And once inside, I didn’t know how I’d find Cora. I’d been in there before, and the place was an enormous maze. She could be anywhere, held in any of the rooms, or maybe in some deep, specially-designed dungeon built expressly for keeping prisoners locked away. There were so many variables, all of them floating, all of them uncertain, but I saw a glimmer of hope—a small bit of possibility.
I could get my wife back, and I wasn’t going to let her go, not for anything.
For the first time in my life, I felt like something was right about Cora and me. I felt like the thing we’d been moving toward—love, or something like it—that thing could draw me away from all the nasty parts of my life, the parts that had sucked me deeper and deeper—the violence, the drugs, the extortion and worse. It wasn’t like I’d go straight for her, but maybe she could help me be a little bit less crooked, a little bit less raw.
First though, we had to plan.
And then, I’d have to put my life on the line for her, because if I got caught—they’d kill me, no questions asked.
But that was easy, because as far as I was concerned, I had no life so long as they had her.
When Aldrik returned with the drinks, I downed my first, leaned over toward my two men, and began to figure out my future.22CoraI jerked awake with crusty eyes and a pain in my ribs, and for a while I stared at the ceiling, wondering if I was happy that I woke up at all. I could hear sounds in the house—distant thumps, voices, footsteps, quiet things that indicated there was life around me—but my room was dim and dark and musty. My stomach rumbled and my lips were parched, and I didn’t want to move, didn’t want to think, didn’t want to breathe.
But my body forced me up and out of bed. I sipped water from the tap, used the toilet, and gingerly poked at the bruises on my body. Large yellow and black blooms covered my flank and I grimaced as I poked at my swollen right eye. Showering helped a little bit, but not very much, and I was forced to put on my blood-stained and dirty clothes again, since nothing new had been provided for me.
As I stepped back into the room, there was a knock on the door. I heard the door unlock and a man I didn’t recognize stepped inside. He placed a tray down on top of the dresser and tossed some clothes onto the bed. I wanted to say something to him, but he studiously ignored me, pretended like I wasn’t even there, and I figured he had orders not to talk to me.
The door shut and I was alone again.
I ate toast and eggs and drank some lukewarm coffee. I changed into fresh jeans and a sweatshirt, both a little too big, but there was a belt that managed to hold the pants up. I rolled the ankles and sat at the end of the bed and stared down at the empty tray on the floor, wondering what I was going to do with myself.
Vincent was going to kill me. There was almost no doubt in my mind that sooner or later, he’d kill me. I showed him that I wasn’t going to be his pawn and I wasn’t going to play by his rules—and if I couldn’t be trusted, couldn’t be turned into a useful tool of the family, then I might as well be eliminated.
One morning I’d wake up and he’d come for me, or send men for me, and I’d disappear.
Or I wouldn’t wake up—maybe he’d poison my food, and I’d die in a puddle of my own sick.
I glanced over at the spit and bloodstains on the carpet where I’d curled up in a ball after he beat me the night before. That was only the start of it, and if I couldn’t find some way to escape, or figure out a way to make myself useful—then he’d kill me, and that stain would be everything left of me.
Half the day passed. I lingered near the window staring outside at people as they walked along living their lives in freedom. I wondered how many of them had any clue was happening around them, what sort of pain was happening in the windows above their heads, but I knew the answer to that—it was none, no clue, because people never looked out beyond their own small worlds.
Around midday I heard the door unlock again. I expected more food, but instead Dante stepped inside and shut the door softly behind him. He stared at me and I flinched away as he took a step closer, wrapping my arms around myself, afraid that Vincent had sent him to finish the job.