Chapter 43 Indie #2
He leads us to a booth near the far end, a convenient space close enough to the exit should we need to make an escape, and I notice the bodies of servants at the wall nearest to ours are Ultio.
Saint pulls back the curtain, checking inside subtly before giving me the nod to go in. The booth is small, an armchair on either side with a small drinks table in the centre.
Darkened glass rests against the front, giving a view across the downward sea of booths, a perfect and unobstructed view of the stage.
I’m in my seat for all of two seconds before Saint reaches over the table, cupping his hand against my ear. “Every cubicle is rigged for sound once the lights go out. When the stage lights up, do not ask any questions. Stay silent. Do not react to anything you see.”
He pulls back, and even though the dark lurks within every corner, I can see the desperation through his eyes.
A small part of me wants to kick his ass for the snappy demands, but instead I nod, deciding to practice my silent oath early.
The stakes are high, and sassy behaviour wouldn’t serve anyone any favours.
One misstep could mean life or death, and whilst he has people on the inside, and an entire fleet on the outside, I’m not sure if it would be a match for Omnia.
The lights dip low. Only a hum remains from the centre stairs, until the stage lights up.
My eyes draw to the table as something glints on it; it’s a remote, and by seeing the number panel on it, I know exactly what it’s for.
A shiver runs through me.
This is a fucking auction.
Saint’s hand grips my chair, pulling it closer to place his hand on my restless leg. I hadn’t even noticed it bouncing whilst taking in the severity of the situation we’re in.
A voice thunders from afar, and I glance up to lock onto the man responsible for it all.
Judge Montgomery.
The tone of his voice is unforgettable as his threats to Jenna lurk in my mind.
“Good evening, all. We’re happy to have you here for our year-end event. And let me tell you, what a night we have lined up.”
I drone his voice out, shifting my focus on what Saint draws on my leg. He moves between guiding his palm up and down my exposed thigh, circling his thumb, and tracing various shapes with his index finger.
We can’t speak, and this is the only way he can communicate with me. My chest heaves when I work out he’s written ‘I love you’ across it.
My eyes travel up to him, and he throws me a lazy wink before focusing ahead, still absentmindedly distracting me as the show begins ahead of us.
I don’t want to watch what’s going on down below, but I force myself to glare at a hidden reality of the underworld, women dragged onto the stage whilst they’re quite literally bid on like an antique road show.
No thoughts for the numbers coming in, no concern that there are actual human beings having their human rights abused.
Most of them look drugged out of their mind, others look like they’re fearing for their lives, a small pocket standing with vacant glares, the latter responsible for ringing out the highest of prices.
This isn’t right.
Something feels off about them; they’re almost like living zombies. Obeying every command and not fighting against the security that handles them into the stage.
Have they been here that long that they no longer fight against it?
The thought causes my heart to pinch.
My inner conscience screams at me to save them, to ask Saint to rally each and every one of them up and take them with us. Help them rebuild their lives through my company; Regina and I could expand.
In reality, I know we can’t right now.
That last part of me, the one that had my darkened path forking off to only the names I held in a list, to victims we would converse with to let them know what we were doing.
Vanishes.
My aim of helping others hurt by the Sumus has now stretched to Omnia, no longer feeling the need to check in with them to ask if they want their abusers killed.
They’ll all burn for this.
Now my focus is solely on the man beside me, the one who’ll make me his queen beside his reign of terror.
I study his features, a jaw as sharp as a blade as the shadows gloom across it, defining the muscles that seem to adorn every inch of him.
His brow is dipped, attention firmly on what’s unravelling below, eyes darting at the corners. He doesn’t show a flicker of emotion or discomfort as he watches, and I know that’s likely due to being numbed to this sort of atrocity.
Witnessing such violations will take its toll on you. I can see it in the faint lines that etch his eyes, the way his jaw subtly flexes when a cry breaks free from below.
He might appear to others as a predator built for war, but he cares deeply.
I glimpse it in the vulnerable moments he gives me. He wouldn’t be here trying to bring down an entire operation otherwise.
I’m startled when he grips the remote, thumbs punching at the keys as he enters an ungodly number that leaps into the millions.
His name rolls to the tip of my tongue, but when my gaze shifts to the stage, the warmth in my body is replaced by ice.
My words clamp at the back of my throat, and another name is in its place.
No.
It’s fucking impossible.
My hand slinks to my chest, trying to clutch onto my heart to keep it from bursting. I can’t breathe; the walls of my lungs turn to stone as the heaviness in my chest grows.
The leather groans beneath my grip as my fingers dig into it.
This can’t be real.
Doubt washes over me in a furious wave, and my wide eyes blink rapidly, trying to clear the image I’m seeing.
My best friend is dead.
I saw Jenna’s lifeless body beyond her front door with my own pair of eyes. The pool of blood she lay in evident she didn’t survive the cruel harm that came to her.
I went to her fucking funeral.
Saint grips my thigh again; it’s painful enough for me to reluctantly look at him, but he isn’t looking at me.
His whisper is slow, low, that if the faint light from the stage wasn’t glowing on his profile, I wouldn’t have heard him. Would never have believed he’d uttered such a word.
“Please.”
I wouldn’t be able to speak if I tried.
How the fuck is this possible?
The police treated her murder case. They weren’t able to locate her killer.
An icy thought stabs through me like a blade.
The text message.
Everything that I’ve learned.
Everything I’ve witnessed.
Jenna wasn’t killed for speaking up.
She’s been taken and kept prisoner by Omnia.
“Oh my fucking God,” leaves my mouth. It’s out before I realise.
Saint doesn’t react to it, meaning it was quiet enough to not have been noticed.
There’s a multitude of questions running through my head. How is she alive?
Where the hell has she been?
She looks nothing like she did before.
She’s frail, that light in her eyes I loved so much completely dimmed; even from this distance I can notice it. She was the biggest personality in any room she walked in, and now she looks like a shell of herself.
Whatever she’s been through has wrecked her entirely.
Now I’m not sure if death would have been kinder.
An apocalyptic wrath skyrockets through my veins, setting every fibre inside of me on fire. Just as I go to rise, the curtain whips open, and a woman enters with a tablet in her hand.
“Congratulations, sir. We’ll arrange for your purchase to be available for collection once the auction concludes. This is a complimentary gift from our sponsor for each of our buyers.”
I can’t even look at what she hands him, ready to take the pen she has in her hand and shove it through her fucking eye.
“Thank you, gentlemen.” An audible growl rumbles from me at the judge addressing the men in the audience. “We thought we’d add in a little something extra tonight.”
Saint fists the bottle in his hand, glancing at me before his narrowed eyes focus back on the stage.
My hand reaches out to pry the glass neck from his hand before he cuts himself, his white-knuckled grip threatening to crack it.
Judge Montgomery claps his hands behind his back, his black and peppered hair glistening against the lights as he strolls to the further end of the stage.
“We have a couple of bounties up for grabs. Dead or alive. As long as they’re brought to us. However, we’d prefer them to be alive so they can reap the consequences of what they’re trying to do.”
The cold glass of the bottle sizzles against my heated palm as I stare at the judge.
He turns to look over his shoulder, a screen I hadn’t noticed before lighting up, and a lead weight drops through my stomach lining.
“This man right here. Saint Blackwood.”
Saint coils up like a snake beside me, leaning forward in his seat, and reaching underneath the table, sliding a gun strapped underneath, and tucks it behind his waistband.
“His organisation is a threat to the very community we have, that we’ve built. Some of you may have previously worked with him in the past, provided security through his firm.”
What the fuck is happening right now?
I feel like the earth has collapsed beneath my feet, both of us landing straight in the hellfires of the underworld as the last thirty minutes have flipped everything upside down.
“We believe he’s working with whoever is behind this.”
Sweet fucking God.
“A company named Revenge. We believe they’re linked to another legitimate company.”
His pitiful chuckle demands every nerve along my body to spark at the ends.
“I’m not sure what game they’re playing, but make no mistake.
They’re dangerous. The reason we lost a very valuable member and all the work he and his family have done for us throughout our history.
Five million dollars will be paid for each individual you bring to us.
Two million for any positive leads on where they may be. ”
My stomach rolls as the back of my hand flies to my mouth.
Saint shakes his head at me slowly, fists pressed tightly to his mouth. Like he’s trying to contain his own outburst.
Fuck.
I need to contact Regina.
We need to get the girls from Egnever to safety.
We need to initiate our failsafe that we stupidly thought we’d never have to pull, get them the hell out of this fucking state.
We need to get out of here with Jenna.
Judge Montgomery clasps his hands. “Well, now that’s out of the way. I’d like to bring the board on stage and thank them for everything they’ve done this year. We’ve had quite the success this year regardless.”
My hand reaches for the bottle as Saint rises from the seat, edging closer to the glass so his camera can catch the moment he’s been waiting for.
The veil to be lifted on the entire structure of this society, and whose blood will paint the walls for every single crime these serpents have committed.
The faces we’ll now need to look over our shoulder for.
Bodies line up onto the stage, and my gaze flicks to the vodka bottle Saint has lazily dangling from his fingertips, the spotlights from overhead winking against the familiar crystal glass, mocking me as the brand name instantly stirs recognition, the server’s words screaming in my mind.
My hesitant, watery eyes drag across each of the six faces smiling down to their loyal followers, names I know matching each of their identities personally, applause erupting around us as each of the hierarchy of Omnia line the stage.
The crack that ruptures in my chest roars above it all.
Childhood memories burning away like a lighter held to a photograph.
The oxygen is finally snatched from me as I slink to my weakened knees to the floor, clutching the pain in my chest that’s destroying me from the inside out.
My intense, cold stare locks with a set of eyes that mirror my very own.
To be continued.