Chapter 16
Kinsley
Desperate Times and All
Ihad no idea how much time had passed after being beaten, but when I regained consciousness, I jerked. The ground was cold and hard.
I’d never longed for death more than in that moment. Okay, that wasn’t true. There was another time I practically begged God to take my soul. But I hurt from the top of my shoulders all the way down my back and legs. Three sets of small feet stood near me, and I knew they were witnessing my shame.
The cold had seeped into my body, so I must have been lying there for a long time. I couldn’t move, and I panicked. My brain signals didn’t seem to function. It was like when I was taken. Tears burned down my cheeks.
I passed out once more, and the next time I awoke, it was to the soft feel of my bed. I was lying on my tummy, the pain still radiating down my back in waves. A sob escaped me when I heard his voice once more.
“Good, you’re awake. X is going to tend to your wounds. You have two days. Your audience awaits you.”
The girl he called X removed the gag and held up a glass of water for me to drink from. I sucked on the straw, my throat incredibly dry. Pulling the cup away, she shook her head no. She wouldn’t talk to me even though she could.
It was forbidden, at least with us. Her eyes told me to go slow as she brought the cup back toward me. I often wondered who she was, how she got here, and why they scarred her face. It was as if they heated a metal half mask and tied it on, branding her. It was healed now, but the first time I saw her, it was raw and red.
She helped me walk to the bathroom and then had to assist me with the toilet. She gently used a soft cloth to clean my back. Tenderly, she put some ointment on the cuts. I lay there crying, hating every part of my life. Her eyes filled with tears, and I wondered once more who she was and how she got to be here. After she finished, she covered me with a sheet, and my eyes drifted closed.
I woke with a start, and once again, I felt the crushing pain of having lost Summer, Autumn, and Winter. That first morning after being rescued, Owen told me that the girls were on their way home to their families. The pain of not being able to say goodbye lingered in my heart, even after all these years.
I often thought about them and what they might be doing. Would they be in some performing arts school? Have boyfriends or girlfriends? Did they ever think about me? I walked over to my dresser and picked up one of my bears.
As I hugged it, I smiled. I was entirely too old for stuffed animals, and I knew that, but these were special. Closing my eyes, I pulled the sweet memory up in my head. It was June 20, the first day of summer, and my first one without the girls. Having set time by the season for two years, I was always, even to this day, deeply aware of the first day of each season.
Owen made me pancakes like usual, and I pushed them around on my plate, having no appetite.
“What is it?”
He had gotten good at reading my signals. One of the things I loved most about him. He knew when to push and when to back off.
“It’s the first day of summer,”
I whispered, looking up at him, and he knew.
“You miss them,”
he stated in a gentle tone.
All I could do was nod. The words were stuck in my throat, but the tears fell regardless.
“Come with me, child.”
He put our plates in the sink and grabbed his keys, then took me to the mall.
“How about we get something you can remember them by?”
The thought cheered me up, so I agreed.
“What do you think about a necklace? We could get one for each of them.”
I shook my head. Jewelry was something that, as a dancer, I never wore. We walked farther, and then I saw it. Build-A-Bear. He cocked his head to the side and smiled.
“I like your thought process. Shall we see what we can create?”
He laughed at the smile plastered on my face. An hour and a half later, I had three unique bears representing each of my sisters.
I once more hugged the Vincent van Gogh-inspired Pawlette bunny and thought about Autumn.
Autumn was the artist. She painted her feelings and emotions. She had created pieces for our rooms based on what we did. During her season, she would paint to music or high-dollar fan requests. I held a special place in my heart for her. I’ll never forget the look in her eyes, so haunted, as she’d painted me.
We had to attend each other’s performances. It was just another form of psychological torture we were subjected to. We weren’t allowed to speak to one another. I set the bunny down and picked up the next one—a soft yellow bear with fur resembling a bouquet of roses. My sweet Summer.
Summer was a beautiful blond girl with hazel eyes. She played piano, and whenever she played, I cried. Depending on the piece, the emotion she could evoke was gut-wrenching.
Her graceful fingers flew across the keys. She and Winter, who played the cello, played in the background while I danced on special occasions. After kissing it softly, I put her back next to Autumn and grabbed the last one. A bright, orange-colored fox with a heart on its chest.
Winter had the brightest, curliest red hair I’d ever seen. I distinctly remember that she had a vacant look in her sad eyes, even from the beginning. When her season came, she would sit elegantly in her chair and embrace her instrument.
You could see the physical connection she had with her cello. The resonating chamber rested upon her heart. It was moving, and it was the only time her eyes would come alive.
I loved the nights when I could simply watch her play. I’d pretend she was on stage playing in front of a large audience, and her family would sit in the front row, beaming with pride at their beautiful daughter. It was always easier to make up lives for them and pretend.
I put the fox back and made my way to the bathroom to shower. I needed to clear my thoughts. Dwelling on the past had no bearing on my current situation.
And speaking of which, what was I going to do about Aleksandr King? I needed to find out more about him to know what I was dealing with. It was my day off, so I pulled out my laptop and did some research. I spent about an hour and a half finding out who he and his brothers were, using the skills Owen had taught me.
I found property records showing the brothers owned a house together in Seattle and came across several articles about them with their parents. It seemed my manager was right; their father was a diplomat. Using public records, I found the businesses they owned. They were busy men—a nightclub, a gym, and it seemed Nikolai King owned a private detective agency.
Finally, everything made sense.
Pasha must have hired him to look into me, and Aleksandr was helping him by showing up at the café and dance class. Another piece fit into the puzzle. A grin stretched the corners of my lips. This made my resolve easier, and the tension I was holding, thinking their interest in me was deeper, lessened to some degree. Hopefully, when Pasha left, the brothers would leave me alone.
Turning my attention to their social media, I took a dive down their scandalous profiles. There was no shame in Nik’s game. I refused to pay for access to a private account. I didn’t need that much information.
Through quite a bit of digging, I found an artist profile that I was almost sure was Alek’s. Ivan was the only one with any semblance of normalcy, and it was through his that I was able to track two very close friends of theirs.
The two new additions—Sebastian Caruso and Andrew Marcel—were in the majority of their pictures dating far back. A level of comfortability could be seen in their comments on each other’s posts, going so far as to refer to them as brothers.
Two hours later, I had a plan. I had picked them apart and decided which of the two I’d approach. Andrew Marcel was a psychiatrist, and he would be the perfect person to plead my case with. If anyone could help me get Alek to go away, surely it was him.
I calculated the difference in our time zones and set the alarm to let me know when it would be 9 a.m. on Monday in London. The rest of the weekend drug on. I baked entirely too much for a household of one, but it soothed me. Between my batches of cookies and cupcakes, I bounced between streaming platforms to keep myself busy.
When my alarm sounded, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, cleared my throat, and dialed the number before I could change my mind. A sophisticated-sounding woman answered the phone.
“Dr. Marcel’s office. This is Samantha. How may I help you?”
“I’d like to speak to Dr. Marcel, please.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Marcel isn’t taking calls at the moment. Would you like to make an appointment?”
“No, it’s imperative that I speak with him,”
I blurted out.
“Without an appointment, there isn’t anything I can do for you. If you’d like to make one—”
She trailed off as typing sounds filled the background.
“Look, this concerns an associate of his here in Seattle, Aleksandr King. My name is Kinsley Taylor, and I work with Dr. Robertson. We have Mr. King in intake here at the Psychiatry Unit of UW Medical Center. Samantha, I insist that he take my call. I’ll wait.”
I spoke with authority, lying through my teeth.
“Please hold,”
she said, her irritation showing through.
I waited for what seemed like forever. My steadfast resolve was breaking, and I was getting ready to hang up when she came back on the line.
“I’ll put you right through.”
My heart raced a mile a minute.
“Hello. Ms. Taylor, I presume?”
a posh-sounding man with a deep, rich voice spoke. His accent sounded just like Aleksandr’s. His clipped tones held a sense of power and privilege.
“Dr. Marcel, I’m sorry I lied to your secretary. However, I need to speak with you about Aleksandr. Seeing as I live in Seattle and can’t make an appointment, it seemed like the best way for me to get your attention,”
I explained.
A beat of silence passed, and I thought he might have hung up, but then his deep laugh chimed through the line.
“Impersonating a professional from a psychiatry unit seems a bit extreme,”
he drawled.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures. I can assure you, it’s extremely important, and I’m 100 percent worried about your friend Aleksandr King.”
“Are you, now?”
“Yes. It was you or Mr. King, the diplomat, and he looks rather scary, if you don’t mind me saying. And, honestly, it would probably be impossible to get in to see him.”
“Very true. You would have to be vetted. That might take a while, but if you don’t mind me asking, what’s the emergency with Alek? I spoke to him last night, and he seemed fine to me. A little on the grumpy side, but that’s Alek for you.”
“Yes, well, as I’m sure you must know from your profession, those closest to us often miss the warning signs and the early cries for help,”
I told him.
“Tell me something, Ms. Taylor. Have you gone to school for psychiatry?”
He sounded amused.
“No, but I know crazy,”
I said, and he chuckled.
“Are you suggesting that Alek is crazy?”
“It’s the truth. I encourage you to speak to his brothers.”
“I’ve spoken to all of them, and I’m beginning to feel concerned myself.”
“Thank god, someone finally gets it. So will you speak to the creeper?”
“Alek?”
“Yes, one and the same. Let me spell it out for you. A man by the name of Mr. Lenkov hired your friend Nikolai to investigate me. Now I’ve got Death confronting me at my job, following me, texting me, and harassing me. I’ve tried being polite and asking him to leave me alone. He doesn’t listen very well.”
I picked at my pajama shorts, my nerves getting the best of me.
“I see,”
he responded with amusement thick in his tone.
“Yes, then there was the complete fiasco the other night at the nightclub.”
My mouth kept rambling uncontrollably.
“Really? Please go on.”
“This isn’t a joke. I’d like you to ask Death to stop following me, sticking his tongue down my throat, and showing up at my job. I’m not sure what he wants.”
My face flushed as I lied. I knew exactly what he wanted. It was in his eyes, and his pants, that night at the club.
“Death? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a woman call him that before,” he mused.
“I’m going to assume you’ve seen the tattoos, and I regret to inform you, your friends have quite a reputation here in the Seattle area. If what I’ve heard about them is true, death is a perfectly accurate picture, I’m afraid.”
He laughed. “And you’ve made this judgment call based on rumors and tattoos? What if I also have a tattoo?”
“Well, no, not exactly. Does yours also have the symbolic skull?”
I asked without thinking.
“It does indeed.”
“Fabulous. Then that probably makes you an official member of the Death Squad. Maybe I’ll have better luck with his father after all,”
I mumbled.
“Death Squad?”
he choked out around another laugh. “You’ve quite an imagination. Can I ask you a few questions before you go that route?”
“If you think it’ll help, then yes, by all means, ask away,”
I said, hoping I wouldn’t have to resort to speaking with his father.
“Are you sure you don’t know Pavel Lenkov?”
Seemed like he was going to be nosey on behalf of his friends too. I rolled my eyes, feeling exasperated.
“That’s an odd question, but I’ll tell you like I told Aleksandr. I know him because he dances, not on a personal level. He looks quite despondent over the fact I’m not some girl he knew a long time ago. Maybe you should talk to him.”
My stomach sank, and the lies hung in the air like thick fog.
“Yes, Nikolai told me Mr. Lenkov was very close to this girl. Apparently attended her funeral but swears you are her.”
Way to lay it on thick.
“Well, at this rate, if Mr. Lenkov sticks around, he might really get to attend my funeral, seeing as Alek has serious issues. Honestly, I’m sorry for Mr. Lenkov’s loss, but I can’t pretend to be someone I’m not. Surely, as a professional, you understand the ramifications of lies.”
I gulped. I was in over my head with this conversation.
“Oh, absolutely, I do. Mind if I ask you a few more questions?”
“You can ask, but I’m unsure how my life is of any consequence to anyone, especially any of you.”
“Where were you born?”
“Again, relevance?”
“It’s a simple question. However, deflecting and refusing to answer simple questions about one’s life makes people suspicious and might indicate that there’s something you’re hiding.”
“Is that you speaking as a professional? What if I have questions for you?”
“I welcome your questions.”
What a smart-ass.
“Why do you care about any of this?” I asked.
“We don’t keep secrets from one another. We’re a tight group of friends.”
“I see. So if you stub your toe, do you tell one another? It seems rather childish—”
“Let me remind you, you called me. So let’s try this again. Where were you born?”
“Well, since your friend seems to know all about me, you can easily get that information from him.”
Two could play this game.
“Very well. I’m told you speak Russian. I find it coincidental that you speak the same language as Mr. Lenkov and look strikingly like the girl he used to dance with…”
He paused.
“There wasn’t a question in there. However, I speak French and Mandarin as well. I enjoy studying foreign languages. Is that a crime?”
“No, not a crime. Just an interesting observation, is all. So here’s a question for you. Are you in hiding, Ms. Taylor? Ever been a victim of abuse of some kind?”
“I’m not in hiding. That’s absurd. At this rate, though, it might be a good idea to go into hiding because your friend is mental.”
I was growing more exasperated by his refusal to help. So much for logical thinking.
I didn’t like that he was asking me questions about my past as if it was his business, either. Never mind he was spot on with the past abuse. I may not have been in hiding like witness protection, but I was living under an alias.
Which, again, wasn’t his business. His questions were hitting too close to home. On second thought, reaching out to Marcel might not have been the best idea. Owen had told me several times that the players behind what happened to us girls were powerful, undetectable, and, worse, they were the type of people who, if caught, would not be punished.
They were politicians, world leaders, and other men and women of the elite. That was the reason I became Kinsley. Or so I thought. My eyes went to the safe. The letter would have that information. I sighed. Would I ever be ready?
I brought my attention back to the conversation. I needed to get him back on track and away from my personal life.
“I did quite a bit of research on you all, and your practice is extremely specific. You’ve probably seen your fair share of victims over the years. Will you speak to Alek, or should I try to get clearance to see Daddy Diplomat?”
“Slow down. Are you feeling like a victim?”
His voice grew serious.
“I’m no victim,”
I exclaimed fiercely. I’d never be that again.
“Okay, well, I think part of the problem is that Alek is used to getting a different reaction from women.”
His demeanor changed again, back to a more casual tone.
“Ha, well, not this woman.”
“Contrary to what you might believe, he can actually be charming, and most women like him.”
“It’s not that difficult. Yes or no? Can you help me?”
I asked, feeling like he was giving me the runaround.
“Well, seeing as you’ve stated quite emphatically that you aren’t a victim, and me being a victim’s advocate and all, I’m not sure how much help I can give you with Alek. Now, if you have some hidden trauma, I could absolutely help you with that.”
Just like a psychologist to turn my words around on me. I’d refused to speak with one over the years, despite both Doc and Owen repeatedly asking me to.
Hidden trauma, ha. He didn’t know the half of it.
My hidden trauma was mine, and I never wanted to share those secrets with anyone. It was my little way of rebelling and maintaining control over my life.
When I didn’t respond after a moment, Dr. Marcel went on. “From what I’ve been told, you seem to be holding your own with Alek. Although he seems insistent on taking you out on a date at least once.”
“Yeah right. Well, you might want to be on standby for him because his fragile ego is about to take a hit. I guess having friends in high places or, in this case, medical professionals, will ensure he’ll get the help he needs to overcome rejection.”
The rich sound of his laughter echoed through the phone. “I’m beginning to see why Alek is feeling challenged.”
“Perfect. This was a waste of time. Sorry I even bothered,”
I grumbled, feeling frustrated.
“My office is always open to you. I’ll tell Samantha no appointment is necessary.”
Hanging up, I sighed. I stumbled to my room yawning. I’d stayed up for nothing. I was about to drift off when my phone chimed. Checking it, I was surprised to see it was a message from Dr. Marcel.
MARCEL:
Ms. Taylor, this is my personal cell. Please feel free to use it after hours if you need to discuss anything. Side note, Alek’s dating style is typically a one and done. Meaning he only goes out with a girl once. He loses interest rather easily. Go out on a date with him, and he’ll more than likely disappear after.
I huffed and blew the hair out of my face. There was something seriously wrong with these men.