With my brain shut down due to a lack of oxygen, I ask, “Then why haven’t you? It’s been almost a year.”
He must have a weird fascination for toying with his victims longer than necessary because I anticipated my question to increase the pressure he has on my neck, not weaken it. “My daughter has been gone longer than a year.” Although his hand remains curled around my throat, slithers of air still manage to make their way to my lungs. It’s only just enough to keep me conscious, but it’s better than being dead. “She was cut out of my wife’s stomach five days after she was kidnapped from the foyer of the Slice of Salt restaurant in New York.” When my pupils unwillingly dilate, the furious pulse shooting through his palm turns rampant. “Have you heard of that establishment before?”
Even aware I’m adding a nail to my coffin, I nod my head, the pain in his eyes too intense to ignore. My honesty awards me the ability to once again breathe. I gasp in hurried breaths to pacify the scream of my lungs before straying my eyes to the pained ones still glaring at me.
“I met my father in a watering hole next door to that restaurant once. It was after my grandfather passed away. I thought he wanted to get to know me a little better.” A flare I’ve never seen before darts through his eyes when I stammer out, “All he wanted to know was how much inheritance he was set to get from his father-in-law’s death. He didn’t care about me at all.” Disbelieving of fate, and stupidly curious, I ask, “What date was your wife taken?”
The air I’ve only just gulped down rushes back out when the blue-eyed man replies, “February twelve.”
“February twelve, last year?”
My throat works through a tough swallow when his twitching lips deliver his confirmation. He’s placed his puzzle together the wrong way. I’m not to blame for what happened to his wife. I was near the restaurant he mentioned to meet with my father. Agreeing to his request was the only stupid thing I did that day.
When I say that to the dark-haired stranger, the furl of his lips turns nasty. “You don’t have to whack someone across the temple with the butt of a gun to take part in their kidnapping.”
He adds evidence to his comment by splaying his hands across his body. I’m bound in his car, at his complete mercy, however if you exclude him testing the heartiness of my pulse, he hasn’t laid a hand on me.
“People can be manipulated in many ways. Take a pretty redhead on a corner with thick black tears streaming down her face. All it takes is for a man to glance her way for a second, and poof, his entire existence is snatched out from beneath him.”
The men seated beside me appear as shocked by his confession as me. They either didn’t know the part he played in his wife’s disappearance or they’re damn good actors. It may be a combination of both.
Desperate not to be punished for something I didn’t do, I mutter, “Just because you glanced my way that day doesn’t make me responsible for what happened.” I’d take the blame for what happened if his daughter was kidnapped while he watched my deplorable act in the alleyway, but this isn’t my fault. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Yes, you have.” His voice rises as rapidly as his anger. “You distracted me, you caught me off guard long enough for my enemies to get the better of me. That makes you responsible for Audrey’s disappearance.”
My retaliation is as loud as his, my determination just as robust. “I was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. I am not to blame.”
His hot breaths hit my lips when he snarls, “Confessing your lack of judgment is the only way I’ll offer you any type of leniency. It’ll do you best to remember that.”
The anger surging through causes my usual levelheadedness to go askew. “Leniency for a crime I didn’t commit, for a kidnapping I had nothing to do with. How can you expect me to confess to something I didn’t do?”
“You distracted me—”
“Because you couldn’t keep your eyes on your wife. That isn’t my fault!”
He recoils like my words slapped him hard across the face. It’s clear he feels guilt about his wife’s kidnapping, but that doesn’t mean he’ll go easy on me. I’ll have to work for every leniency I want him to give me.
“If I hadn’t looked at you, my wife wouldn’t be dead. If I hadn’t stopped to find you, my daughter would be here. You’re responsible for everything that has happened.” His voice cools to that of a madman before he adds, “And I’m done playing nice.”
“Dimitri…”
I don’t get the chance to register the shock of learning my attacker’s name. I’m too busy staring into Dimitri’s soulless eyes, wordlessly begging for him not to shoot me with the gun he butts up against my temple.
I’m not a parent, so I’ll never fully understand what he’s going through, but I’ve often wondered what it would feel like to have a father who’d protect me no matter what. In my eyes, Dimitri’s daughter is lucky, but she won’t be if Dimitri doesn’t learn to focus his anger on those deserving of his wrath.
When I say that to Dimitri, he cocks back the hammer on his gun. I’m about to die, and the man who brought me to ecstasy more times in my dreams than any man in real life is my executioner.
Chapter Fourteen
Dimitri
My back molars crunch together when Rocco fists my dress shirt so firmly, two of its buttons pop. I have a gun in my hand, and the itch to kill is skating through my veins. He’s a fool to fuck with me now. Someone is about to die, and it’s a very close call on who the departed will be.
“Listen,” Rocco demands my devotion with an authority I didn’t realize he held. “She’s telling the truth.” He squashes my cell phone under my ear like I’m hard of hearing before requesting for Smith to repeat what he said.
“You’re right. Roxanne was near the Slice of Salt the day Audrey was taken.” The sheen in Roxanne’s eyes doubles when he adds, “She paid the tab for the whiskeys her father had in an establishment next door before she arrived on an almost maxed-out credit card.”
Even not knowing Roxanne any better than a hooker on a corner, I’m aware Smith is telling the truth. Shame was the first thing that darted through Roxanne’s eyes when Smith’s words reached her ears. It was quickly chased by regret.
“But she left minutes before Audrey was spotted on surveillance being guided out the back entrance. She hasn’t been back there since, and there’s no chatter of any kind on her social media accounts or messenger apps. It truly seems as if she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Even though Smith can’t see me, I shake my head. “There are too many incidents to discount.” My gun is directed at Roxanne’s head, but I act as if she’s invisible. It annoys her more than anything. “She’s popped up too many times for any of this to be a coincidence.”
With my anger at a point it can’t be contained, I push Rocco off me before sinking back into my seat opposite Roxanne’s. The barrel of my gun is still aimed her way, but I’ll have to pop a bullet through my second-in-charge if I want to take her down.