Chapter Twelve #2
“I was never yours,” I told him, the knife moving up to his throat.
How easy it would be to take him out right now, slice across his throat and watch him struggle to breathe as the blood poured out of him, but that was too easy.
He’d tortured women, girls, children, for decades and sold them as if they were cattle.
Most of them didn’t live past the age of thirty, or became so addicted to drugs, they couldn’t be useful.
Drugs were tempting, to block out the pain, to live in a sense of euphoria so you didn’t know what was happening to you.
I understood it.
I’d never gone down that path, but I knew the temptation to be in another world while the atrocities were happening to you, that was…almost blissful to think about.
“You always will be,” he said, pulling me back to the present. “Nothing will stop you from being my cherub.”
I wanted to cut out his tongue, to stop his taunts, but I didn’t want to lose my cool.
“In time,” I said to him, as I stuck the blade in again and again just under his ribs. “You’ll be dead, but I’m going to take my time…just like you did with me. By the end, you’ll be begging for me to end it.”
Kane
“Petra,” I called out to the tech as she jumped in her seat. Her eyes widened as she saw me. The room was empty, and I wondered why. “Why’s it so empty in here?”
“There’s a press conference happening,” she said. “Why are you here? You’re on leave.”
“I got a distress call from Tommy. I need you to tell me where he is.”
“Wait…what?”
“Petra, come on, he’s in danger, I gotta help him.”
“I need to call the captain.”
“Petra, there’s no fucking time. Let them penalize me later, I gotta help him.”
She nodded. “Only because I trust you.”
She tapped on her keyboard, and a wash of guilt ran through me for pulling her into this but I had no option. This was the only way to track her. I took note of the location and keyed it into my phone to pull up the maps.
“Alaska?” I said. “What the hell?”
“Garrick, I know this goes without saying but I know this is about more than helping Tommy. You’re a good man…don’t forget that.”
I nodded, knowing she wouldn’t say zip about where I was going. She was good like that. As I turned the corner and headed down to the garage again, I almost bowled Sal over.
“What are you doing here?” she gasped. “If O’Leary sees you…”
“Let me pass so I can get out of here without him seeing me then, Sal.”
“What’s gotten into you?” she asked me. “You’re so defensive all of the time. Is it possibly because you know you’re skating on the line?”
“Sal, I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you?” she asked. “I don’t think so. I don’t even think you’re Kane anymore. He would never do this shit.”
I was tired of this conversation. I needed to find my way to Alaska before Tommy found Maurelle. She’d never let him live if he threatened her. I couldn’t have that on my conscience.
“I’m out of here,” I told her. “You can relax.”
I pushed past her, ignoring her calls to get me to come back and headed to my car. The flight from here to Alaska was just under 7 hours. I just hoped I wasn’t too late.
Maurelle
I was out of breath, and exhausted. The last few hours had been fun, but they’d taken their toll. I moved back into the room, blood splattered the walls, and window. His heaving body was coated in his own blood, his eyes closed, resting from the torture. He’d given me names.
So many names of his clients here in the United States.
I could close his empire down. Quite easily, but I was having fun watching him scream and call out for it to end.
Those same requests that had been denied by him back then.
I’d known a girl, the same age as me, who had disappeared after spending a night with him.
They’d carried her out in sheets, and even at a young age, I knew what that meant.
The Vicomte was a monster.
He’d turned me into one.
He couldn’t leave here alive.
I slammed the door of the bedroom closed, startling him awake. He opened his one good eye left. The other was sealed shut from the swelling.
“Just end it,” he grunted. “I told you everything.”
“No, you haven’t,” I said. “Where is she?”
His sick little smile returned and he laughed with what breath he had left. “Why?”
“I want to know where she is,” I said. “Now spill it, before I spill your guts.”
“She died ten years ago,” he said, his smile gone. “She was a good worker, and knew how to do her job.”
My hand shook as I listened to him. “How?”
“Overdose,” he said. “She got into the drugs, and over did it. You can’t have your revenge on her for handing you over.”
“No, but I can take it out on you.”
“Go for it,” he said. “But make sure you end it, because if you don’t, I’ll be coming for that daughter of ours.”
My hand moved before my brain made sense of what he had said, the blade slicing across his neck. Blood spewed out of the wound as I took a step back, letting the life drain from him. The sound of him trying to breathe, gurgling for air, hung heavy in the air as I watched my tormentor die before me.
It was over.
I was done.
Once he was gone, I sat in the chair, thinking of Camille and how something so pure, so beautiful had come from such an ugly man, and from such an ugly union.
Slowly, I rose, moving over to him and cutting the final message into his stomach.
I dropped the knife and moved out of the room, and down to the bathroom at the end of the hall.
Looking into the mirror, I saw the blood covering my arms and my face. I felt relief and anger, and sadness all combined together.
I felt the panic rise in my chest as I burst into tears. A single tear running down my bloody cheek, leaving a pink line there.
Kane
I got into my rental car and drove toward the last known ping of Tommy’s phone. It was in Anchorage, but I doubted that was where she was. He would have returned with her if he’d found her.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing in Alaska, Garrick, but you get your ass back here now,” O’Leary bellowed down the speaker of my phone as I turned down the road, toward the town of Anchorage.
“I’m visiting family,” I lied.
“No you damn well aren’t,” he said. “Get back on a plane and get here now. I won’t have you interfering with this investigation.”
“Cap, I know what I’m doing. This woman is dangerous, and Tommy’s here alone. I know her, I can help him.”
O’Leary sighed, knowing I was right. Tommy should have called for backup but he was young and he wanted to pull in the biggest case our city had on his own. I’d been that way once.
“She can’t get away again,” he said. “You hear me?”
“I know,” I said, understanding the reality of me walking away right now was dependent on how far Tommy had gotten to her. I didn’t want the kid to die, but I also didn’t want him to destroy Maurelle’s chance to get away.
The indecision running through my brain was causing my heart to flutter in my chest. I had to save her.
I sped down the highway toward the last ping, praying Tommy was clueless as to where she was.
My phone rang and I looked down at the unknown number, wondering if I should answer or leave it. My intuition told me to get it. Grunting, I clicked on the green button.
“Garrick.”
I heard the faint sob on the other end and immediately I knew who it was. I pulled over to the side of the road.
“Maurelle.”
“How’d you know?” she asked me, the extreme emotion in her voice told me she was in mental anguish.
“What happened?”
“I found him…the guy who…you know.”
“Camille told me,” I said. “She’s worried about you. I’m worried about you. Where are you?”
“You won’t get here in time,” she said. “I wish things were different, Kane. I wish I was normal.”
“You are, Maurelle, you are normal. You just had a shit life, and I wish I could make it better. I wish I could wipe out your record and the investigation I started.”
“You made me feel things I never thought I could,” she said, her voice breaking. “I thought I was incapable of love, of feeling safe in someone’s arms, of allowing myself to be a woman…but you gave me all of that.”
I didn’t like where this conversation was going.
“Where are you, Maurelle? Tell this to my face.”
“You won’t get here in time,” she repeated.
“I’m in Anchorage,” I told her. She gasped in response. “Tell me where you are and I’ll be there.”
“You came for me,” she said, her voice breathy as if she were still surprised.
“Always,” I told her. “I’ll always come for you.”
She relayed where she was. I quickly plugged it into the GPS and started the car again.
“Maurelle, I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” I told her.
“Really?” she replied. “This isn’t you pulling up in the driveaway?”
Fuck. Tommy had found her first.
“Don’t open the door, Maurelle. It’s Tommy. Wait for me.”
I threw the phone down on the passenger seat and tore off toward the address, throwing up whatever prayer I could muster that this would turn out all right.