Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Daphne
I come to in darkness and cold. There’s no sound around me. The quiet scares me more than anything. My eyes adjust, and I roll off the bed. Instantly nauseous, I look around for a toilet. Finding one, I drop to my knees and vomit.
“I wondered if you were pregnant.” A voice comes through a speaker, and I scream.
Bright light floods the room, and I close my eyes until my eyes adjust again. When I open them, fear strikes me so hard that I start to shake.
“Daphne, you were supposed to be mine. I’m not heartless, though. So, I’ll keep you here until you deliver the baby, then I’ll get rid of it. After that, you will finally be mine. He’ll give up on you. He’ll never find you down there.”
“Who are you? Why me?”
“I made you famous. Don’t you remember me?”
I think hard, but I don’t understand. How did he make me famous? Then it hits me.
“Oh my God. Thatcher?”
“Yes, my love. I filmed you every day for a year, and you ran from me. You should’ve trusted me to protect you from the online bullies.”
“I didn’t want to be famous. I just wanted to do my job. You kept putting the focus on me. You invaded my privacy. I want my husband.”
“You have a face for the camera. You didn’t see me at the gala. I was there taking pictures, except you were taken by that rich fool. He thought he could keep me away from you, but he was wrong. He’s probably crying beside that decoy’s body right now.”
“My husband won’t believe it. He’ll come after you. He has powerful friends.”
“You mean his motorcycle dummies. They have no clue how to find me. I easily distracted them both with a man pretending to look for investors. Money speaks with those assholes.”
He has no clue who Cronus or the other guys really are.
“I even got your regular bodyguard away from you so that idiot Thompson would be on your detail.” He laughs, and the sound is sinister.
I stand up and look around the room, taking in everything.
There’s a commode, a standing shower with a see-through curtain, a bed, and a small kitchen area with only a sink and a few bowls and plates with spoons, no knives or forks.
There is a chair in the corner and the speaker he’s talking to me through.
A pile of books sits nearby, all classics.
There are no windows, so I have no idea if it’s night or day. In the ceiling, there is a hatch door, and I realize that must be how he got me down here.
“I’ll be in control of you from now on. Until I get full confirmation of a possible pregnancy, I won’t touch you. But I will be watching.”
I see the cameras at every corner of the room. The walls are made of brick. No one will hear me if I scream.
“You only have a couple more hours of daylight, then I’ll turn off the lights.”
I was out for longer than I thought. My body trembles in fear.
“Oh, there are a few meals in the cupboard.”
I open the cupboard and see several of those “just add water” meal packets and cringe. There are also bottles of water and a few electrolyte packets.
I pray I’m found soon.
Darrell
We have a suspect, and I’m with the team.
Cronus couldn’t get me to stay back. It’s been three days since Daphne was taken.
I’m at my wits end. We finally got Thompson to break, but it took Hades torturing him to do so.
It’s his specialty, but he hates doing it.
He doesn’t have to worry about repercussions, though.
Cronus and I will take care of everyone involved.
They’ll either end up dead or considered domestic terrorists and taken somewhere they’ll never be found.
Hades walks into the room and sits in a chair in the corner.
I sit down across from the man who took my wife.
His name is Thatcher Winslow. He was a camera guy with the reality show.
He developed a crush on Daphne, and it spiraled into a fixation.
He idolized her. His hate for me is instant in his eyes.
He focuses on me for a moment before turning to Cronus.
“Let me see the other, and I might tell you where she’s hidden. Without my help, you’ll never find her.” A sick grin slides across his face. He turns to me. “There was a baby, but I took care of that for you.”
I shoot out of the chair and grab him by the back of the head. I slam his face into the metal table. Bones crack, and I hear the squelch of blood as his nose breaks.
He rises up and smiles through the blood and broken teeth. “Kind of a hothead, aren’t you?” His voice is nasally now. He looks at Cronus again. “Let me see the other one. Ms. Delphi.”
“No,” Hades growls.
“Oh, she’s yours? I doubt it. Let me see her, or you’ll never see Daphne again. She’ll die of starvation without me.” He turns to look at the camera. “Are you out there sweet, Delphi?”
The door opens, and she steps into the room. I didn’t want her to come, but she insisted. Hades won’t go far from her side, and we needed him.
Titan found this asshole here in Atlanta. We know he brought Daphne here, but we don’t know where he’s hiding her. He lives in an apartment. Aries and Poseidon already swept it. She wasn’t there.
“Where’s my sister, asshole?” Delphi doesn’t back down. She advances on him.
He’s handcuffed with his hands behind the chair. She’s safe, but Hades still stands behind her, protecting her.
“She’s in the darkness. It’s kind of cold there too if she doesn’t use her blankets. She had to finally shower the other day. I got to see her tattoos. Do you have some too?” he asks her, and my hands fist on the table. The fucker saw her naked.
“Tell me where she is. I’ll do anything for her,” Delphi begs.
“Come with me. You’ll take her place. She’s tainted with his spawn now.” He nods toward me.
His words stop me. She might still be pregnant.
“You never loved my sister.” Delphi challenges him. “If you did, you wouldn’t want to replace her with me. Now tell me where she is, or I’ll let these men kill you.”
“If I die, you’ll never find her. She’s already in the ground,” he says cryptically, and my blood runs thick and heavy through my veins.
Delphi turns toward the door, ready to walk out.
“Don’t leave,” he begs, but she steps out the door, closing it with a finality that leaves no doubt he’s dead.
Hades walks to the table across the room and picks up a pair of pliers. “Here, let me help you with those teeth.” He punches the asshole in the face, knocking him out before he yanks out a few teeth. Then we wake him up with a bucket of water.
“I’ll never tell,” he slurs, and we start working him over.
Hades uses pain on him instead of his usual mind control. When we get to water boarding, Winslow urinates himself several times. I have to step out of the room for fresh air.
“Did he tell you?” Delphi asks, taking one look at me covered in blood.
I shake my head. “He keeps giving us weird hints.”
“I got it,” Titan says from the speaker phone.
He rattles off an address, and we head to the location.
“Stay right there, Delphi. I didn’t want you to come, but Cronus gave in to you. Stay there, or I’ll handcuff you.” Hades threatens her, and she nods from her seat in the SUV. He turns to Totten. “Make sure she stays, or I’ll spend an hour with you in the box,” Hades says.
“Got it.”
The Unknowns moves as a unit, surrounding the old farmhouse. Titan discovered that in the time we thought Winslow had given up, he was here preparing. He’s only touched the surface of what Winslow did, but he found this property owned by a family member.
I stand back, even though I’m geared up to go in with them if necessary. They call clear on the empty house, and I stomp up the porch stairs, worried we followed a false lead again. There have been so many of them so far.
The house is empty except for construction equipment. I pass a ladder in the living room, where paint buckets and empty cement bags are. The guys are all walking around the house. I go upstairs, looking in the bedrooms, when Poseidon’s deep voice comes through the comms link.
“Hey, there’s something weird in the basement. It’s not up to the same dimensions as the rest of the house. It’s like a room was added, but there’s no door.”
I start searching closets, looking for an attic. Winslow said she was in the dark and cold.
“I got monitors,” Aries says, and I run down to his location on the main floor.
There, sitting on the floor, are three monitors. The screens are dark, but you can see that they are filming something. A bed appears on one, with a small figure lying in the middle. I start looking around to see where the monitors are connected.
“I got something,” Cronus says, and I run for him.
He’s looking into a closet in the hall. There’s a steel panel on the floor, bolted shut with a large padlock.
“Bolt cutters won’t work on that.”
“Wait,” Poseidon says, then starts pacing the floor.
He counts, then disappears down the stairs into the basement. He comes back upstairs moments later. “That’s into the area cut off in the basement.”
“He sealed her in a room?” Aries asks, and we all look at him. “I saw it on a mystery police procedural show once.”
“Get a torch. We aren’t going to be able to get through that lock.”
I call Totten. “Go to the nearest hardware store and buy an oxy-acetylene torch with all the fixings. We need the lock and plate cut.”
“On it.”
I watch the monitor, praying that’s my wife in that bed. I’m worried she’s already dead because I can’t see her moving.
An hour later, Totten walks in with Delphi helping him carry the equipment.
Hades gets pissed. “Stay by my side, goddess,” he orders her, and she reaches for his hand. He removes his glove to hold hers, and they stand there as Poseidon gets the torch started and cuts the plate away from the lock.
He shines a light down into a short space. “Well, I’m not taken, so I’ll go down there in case it’s booby-trapped. I’m also trained for close quarters like this.”
He climbs down the ladder, and I realize what the other ladder is for. I run back to the living room where I found it.
By the time I return, Poseidon hollers up. “Going in.”
He drops through a hatch that opens into the room below, and I hear screaming. Daphne. I climb down and drop into the room. My legs jar from the impact, but I don’t care.
“Little girl,” I say loudly.
“Dare,” she says, her voice the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.
In the beam of the flashlight, I watch her wobble toward me. I dive for her and pull her into my body. She’s sweaty, dirty, and stinky, but I don’t care. She’s in my arms.
“I thought he was coming to rape me. He said he wouldn’t because I’m pregnant, but I thought he changed his mind.” She sobs against me.
“He’ll never touch you again. He’s a dead man,” I swear as the guys lower a ladder down to us.
I carry her up on my back. Poseidon checks out the room and shakes his head.
Delphi runs for her as soon as we’re back up.
“How long have I been gone?” she asks.
“Three days. It’s Wednesday,” Delphi tells her, and we hold her between us.
“We need her to be seen by a doctor,” I finally say.
I lift her in my arms and carry her out of that place.
“Burn it to the ground,” I tell Cronus, and he nods.
She’ll never have to see that place or worry about going back there.