Vice(33)

I’m on the ground floor, when I hear a muffled scraping sound behind me. At first I think it’s my imagination, heightened by the stress of the situation, but then I hear the sound of quiet, even breathing and I know I’m being watched. Harrison? Maybe Ocho? God knows how many people Fernando has in his employ; it could be any one of those f*ckers. I duck to the right, slipping into a shadowed doorway. I have no idea where the door leads, and I don’t find out. I press my back against the wall, opening and closing the door loudly enough that whoever is hanging back in the hallway will think I have walked through, and then I wait.

One, two, three, four, five…

A slender shadow stretches up along the other side of the doorframe, and then suddenly a figure is standing there, dressed all in black, with a huge, menacing knife in their hand. Scratch that—it’s not a knife. It’s a motherf*cking machete, and it’s about to come down on my head. I react, blocking the blow, sending the blade clattering from my attacker’s hand.

“Shit,” he swears under his breath. I grab hold of him by the throat, slamming him into the wall, lifting him a clear foot off the ground as I pin him to the wall.

“Shit’s right, motherf*cker. You’re in it up to your neck now.” I pull back my arm, ready to hammer the point of my own flick knife into his throat, when I see freckles, a f*ck load of them, and I squint a little closer into the darkness.

“Natalia?”

“Let me…go!” She kicks and scratches, using her fingernails, digging them into my skin. I barely feel a thing, but in the same vein I know she’s leaving a mark on me.

“Quit it,” I snap. “Damn it, Natalia. Be f*cking quiet!” That’s a stupid thing to demand of her, I’m sure—she’s going to be yelling for her father the moment I set her down—but I demand it anyway. Then again…I’m not squeezing her throat hard enough to prevent her from screaming, and she hasn’t done it yet. What does that mean? Why isn’t she making more noise than she is right now? I clamp a hand over her mouth, pressing my body against hers so my chest is pinning her to the wall and not my hand wrapped around her throat.

I can feel her tits crushed up against my chest, and it’s almost enough to make my dick hard, especially since she’s still clawing and scratching at me like a hellcat. “Let me go, cabron! I need…I need to f*cking talk to you.”

“About what?”

“My father.”

“So talk. You can do that just fine right here. Is he planning on killing me?”

“Yes. But then he’s planning on killing everyone here at some point or another, so…don’t take it personally.”

“That might be difficult. I like being alive.”

“Then you should leave here. Right now. And don’t come back. Forget about the drugs. Forget about Plato. Get on your bike and go. Don’t look back.”

That’s probably very sound advice, but I’ve been on this road for so long now. I have no idea how to turn away from it. I haven’t got the faintest clue where I would go if I walked away from this lead. “I can’t do that, Natalia. I have to see this thing through.”

She huffs, pulling at the hand I have wrapped around her neck, trying to force me to release my hold. I have more strength in my little finger than she does in both arms, though, so she doesn’t get very far. She gives up, allowing her arms to fall slack. “You’re not as smart as you think you are,” she tells me. “You think I don’t know why you’re really here?”

I scan her face, looking for some sign that she’s grasping at straws, simply trying to get me to back off, but all I find is wildfire burning in her eyes. She’s defiant and angry. If looks could kill, I’d already be six feet under. “What do you mean, why I’m really here?” I demand.

“I knew as soon as I laid eyes on you, Cade. She told me you’d come for her one day, and I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe for one second anybody would ever be so stupid.”

It feels like an invisible hand is clenching hold of my heart. I narrow my eyes, trying to steady my breathing, but I feel like I’m about to f*cking lose it. “Who? Who told you I’d come for them?”

Natalia grits her teeth together, scowling at me. “Who do you think? Your sister. Laura told me that you’d come. Now get your f*cking hands off me so we can talk.”





******





“She’s dead.”

Natalia doesn’t pull any punches. She just comes straight out with it. We’re sitting at a counter in the kitchen—Natalia insists there are no cameras in here—and she’s brewing tea. Her machete sits on the counter beside the kettle. Neither of us wants or needs the tea, but this way we have an excuse for being in here if we’re found. “She was here for years. I’m not supposed to get friendly with any of the girls who show up here and get transported up into that room, but she was here for so long that it seemed inevitable. During the times when there were no guests at the house, no parties being held, my father sometimes lets the men and women from the blue room read in the library. Laura and I would meet there and talk. I wanted to know about the States, because…well, because I don’t know anything about my mother. I don’t know anything about where she came from. And Laura told me about you. From the very first time we spoke, she insisted you were going to come and get her.”