Chapter Twenty-Five
“I’ve been searching this barn since Kenzi left.” I stiffened when he said her name. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything. “She made it sound like there would be something here, but so far, I haven’t found anything.”
“What did she say?” I asked, pulling away from him slightly. It didn’t get me far since I was still blocked in on one side by the car.
“She said this place had memories. Painful ones,” he repeated. “Then she told me to dig up the past while I could.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Other than it being a normal horse stable,” he huffed. “Nothing.”
Stable.
That term still sent a shiver through me whenever I heard it. It was sad how such an innocuous word could have such a dark and powerful impact on someone.
Wait—stable.
Elias wouldn’t have been the only one to have a horse stable set up to traffic women. From the look of the barn before me, this one was far older than the one he had set up.
Matthias wouldn’t have known to look for a hidden door because he’d never been to the stable back home. Striding past him, I made my way down the center of the dilapidated building and counted out the beams where the horse stalls would have been. If this was a place where they held trafficked women, then they would have placed the door at one end of the barn, most likely in the last stable. There was only ever one exit and entrance to make it harder for women to escape.
Elias’s had been larger than the one we stood in now, but the length of the barn had been tripled to hold more women.
I stepped into the last stall on the right and moved the hay around with my feet, ignoring the mice and spiders that scattered at the motion. When I didn’t find what I was looking for, I moved to the other side.
And bingo.
It was barely noticeable, even after all these years. The boards had been cut to look exactly like their surroundings, and the handle looked to be nothing more than notched wood from horses’ hooves. Grasping the underside of the wood-carved handle, I grunted as I lifted the heavy door.
The smell of mildew and rotting eggs filled the air. We coughed, the scent strong, even with the fresh rain.
“Let me grab a flashlight,” Matthias said.
“Don’t worry about it.” I shook my head and flipped a small metal switch that rested where the stairs began to descend. The whirring of a generator filled the cramped space below our feet before the lights crackled, flickered, and then turned on. “Gross.” I pulled a face as I stepped down onto the rotting wooden stairs.
They creaked with my weight, and I took my time as I descended into the first hallway, taking it slow. The steps were covered in a thin layer of mildew, and I didn’t want to trip. Looking around, I let my eyes take a moment to adjust to the dim lighting. The concrete walls were covered in mold, and combined with the warm yellow of the lights, it had the space feeling cramped and dark due to the tinge of green.
“This place looks like it has been abandoned for years,” Matthias noted.
“How did Kenzi even know of this place?” I wondered. “In fact, how are the two of you so chummy?” I pushed forward, refusing to look back at him.
“Mark had been monitoring dark web chatter,” he admitted. “Not much goes on without him knowing, especially when it pertains to the Bratva. There were several dark web pings about a possible assassination attempt.”
“So someone leaked the information?” Who would do that? Or even know? Did that mean that the Dollhouse had a leak?
“Kenzi did,” he told me. “She wasn’t the docile little assassin they thought she was.”
“I wasn’t the target, was I?” I asked.
“No,” he assured me softly. “There was no way anyone would believe that an assassin would get the drop on me directly. Not when I am so well protected.”
“I was your weakness,” I whispered, mostly to myself.
There was a beat, and then he whispered back. “Yes.”
Kenzi never believed Christian. She never wanted to kill me.
“She loves you very much, Ava.” Matthias voiced my thoughts. “Kenzi hated that we didn’t bring you in on the plan.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked.
“Because you needed a push,” he admitted. “You’ve always been someone’s pawn. I wanted you to become your own person. Even if I told you about our plan, I could have easily made you the queen of my empire, but if you knew I was there, behind the scenes, you would have never taken it into your own hands. You would have questioned every decision and leaned on me for support. I didn’t want that, and it wasn’t something you needed. What you needed was to be pushed out of your comfort zone.”
“I might have gone a little overboard.” I shrugged my shoulder shyly, glad the dim lights hid the flush that crept up my cheeks.
“Oh, I’ve heard everything about you, my little psycho.” There was a smile in his voice. “It was a turn on hearing about your little exploits. My hand and I were very busy imagining all the ways you kept kneecapping people.”
“I didn’t kneecap the last one.”
He chuckled. “That’s true.”
We fell into a companionable silence as we walked along the long stretch of hallway, peering into the worn, cleared out rooms. I didn’t know what the hell Kenzi was talking about. There wasn’t anything here. Not of any worth, anyway. So she found an old trafficking barn; good for her. I was about to suggest we turn back when something caught my eye.
“I know that symbol.” I pointed to the all-seeing eye carved inside of the Seal of Solomon. “Vas showed this to me. It’s the crest for this secret society thing.”
“Potestas Omnis,” Matthias breathed, coming up behind me.
“You’ve heard of it.” Duh, Ava, obviously he had.
“We’ll compare notes when we get back,” he said, running his hand over the symbol. Pressing onto the wooden door, I pushed. It slid open with a groan. The room was empty, just like the others.
“There might be hidden compartments.” I ran my hand up and down the brick on the right side of the wall, stretching tall before moving toward the floor. He followed suit on the other side. Inch by inch, I searched for any type of false or loose brick.
“Pay dirt,” Matthias called out. He shifted one of the bricks from its spot. It didn’t look like the rest of its counterparts, which had grayed with age. This one was certainly duller, but it was slightly misshapen, most likely from weather damage. The fake brick was barely a few inches long, and the other bricks on either side of it had been carved out to make room for something else.
A small wooden box.
Carefully, he removed it from its hiding place and handed it to me. The design was Irish. I had seen something like this before, but I couldn’t place where. On the top, molded from silver, was the Celtic love knot.
My breathing stilled as I opened the lid, the wood of the box soft from being exposed to the elements for who knows how long. Inside, there were small trinkets and baubles, things a child would have. I removed them, one by one, and placed them in Matthias’s outstretched hand. Rings, a baby tooth in a small, clear baggy, a lock of red hair, some crayons, a photo of a baby and a young woman I didn’t recognize.
“Oh my god,” I gasped.
“What is it?” Matthias leaned in to get a better look.
“Holy fuck,” he whispered. “That can’t be—”
At the bottom of the small box, beneath the first photo, was a grainy photo that was dated March 1990. It wasn’t hard to recognize the young girl in the photo with her long strawberry blond hair and brown eyes. She had the same angular features now as she did back then. Was even wearing the same necklace she’d worn in all the photos I’d seen of her.
“Marianne.” I finished his sentence, horror rushing through me. The girl in the photo couldn’t be any older than twelve or thirteen. Not long before my mother became friends with her. “I don’t understand.”
“Let’s get this back to the hotel, and we can go from there.” Matthias emptied the trinkets in his hand back into the box and shut the lid before ushering me out of the room.
The rain had stopped, the sky empty of clouds, allowing the stars to shine through. It was such a peaceful place for such tragic memories. This time, we weren’t alone. Several of our men waited for us, along with my father and Sully.
“You two were taking too long, so we thought we’d come and find you.” My father approached me. His eyes scanned my body, checking for injuries.
“I’m okay,” I placated him. “We found a few things that—” God, how was I going to tell him? He hadn’t taken it very well the first time I had suggested Marianne had something to do with Mom’s kidnapping and murder. How was he going to take this?
“Where did you get that?” he asked, pointing at the box in my house.
“Umm,” I stuttered, holding the box tighter in my hand. This was the proof I needed to bring my mother’s murderer to justice. I wasn’t going to let anyone take it from me. Not even him. “In one of the rooms downstairs. It was hidden in a wall.”
“That’s impossible,” he told me harshly. Matthias growled at him and stepped forward.
“Watch your tone,” my husband snarled at my father. Goosebumps broke across my skin at his protectiveness over me. The fucker was still in the doghouse, but damn if my body wasn’t catching up to that.
My father’s shoulders fell, and he looked contrite as he said, “Your mother had one exactly like it,” he explained. “It was handmade, and a family heirloom given to her by your great-grandmother. There are only two in existence.”
“Who has the other one?” I asked curiously.
“Your grandmother.”