the ambulance door closed was incredible. I’d have taken that rage from him. Sucked him dry. So hot. Don’t you think? Out of control and yet in complete control. Does the thought make you slick with need too?”
“There’s something wrong with you,” I say. “Not just a screw loose. A whole floor in your brain has vanished.”
She chuckles and swivels in her chair. “What do you think, Mum? Reckon you’re the reason I’m missing important sensitivity chips? Though”—she rotates back to me—“I’m not sure I’m missing them so much as they’ve been hard-wired differently. Being raised by a psychopathic father can do that, I suppose.” She stands, and the chair screeches across the floor. “Charles Van de Berg asked you to jump, Mother, and you said how high. Isn’t that right?” She stares at me for a beat. “He was the one who made the illegal deals the FBI tried to pin on you, you know that, right?”
“And you gave the FBI the evidence to make me appear guilty.”
She wags a finger. “A gamble, in a way. I wondered whether Charles could put aside his own self-interest for his child. Our mother couldn’t. He failed too.” She chuckles. “Which I’m sure you understand since, instead of turning himself into the FBI and admitting his dirty deeds, he resumed control of the company and started making more.”
“I could have gone to prison for a very long time.”
A frown mars her forehead. “Least of your worries right now, sister. You’ll be dead in twenty-four hours when this building caves in on you. The perfect family my mother sought when she left my father will go up in smoke or drown in rubble. Maybe both. I’m looking forward to the carnage.”
Perfect family. God, she’s so deluded. As if I’ve had an idyllic life because I had two parents.
“My life has been far from perfect.”
“Oh, you poor soul.” She clasps her hands in front of her in fake compassion. “Please, tell me the injustice you’ve faced as a pretty, white, rich, blond woman.”
I purse my lips. She’s not getting my trauma to feed off. “I’m sorry your father wasn’t a good man. I’m sorry you were abused. Seeking to hurt other people because you’ve been hurt doesn’t make any of it better.”
She laughs. “Funny—isn’t that Finn’s calling card? Fuck with me, and I’ll fuck with you harder? I’m not sure how you said those words with a straight face. Highly amusing, though. I’ll give you that.” She laughs again. She slices another cut on each cheek. Had she put crosses on my cheeks? I don’t have any desire to be a martyr.
“I need to figure out how to get Lucas here, and then I can wipe out the whole Van de Berg line. The legacy our mother tried to build without me will be gone.”
Behind Jade, my mother’s tears are soaking her shirt.
“You’ll never get my son.” It’s false bravado. Will Semyon sell us out? Finn’s taste for revenge is a powerful motivator to stay loyal.
“No matter.” She waves her hand. “If I can’t get him now, I can get him later. He won’t be a guest of Semyon Volkov forever.”
A chill races down my spine. She knows where he is. “Finn would never let you near Lucas.”
She smirks. “After you’re dead, Finn will either die trying to avenge you or he’ll end up back in jail. I’m not worried about Finn Donaghey. He’s no match for me.”
I stare at her, our gazes locked. “Then you’re even more of a fool than I thought.”