45. Forty-Five
Forty-Five
Sara
Confusion.
Confusion is the best way to describe it, and that’s being polite. The footsteps approaching Mimi and I belong to none other than Charles and Joe. They stare up at us in a blond stupor, both breathtakingly handsome, their faces twisted with pride.
“What is this, Joe?” Mimi gasps, thrashing against her wrists tied up. Tears in her bright blue eyes, she looks ravaged… and something tells me I didn’t get the entire story of their poker mission…
“Hi, Mimi…” Joe says with a smirk and a shy wave.
“I’m going to need you to explain what the fuck is going on, Joe. Right now.” I bark sitting on the bed, my wrists screaming to be released.
He chuckles and looks at Charles, and then back to us, “Things got a little…” He makes a rotating gesture of his fingers against his temple to say it’s looney tunes, and I can’t read him. I don’t think I’ve ever known him, and I’m gutted.
“How did you get on the boat, Joe?” Mimi asks.
“The same way you did,” he says, his thumb grazing his lip, “except it was a little more cooperative. Right Charles? He and I actually made a deal, but you’ll find out soon enough.”
“Stop it with your stupid Morse code, Joe!” I hiss in anger, the temperature in my veins raising to a level where I might lose my goddamn mind. “Was any of it real? Any of it?” I ask, my voice breaking as waves of incomprehension take over me.
“Which part, sweetheart?” He tilts his head in question, waiting for me to answer.
I stare back at him with disgust, and I hope it hits him as hard as it can, as it is destroying me inside right now. I look over Mimi and she’s speechless. Her eyes reddened and tears spilling.
“It’s going to be fun girls, don’t look so disappointed. A new life awaits, ya?” Charles says hands in his pocket.
“Fuck. You,” I say, one tear spilling down my cheek, but I quickly straighten up, not wanting to give them any satisfaction of their doing.
Joe takes a few steps towards me, lifts my chin and looks into my eyes, and I see the man I trusted with every part of me in front of me. I see…
I see him…
I see the man I’ve always trusted.
He has a plan. He needs me to play along, and I do…
I spit in his face. Joe barely flinches, shoving my face away.
Charles laughs, he’s so predictable, it’s nauseating. I bet he’s one of those guys that can only handle missionary at the risk of coming too quickly.
“Oh, mate! She’s a firecracker that one. They’ll love her,” he says in his British accent, and as beautiful as it sounds, bile rises in my throat.
Joe extends his hand to a tissue box on the nightstand, he wipes his face and steps closer again, and closer, his face buries into my neck and whispers, “I’ll always love you.”
My breath stutters when he bites me, and a scream pours out of me as my eyes meet his.
“Don’t ever do that again,” he says, leveling out for Charles to hear. The authority pouring out of him is downright hypnotic, and I’m saying a small prayer that I am not misreading him at this moment.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs have us all look up, and a man I don't recognize descends into our hell, phone clutched in his hand. His expression is triumphant as he approaches Charles.
“Great,” Charles says, clapping his hands together once.
“The phone call we were waiting for. Right, Joe?” Charles smiles at Joe as he takes the phone and places it on speakerphone.
“Edward, great to hear from you mate. How are ya on this God given beautiful… what is it? Saturday?” Charles asks, stepping closer to Joe, sounding like he’s hosting a tea party for basic bitches. I really need to get back to Liam.
“Let’s get right to it,” the man, Edward on the other line says, and Joe visibly tenses, his eyes discreetly falling on mine, pinning me to where I am with the intention to freeze me in place.
“Wonderful, do you accept the price you were given?” Charles responds and asks.
When I hear those words, my heart plummets to the pit of my stomach. A price? My mind races to process what's happening—they're discussing a sale. They're selling us. This man on the phone is a buyer.
“Yes, that works perfectly,” Edward says without a moment's hesitation.
Joe's face breaks into a triumphant smile, and something dark and violent surges inside me. Joe presses the mute button on the phone.
“Ask him what price he was given,” he tells Charles in a low voice, something unreadable flickering in his eyes.
Charles unmutes the call, his voice oozing with false warmth.
“Excellent, and just to confirm… The price agreed on was…?”
“217,565 euros,” the man responds immediately.
My eyes widen at the number. That's it? That's what our lives are worth to these monsters? From a blurry echo, I hear Charles's fake goodbye, and my mind spirals.
The atmosphere in the room shifts instantly, and my hair prickles when Charles ends the call with a quick tap and looks directly at Joe.
He chuckles nervously. “That’s not the price we discussed, mate.”
Joe's expression changes, he gives me a quick glance, and his mask drops completely, revealing something feral and dangerous underneath—gone is any trace of the casual, arrogant man from moments before.
In zero point five seconds, Joe pulls out a gun, and my heart stops when he lunges at Charles, shoving him against the wall with such force that the cabin seems to shake.
“That is, in fact, not the price that you and I discussed.” Joe smiles, pressing the barrel against Charles's temple. “I discussed this price with whom I had an inkling was your boss.” Joe growls, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
“And guess what?” he says with a somber laugh that promises empty surprises.
“That’s the price that came back from the buyer—that's the exact price I had re-laid to your boss. Now I finally know who the fuck has been fucking with us. I only gave you another number because I wasn’t completely sure it was him running the show.
So now I know,” Joe continues, pressing the barrel harder against Charles's temple.
“It all made sense. Lightbulbs fired. Pew, pew, pew.” He motions fireworks with his gun in the air.
“The name of the company, the year the Velastra was purchased, the name similar to stargazing which my mom loves, and other details…and do you know who has always been in love with my mom? My fucking uncle! Oh he wished he had shown her the fucking stars!” Joe moves his fingers in the air like a wave, whistling through his teeth.
“I just wish—fuck, I wish—I had all the information sooner to figure it all out.
“I made a call, an old-time friend who’s a gee in spyware, he checked a few things for me and I had him text from an unknown number, your boss—my uncle, an offer for Sara and that price, then I called you and we discussed a different number.
What are the fucking odds, right mate?” He enunciates mocking Charles’s speech.
I watch in stunned silence as Charles frantically looks past Joe toward the door, desperate for anyone to intervene, but Joe notices his wandering eyes and shoves the gun lower, pressing it hard against his crotch.
“You enjoyed that little ultimatum you gave me, didn’t you? To disappear, to leave everything behind, to fucking pretend I was dead! The deal Charles was that you’d leave Sara alone. And now you're also trying to cash out a deal behind your boss' back? Nah.”
Charles's eyes dart between Joe and me.
“I gave up everything!” Joe's voice cracks with emotion. “Everything to protect her! I gave her up!” His finger tightens on the trigger, and I can see the muscles in his forearm tensing.
“And you know what screams danger? A man who isn't afraid to lose anything more.”
My breath catches, his pain emanating from him. The sacrifice he’s been through to keep me safe. I see it all pouring out of him, as he had kept it all locked in and is now unleashing with no reason to look back.
“You took everything from me,” he hisses, pushing the gun harder.
I jump in fear when a thunderous noise erupts overhead, vibrating through the cabin walls. The unmistakable sound of helicopter blades slicing through the air.
Charles's eyes dart upward, trembling with relief flooding his face. “They’re here, show’s over. Say bye-bye to your little bird, Joe.”
Footsteps pound above us, followed by sharp cracks of gunfire that make me flinch against my restraints. Charles's lips twist into a grotesque smile. Shots are going crazy above us.
“Oh God, oh God, we're going to die, we're going to—” Mimi dissolves into desperate sobs beside me, her body rocking.
But Joe remains stoic, unmovable, unfazed as he’s possessed into something feral, something I barely recognize.
“You’re not dying today, Mimi, neither are you, Sara,” Joe calmly reiterates, looking back at us until his eyes fall on Charles again. “But you are, and Fred Laurent is too when we find him. You both can rot in hell.”
Joe roars and he slams the butt of his gun against Charles's skull. Blood sprays across the wall as he crumples sideways, screaming in agony. His mouth opens, but only a pathetic gurgle escapes.
The door explodes inward in a shower of splintered wood, and Mimi and I barely have time to shield ourselves. My heart lurches in my throat when I see Liam stepping through the threshold, gun raised, his movements fluid and precise, and the agony a moment ago appeases as I see him.
His eyes take in the scene unfolding before him. His gaze locks with mine for a split second, and I see relief flash in his eyes before they harden again.
Liam raises his gun and blurts out with a deathly calmness to him. “Is our uncle here?”
“He’s not, but this piece of shit is.” Joe points at Charles.
And suddenly there's a deafening explosion. I scream as a warm, sticky wetness jets and plasters across my face and chest, and the overwhelming scent of blood violates my senses.