Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Iona
Freezing, starving, and thirsty beyond belief, I’m still able to ignore all this and the gag stuffed in my mouth.
Every nerve in my body strains to keep alert in case my attacker returns to continue what he started.
He talks on the phone for a while, then a torturous silence stretches to fill the early morning hours, in which I pray he’s fallen asleep.
By dawn I’m physically and mentally exhausted from concentrating on imagined movements I can’t predict.
I startle as my attacker swaggers back into the room, stoops, and picks up the knife he left on my chest. He drags it lightly under my jaw, just enough to draw blood, then runs his index finger along the cut and smears the blood over my cheeks.
“The fear in your eyes is the bonniest thing I’ve seen.
I’m gaun to keep it there till we turn you over.
Keep still, or I’ll kill you.” As he lowers the dagger to my pussy, moving the blade along my divide, I tense, sure he’s about to make me bleed to death.
He slides the tip of the blade along my inner thigh, drawing more blood.
“This is just the prelude to the main act.”
He continues to cut me and smear me with blood as I whimper under my gag.
He slices my other thigh, my belly, my arms, and my cheeks.
The worst part is every time he slashes me, he poises the tip against my skin as if he’s going to stab me.
Then when I hold my breath and my eyes widen, he laughs maniacally.
“I love the smell of blood.” He inhales one of the gashes he’s made on my leg. The stinging sensations riddling my body are nothing compared to feeling I’ve lost complete control to a psychotic sadist.
Finn stumbles in wearing his mask. “What’s with the butcher shop special, mate?”
I cry out behind my gag, pleading with him to stay.
Dalziel shuffles into the room. “What’s gaun on?”
My attacker hops off me, stabbing the knife into the wood floor beside my head. “Time to call her husband.”
As they call Leith, Dalziel unties my gag, and I gulp in breaths through my mouth. Hearing Leith answer, I cry out, “Leith! Leith! I’m here?—”
Finn slams a chair down by my head, and I break off.
They discuss the terms of my return, until my assaulter closes his fingers around my throat. A garbled scream rises in my throat, choked off by his hand. I barely hear him tell Leith, “I’ve had a taste of this cunt, and it’d be a shame to kill her in her prime.”
The conversation ends soon after, and my assailant releases my throat.
My head clears enough for me to realize Leith agreed to turn himself over to our enemies. I’m sure it’s a trap and the COPFS will find a way to take us both. I have to warn him before it’s too late.
I love him, and I need to survive this ordeal so I can tell him.
* * *
Leith
The Americans have an expression I appreciate right now: the hail Mary pass. I need an eleventh hour, last-ditch trick to find out where Iona is and fast.
Back I go to Galiene.
By now, Declan’s bit in Bearsden is the headquarters for Operation Rescue Iona. Declan, Draven, three captains, and six soldiers are gathered in his large kitchen, where Màiri has cooked a late breakfast for everyone.
My hand is on the cellar door when Declan looks up. “Need any help?”
I shake my head. “This is a delicate matter.”
As I let myself into Galiene’s cell and lock it, she looks up from where she slumps against the wall, hands cuffed in front of her.
“Stand,” I direct in a gentle tone. She pushes to her feet, and I cup her chin, stroking my thumb pad over her lower lip. “Iona is lost to me, Galiene. They demanded I give my life for her, and I decided it wasn’t worth it.”
Surprise colors her features. “I thought you loved her.”
“I was beginning to. But I don’t care for her enough to lose my life.” Daggers of guilt stab me as I bring my lips closer to Galiene’s. She pants with eagerness, swallowing every lie I tell her. “I thought about what you said.”
She lowers her eyes to my lips. “That you’re gaun to be mine?”
“Aye,” I murmur. “You were right when you said she’s no good for me.”
“She isn’t. She doesn’t deserve you.”
“No one understands me like you do.”
“Aye,” she seconds.
“Tell me one more thing.” I tuck her hair behind her ear. “Whom was the COPFS protecting all this time?”
“The Royal family,” she breathes, and I rock back on my heels with shock.
That I did not expect. “They invest heavily in a lot of the companies on the Lowing list, including some they own. These businesses are shady even before associating with the Syndicate. So the Royal Keepers ordered the COPFS to scrape the list clean when it was turned over to them.”
If this is true, I’ve got enough to sink the COPFS.
Enough to get Iona back.
I close my fingers around Galiene’s throat, and her breath hitches. “Save your next confession for when Iona punishes you.”
Confusion sparks in her brown eyes. “But I thought?—”
“You can’t hold a candle to her, Galiene.”
Her expression morphs to one of desperate rage. “You’re making a huge mistake.”
I offer her a vicious smile. “My only mistake was in entertaining a snake for eight years.”
Turning, I open the cell door, lock it again, and take the stairs to the kitchen two at a time.
I call Ross Palmer, the Lord Advocate, putting him on speaker.
“Leith Cargill,” he says in his stuffy tone. “How can I help you?”
I smile. He thinks he holds all the cards, but I’m about to burst his bubble. “Meet me in twenty at Cathedral Square. I have something you’ll want to know.”
“What could you possibly?—”
I end the call, certain he’ll show and not wanting to waste any time. I address the soldiers, captains, Draven, and Declan. “Be ready to go as soon as I text you the location.”
“Got it, chief.” One of Chance’s captains, Fergus, nods.
“We’ll stand by,” Declan confirms.
Loading my gun, I slip it into my waist holster and head out with Draven in the Ferrari. Fifteen minutes later Draven parks us illegally in Cathedral Square, and I hop out, striding to meet Palmer, who stands by a street lamp watching me approach.
He frowns. “What’s this all about?—”
“You’re protecting the Royals, Palmer,” I cut him off. “They have their hand in a number of shady businesses the Syndicate deals with. If you want us to keep quiet, you’ll call off Leavy’s kidnapping operation right now, and you’ll stay off the Syndicate’s back going forward.”
In his excitement he stutters. “Y-you have no p-proof?—”
“We’ve got a long list of names that all lead back to the Royals,” I bluff. “It doesn’t take much to get one person on the company payroll to blab.”
Blenching, he blinks rapidly. “You wouldn’t expose the Royal family?—”
“I would and will.” I tut. “Come, Palmer, let’s not waste any more time. Give us the Lowing list. Call off that operation and agree we hold a balance of power. The Crown for the Syndicate.”
He shakes his head. “I can tell you where Leavy will have taken her, but I don’t have his or anyone else’s contact info. The man in charge of them and their operation went on a family holiday. They’re taking a cruise around the Outer Hebrides.”
“Then give me Leavy’s address.”
He mutters an address in Drummore, way to the South, on the coast.
“Agree to the rest,” I stipulate.
“Fine. I agree,” he says tightly. “But we’re still gaun forward with the Annand trial.”
A cocky grin slashes my face. “I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”
My fingers fly over my phone keyboard as I text everyone Iona’s location. Palmer hasn’t heard the last of me. I plan to punish him and anyone involved with Iona’s kidnapping or the hiding of her attacker. After all, I never promised them protection.
The satnav says it’s two hours and twenty minutes to Leavy’s address, so we’ll be there by 2:30. On the way, I give orders to the four different groups headed there.
“Declan and Fergus, since you’re a few minutes ahead, block the B7041 from the South. Keith and Logan, meet us in Kilstay from the North. We’ve got to approach the place cautiously, since we don’t know where Iona will be.” The last thing I want is to alert them of our approach so they can hurt her.
“Right, Leith,” they chorus.
I open up to one hundred on the motorway southwest, heading toward the coast. Everyone has silencers, knives, and radios, and I’m fully confident in their ability to work as a team. “Thanks.”
No one says anything more, because what can they say? They’re all prepared to do their best to save Iona, even if it should cost their own lives. I can ask no more of them.
I can demand more of myself. I’ll do better than my best because nothing short of bringing her out alive is conceivable.
* * *
Iona
The smells coming from the kitchen make me want to be sick. When I turn onto my side, Dalziel meets my eye through his mask’s eye slits.
“Och, she’s looking a bit peely-wally.”?1 He turns to Finn. “Someone might want to take her to the toilet.”
Finn shrugs. “She hasn’t eaten or drunk since we took her this time yesterday.”
My attacker stalks into the room, making me shrivel up into myself. He surveys me with calculated disgust. “Use the toilet and come out directly. Clear?”
Everything is in slow motion, including my nod. I just want to throw up.
He frees my wrists from the pole, leaving them tied to each other. Then he unfastens my ankles from the pipe. I push to my feet, swaying and blacking out briefly. Someone catches me, and the world spins, but I manage to keep my balance. Whoever righted me pushes me toward the lavvy.
“Get in and get out,” my assaulter snaps, shoving me into the tiny loo and clapping the door to behind me.
I rush to the toilet and retch till all the bile in my stomach comes up. Again the room whirls, and I wake up seconds later on the floor, my head aching. I must’ve fallen. Somehow I manage to struggle to my feet and run the tap, filling my hands with precious water and taking deep swallows.