Текст книги "Transcending Darkness"
Автор книги: Airicka Phoenix
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 27 (всего у книги 36 страниц)
“That I’d hurt her,” he finished for her.
Vi nodded. “Juliette wouldn’t just disappear. She’d never leave me. Something happened to her.”
Killian began to promise he’d find her. No matter what he had to do or who he had to kill, he would bring Juliette home when Frank stalked into the room, his phone in hand.
“Sir, no one’s seen her. I’ve called her work and she’s missed three days.”
The sour taste of rotten milk filled his throat, making him want to throw up where he stood. But he held firm. Juliette needed him to keep it together. He needed to find her.
“Track the GPS in the car or her phone,” he ordered. “Call whoever you need to get the—”
Frank shifted. “That won’t work, sir. Miss Romero didn’t take the car or the phone when she left here the other night.”
Killian stiffened. “What?”
“She didn’t take—”
“I heard you!” he snapped. “How did she get home?”
A muscle tightened in Frank’s jaw. “I suppose she walked, sir. I offered to have someone drive her, but she insisted.”
“It was below zero degrees that night.” Each word ripped through his tightly clenched teeth as fury and panic wound tight inside him. “She could be dead along the side of the road for all we know.”
Frank said nothing, but Vi gasped. Her hands shot to her mouth to stifle the sound, but it was too late.
Killian ignored her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Tension wove across the other man’s shoulders. “I tried, sir. You asked me never to speak of her again.”
He remembered Frank’s insistence that night. It was the first time in years the man had ever vehemently insisted to be heard despite being told to stop. Killian wanted to kick himself.
“Find her,” he continued in the same sharp tone. “Even if you have to knock on every door in the city, find her, Frank. Bring her back!”
With a deep inclination of his head, Frank turned and hurried from the room. Killian stood watching the spot the man had occupied with his heart in his throat and his stomach somewhere between his ankles. Haunting images of Juliette frozen to death somewhere alongside the road, hidden beneath a mound of snow hurled into his gut, making him nearly double over.
“What did he mean you told him not to speak of her again?” Vi demanded.
He’d almost forgotten about the girl. “I have work that requires—”
Vi was out of her seat in a flash and hurrying to block his path. “Work? Seriously? You’re the last person to see my sister alive and you’re concerned about your stupid work? She could be dead and … do you even care?”
“Of course I care!” The words ripped free of him in a growl that widened her eyes. “I’ve never cared more about anything than I do about your sister. I would easily give my life for hers, but if I continue to stand here and think of her out there hurt or worse, I will lose my fucking mind, do you understand me?”
The smooth column of her throat bobbed. She nodded. She didn’t stop him when he edged around her and stalked from the room. The front doors were closed, but there were men inside and out cleaning the mess Vi had made. Killian couldn’t even bring himself to be upset about that. He didn’t care about a few pieces of broken glass when Juliette had been gone for three days and he hadn’t known. Three fucking days.
A second set of feet behind him had him glancing back. He blinked in surprise to find Vi following him upstairs.
“What are you doing?”
It was her turn to look bemused. “Until Juliette’s brought home, I’m not leaving your side,” she stated simply. “I go where you go.”
He opened his mouth, decided against speaking, closed it, and kept walking. Vi followed.
In his office, he went straight for his window. Vi took a seat in one of the chairs facing his desk and waited. Neither of them spoke and he’d never been so relieved.
The moment didn’t last.
“What did you do?” the girl asked.
Killian forced his gaze away from the swaying treetops. “What?”
“To Juliette,” Vi explained. “What did you do to her?”
It was on the edge of his nerves to tell her to mind her own business, to even be offended that she would assume he would ever do anything to hurt Juliette. But he had. He had hurt her. He’d deliberately and maliciously hit her where he knew it would wound her the most. Did it matter that he’d done it to protect her? Did it matter that he’d had her best intentions at heart? Did it matter that he would give his soul to have her back with him? She was gone. She’d been gone for days and he’d done nothing. If she was lost somewhere in the snow, he’d had two days to find her, to save her, and he hadn’t. If she was…
“The hospitals!” he blurted, more to himself than Vi. “Did you—”
“Of course I did,” Vi muttered. “I’m not an idiot. I called the hospitals, the police, the hotel. I even called Uncle Jim.”
That knowledge made him pause. “You have an Uncle Jim?”
Vi nodded. “He’s Dad’s brother. He has a farm out in Alberta.”
The way Juliette had gone on, he’d assumed it was just her and Vi in the world.
“Why didn’t he…?”
Vi arched an eyebrow. “Take us in when we had no one?” she finished for him, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “None of them did. Dad owed them too much money. They weren’t going to add to that debt by taking on his kids. Thank God Juliette was eighteen when Dad finally died, otherwise we’d both probably be lost in the system or something. Uncle Jim was the only one that sort of offered, but he’s a total pervert. Likes little girls. Not that anyone in the family would ever say it out loud. Juliette refused.” She shook her head. “Anyway, what did you do to Juliette? Why did she leave?”
Killian turned back to the window, unable to keep looking into those golden eyes. “Because I told her to. It was the only way I knew how to keep her safe.”
“Safe from what?”
“Me.”
“Sir.”
Frank appeared in the doorway, his movement hurried. He was breathing hard like he’d ran all the way there. Every hard bulge of muscle was rigid, as tense as the muscles on his face. In his hand was a yellow envelope.
Killian’s entire world jittered, going in and out of focus between black and white and color. The room shifted between present and past as he remembered being ten and standing where Vi was, watching as Frank brought that same yellow envelope to his father. Then the room was back and Vi was on her feet and Frank was watching Killian with the same grim expression he’d given all those years ago.
“No…”
Vi, as white as the snow outside the window, peered from one to the other with the frantic desperation of a spooked rabbit. Her hands were shaking as they lifted and clapped over her mouth.
“What?” Her voice wobbled. “What is it?”
Frank never looked away from Killian. “What would you like me to do, sir?”
Burn it! Break it! He wanted to scream. Destroy it. It couldn’t be true if no one saw it. But he knew it didn’t work that way. Things weren’t less true just because he wished it.
“Sir?”
No. No. God, no he couldn’t. Not again.
“Is it about Juliette?” Vi demanded of Frank. “Is it a ransom demand? I’m calling the police—”
In five long strides, Frank was next to the girl. Her phone was taken from her before the numbers could be dialed.
“Give that back!” Vi screamed at him. “We have to call the police!”
“They can’t help her,” Frank told her calmly, but with stern authority.
Tears rained along her cheeks, looking silver in the light. Her brown eyes went from Frank to Killian and hardened. She flew at him, hands fisted. With a shriek, she slammed both into his chest.
“Find her! Find her!” Every scream was followed by another crack of her fists raining down on Killian’s chest, his shoulders, arms and even his face. He felt none of it. “You did this! This is your fault!”
Frank pulled her off, kicking and screaming loud enough to bring the house down. Killian stayed frozen in his own nightmare as the girl was hauled from the room. He had no idea what happened next, but the floor was suddenly beneath his hands and knees and everything he’d eaten that day, which thankfully wasn’t much, came up with a violence that took bits of his stomach lining with it. Hot and cold waves rushed along the heaving curve of his spine, plastering his top to his back. Sweat dampened his temples and rolled into his already burning eyes and still the attacks continued.
Another scream echoed, one that only he could hear. The high pitched wail of his mother, begging her captors to stop. The shriek of her pain as they’d carved into her, as they’d taken turns doing things no one should ever have to endure. Those images had come in an envelope just like the one Frank was bringing to him now.
“It’s not possible,” he wheezed. “It’s not possible.”
Frank’s large, capable hands tucked beneath his arms and Killian was lifted to his feet. He was taken to his chair and seated. Frank left his side and returned a moment later with a damp washcloth. Killian used it to wipe his face and mouth.
“It’s not possible,” he said again, slightly calmer. “I killed them. I killed all of them. There was no one left.” He raised his eyes to the other man. “I left no one, Frank.”
“Perhaps someone—”
Killian shook his head. “No, no, it’s not possible. It’s not…” A sound between a sob and a groan left him. “They have Juliette. God, they have her.”
He felt sick all over again. More images he’d fought and buried for the last twenty two years rode over him, digging talons and barbs into his soul. Images of the bright afternoon his father’s scream had woken him from a fitful slumber, of running downstairs only to be grabbed by Frank, but not soon enough to be saved the sight of his mother’s bloody, broken, and naked body cradled in his father’s lap. That would be Juliette. He would wake in the wee hours of the morning to find her…
“Sir!” Frank’s sharp commanding voice spiked through the vortex Killian had been steadily sinking into. It shattered through the choppy film of his past and brought him slamming back into a cold reality he wanted nothing to do with. “May I suggest you watch the video? It’s only the first.”
Not many would understand that. Telling someone it was the first torture video in a long line of more to come wasn’t a comfort. But Killian understood. His mother’s video hadn’t been more than her sitting in front of the camera as a male voice warned of her fate. She’d been so pale. Her dark hair had been in tangles, but it was her eyes that had held so much defiance. She had been the picture of calm.
The first video was a lie to lure him into believing he stood a chance at saving her, just like his father had. But it would still assure him she was safe, even if it was temporary.
Frank tore the envelope open. Killian didn’t watch. He stared at the mountain of papers across his desk, but the sound made him flinch. His fingers creaked around the facecloth. Frank inserted the disk into the driver and the video automatically began playing.
Juliette, wearing the same clothes he’d seen her in last, sat on a metal chair. A concrete wall, one that could be found in just about any basement, stood at her back. Her blonde hair was matted and hung around her drawn face. There was a gash on her lower lip that he recognized as self-inflected. Harsh beams of light blazed down on her with a ferocity that made her squint against it.
“Now!” a voice hissed off camera.
Juliette blinked a few times and struggled to focus. “My name is Juliette Romero,” she began, her voice weak and hoarse. “And I am … what does that say?”
The camera gave a shudder.
“Uninjured!” the same gruff voice hissed.
Juliette gave a small nod. “And I am uninjured, for now. I have not been mistreated. I am given food and … water?”
“Yes!”
“Water. But all of that can change if you don’t find me.”
The screen went dark.
Neither Killian nor Frank moved, not even when the video started from the beginning on a loop. He watched it run through twice more before turning it off. He pulled the CD out of the drive, set it gently back in its plastic case and held it out to Frank.
“Find someone who can tear that apart and tell me everything about it,” he ordered. “I want to know what camera was used, when, where, and by whom.”
Frank took the video.
Unlike his mother’s abduction, Killian had technology on his side. He would track that mother fucker to the ends of the earth.
Chapter 24
“Mar?”
The iron bars bit into Juliette’s shoulder and mashed into the side of her face and still she was no closer to reaching the other woman lying on her side. She managed to graze the very tip of her middle finger the calf of Maraveet’s right leg, but they had deliberately placed her too far, too far for Juliette to do anything besides trying desperately to somehow squeeze through the bars.
She knew the woman was alive. Her back would shudder occasionally, slight convulsions that were followed by a dry, rattling sound of someone with pneumonia. They’d taken Juliette’s watch, so she couldn’t even say for sure if it had been minutes or hours since they’d hauled Maraveet through the door and down the stairs. They hadn’t even been gentle about it. The two men had lugged her between them and then dumped her without care across the floor of her cell. They hadn’t even looked at Juliette and had ignored her when she’d tried to ask them for water.
“Mar, please wake up,” she begged, unashamed that her voice was a weak, shaky plea.
The days and nights in that place varied. It was impossible to tell without windows or even a watch, but Juliette knew it had been days, possibly weeks since their capture. It was the third day of Maraveet’s beatings, or it was all in a single day, evenly spaced out. She had no idea. But it was the third time they’d pulled the woman from her cage, forcibly marched her upstairs in one piece and brought her back in several.
Psychological torture. Maraveet had warned her they would try that, but she hadn’t said just how awful it would be to witness. The guilt was overwhelming. The need to do something was suffocating. Juliette couldn’t even pretend to be brave when she knew that at any moment, some asshole would thunder down the stairs, snatch Maraveet up, and take off with her to do God knew what all to get Juliette to talk. She wasn’t sure what they thought she knew, but she wasn’t wholly certain she wouldn’t tell them if they asked, which they hadn’t. They hadn’t called her back since the video session. They hadn’t asked her anything, yet they continued to terrorize them. Well, her mostly. Maraveet seemed highly unconcerned about the entire thing, like somehow they were intruding on her personal time. The woman had guts to spare. Juliette envied that, but more than anything, she needed it to motivate herself to keep going.
“He’s coming,” Maraveet kept insisting whenever Juliette began to feel herself slipping. “Just hang on.”
She never asked who he was, but she knew. It could be no one else, except, if Killian was coming, he was taking his damn time.
“Maraveet!” She raised her voice to a sharp whisper that seemed much louder in the metal box.
“Stop shouting,” came a low, raspy grumble. Maraveet’s left foot twitched. “I’m trying to sleep.”
Relief surged through her and she let her arm lower. The cold metal kissed her brow as she lowered her head and murmured a prayer of thanks.
“Are you all right? How bad is it?”
“Bad,” the other woman groaned. “They haven’t got any tea at all. Savages.”
“Don’t joke,” Juliette begged. “I thought they’d killed you this time.”
“They’re not going to kill me.” Her back rose and shuddered all the way down. “They need me to make you squirm, so stop squirming. I’ve felt worse.”
Juliette never knew what to say or think when Maraveet spoke like that. She wasn’t sure if the woman was just trying to make her feel better or if she meant it. She had a feeling the latter. She had learned enough about Maraveet to put the pieces together.
“Like what?” she blurted, needing the other woman to keep talking, to stay awake. “What do you do?”
Maraveet’s shoulders trembled. For a moment, Juliette thought she was coughing or having some kind of fit. But she was laughing.
“Haven’t figured it out yet?”
Juliette shuffled back and settled herself in the corner where the bars met the wall. “I’ve guessed you’re some kind of collector.”
The laughter was more pronounced when Maraveet spoke. “A collector. I like that. I suppose it’s close enough.” She exhaled. “I’m an obtainer. I obtain things for people who can afford my services.”
“You’re a smuggler.”
She made an almost purring sound. “No, I merely retrieve the item. The smuggling gets handled by someone else.”
Juliette thought about that a moment. “How did you get into something like that?”
“Family business,” Maraveet said without pause. “My parents were obtainers. Well, my father was. My mother was the one who did the smuggling. It was how they met.”
Juliette raised an eyebrow. “How romantic.”
“He loved her though,” Maraveet went on, quieter now. “Said it never made sense how someone so small could be so dangerous. I was seven when they died. The last thing they ever said to me was, Be a good girl for your aunt and uncle, Mara. Mommy and Daddy will be home before you know it. Never saw them again. But I had Killian’s parents and I loved them just as much so it wasn’t too bad. Callum ran my father’s company until the day I was old enough to take over.”
“How did your parents know each other?” she asked.
Maraveet grunted as she tried to shift into a more comfortable position. “Callum’s family has always been in the import-export business. They own several large ports over land, sea, and air. My mother used to use him to move things. Somehow, she met Saoirse McClary and the two became best friends.”
Juliette peered down at her knees. She drew them up and wound her arms around them.
“What’s your sister like?” Maraveet asked.
“I honestly don’t know,” Juliette said softly. “I spent the better part of sixteen years wishing she didn’t exist.”
“Why?”
Juliette picked at the fur around the tops of her boots. “Because I was an awful person before my mom died. Actually, I was an awful person even after she died, but before that, it was all about me. For seven years, I was the center of my parent’s world and I loved it. When Vi was born, I hated her for taking the spotlight away. I was terrible to her. Never gave her the time of day. When Mom got sick, I couldn’t deal with it. I couldn’t be anywhere near her while she deteriorated and faded away. I started to spend all my time with my friends and my boyfriend. I stayed away from home as much as possible, never realizing that Dad was doing the same, leaving Vi alone to take care of Mom during some of the worst of it. By the time I realized we were losing Dad too, Mom was in the hospital. I left school, got a job, and continued to stay as far away from Vi and Dad and home as possible.”
“Why?” The question was asked so low, Juliette almost didn’t hear it.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I guess a part of me hated her for not having to deal with any of the stuff I did. She was just some kid. She didn’t understand. But I was now responsible for her so I did what I thought she needed, a home, food, clothes … school. I worked and tried to keep us surviving day by day. Then Dad was killed and Arlo showed up on our front porch, so I did what I thought was right and protected her from it. When she started acting out, I thought she was just being a spoiled little bitch, ungrateful and just…” she trailed off, shaking her head. “It never dawned on me that maybe she was just lonely and acting out was the only way she could get my attention.” She paused to give a quiet chuckle. “I don’t even know what kind of person that makes me.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Maraveet murmured quietly. “It’s what you do after this that makes the difference.”
Juliette snorted to distract herself from the lump in her throat. “You mean if we ever get out of here?”
“We will,” Maraveet said with that same unwavering confidence. “I know my brother and I know he won’t ever stop looking for you.”
Juliette shook her head. “I don’t know. He made it very clear that I wasn’t anything more than a passing amusement.”
“He gave you his mother’s pendent,” Maraveet cut in. “Do you think he gives that kind of stuff away to just anyone?”
Instinctively, her hand went to the bare skin at her throat and her throat muscles tightened even further.
“He said such terrible things,” she whispered.
Maraveet sighed. “Probably to keep you from falling into this sort of situation,” she mumbled. “He knew you wouldn’t leave otherwise.”
He would have been right, Juliette thought miserably. She would have stayed with him forever if he’d asked her to.
Juliette opened her mouth to tell the other woman as much when the door opened with a distinct pop of air pressure being released. The sound never failed to close abusive hands around her throat. Her spine prickled with awareness and she edged even closer to the wall.
In the cage over, Maraveet never moved. She didn’t speak either. Juliette wondered if her eyes were open, but couldn’t bring herself to care as scuffed boots began their descent. Jean clad legs appeared, then the wiry build of the man who brought them food. There was no tray in his grasp, which usually meant he’d been sent to retrieve one of them. Juliette prayed it wouldn’t be Maraveet. They’d only just brought her back.
The man was younger than the others. Clean cut and dressed in jeans and a black sweater, he could have passed for handsome or mildly attractive in that unmemorable sort of way. He wasn’t someone she would offer a second glance, but compared to the other three men, he was practically a model with his shortly cropped cap of sandy brown hair and matching eyes. At his hip, the keyring jingled with every cruel stride forward.
“Boss wants to see you,” he said, stopping at Juliette’s door and idly flipping through the ring. He found the key he was looking for and jammed it into the lock. “Got big plans.”
The bar door swung open and he stepped aside in clear indication. Juliette shuffled to her feet. She cast a nervous glance towards Maraveet, who hadn’t moved a muscle before edging her way towards the man waiting. He said nothing, but he grabbed her arm once she was close enough, even though she wasn’t struggling. Juliette practically had to run to keep up.
The change never failed to disorientate her. It was an entirely different world from the one she’d been held captive in. Topside, everything was bright and beautiful. The colors were vibrant, the textures intense and captivating, a huge difference from the dull steel she was quickly becoming accustomed to. But it was the smell that made Juliette want to cry. It was the crisp scent of winter, the decadent aroma of warm, melted butter and fried meat lathered in spices and clean. God, it smelled so clean. Yet despite all that, she would rather be in the cage with Maraveet—or home—than be upstairs with men who eyed her as though she were a prized cattle for the slaughter. Their attention crawled along her grimy skin, making her want to dive back downstairs and lock herself in. Her captor’s grip on her elbow tightened. Maybe he sensed her desires.
She was propelled across the plush carpet to the sitting area made up just beneath the spiraling stairs. The two sofas and two arm chairs cluttered the space, but no one seemed to mind. Four figures were already there, waiting for her. Juliette had eyes for only one.
“Hello Juliette.”
The voice was as soft and beautiful as its owner. Juliette didn’t recognize him. He barely looked out of his early twenties with skin so white, he could almost be translucent and hair the downy white-gold of corn silk. It framed an elven face with a tapered chin and high cheekbones and lidded eyes the crystal blue of a clear, summer sky. He reminded her of an animation, too perfect to be real, too clean. Way too clean to be sitting surrounded by men who looked like they couldn’t tell a bar of soap from a brick. Every line was flawlessly proportioned. He had the slender build of a pubescent child draped in an expensive suit the exact metallic gray as the sheets bolted around her cage. There was a baby pink dress shirt beneath the blazer and white loafers on his feet. She could just make out a hint of skin between the hem and the expensive bit of leather to notice he wasn’t wearing socks. He sat regally with long legs crossed beneath a gold halo of the light spilling from above. In the surrounding darkness, he could have passed for an angel.
Eyes hooded lazily from a face lax with comfort lifted and fixed on her with that same arrogant, amused glint he’d given her the first time.
“How are you?”
People like him and Arlo liked asking that question when they knew perfectly well that they were the ones inflicting the pain and hearing it made them feel powerful and in control. She also knew that he didn’t really care one way or another how she really was. She opted to say nothing at all.
True to her assumption, he carried on without a response from her.
“I truly feel terrible for putting you through all this. It wasn’t like you asked for it.” His head bent ever so slightly to the side, knocking a wisp of baby-fine hair across his brow. “Or perhaps you did in a roundabout way. How does that saying go? You’re judged by your bedmates?” He waved a pale, dainty hand. Light caught the clear coating on his neatly manicured nails and glinted. “Something like that.”
“I don’t know anything,” Juliette blurted, unable to hold her tongue any longer. “I would tell you if I did.”
He smiled beautifully, all pearly white teeth and a tiny dimple against his left cheek. “I know you would,” he soothed the way one would pacify a small child. “I know you would tell me whatever I wanted to know, because, unlike your friend, you’re not strong, are you, Juliette? You’re not a fighter.”
While perfectly true, Juliette inwardly winced at the verbal slap. The fact that he knew that about her from the single conversation they’d had made her feel beaten and ashamed.
Juliette had always tried to be brave. She had fought to keep Arlo away from Vi, she had struggled to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. She had done so unwaveringly for seven years. Before that, she’d had an entire high school to deal with, which most days felt like the greatest challenge of her life. Yet none of that had prepared her for being kidnapped by human traffickers. There was a unique sort of fear that came with being at the absolute mercy of someone without a conscious.
“Is that why you’re hurting her?” she forced herself to ask. “So she doesn’t fight?”
“More so she doesn’t cause any problems,” he corrected. “Just a little sedation technique. But that isn’t why I asked you here. I need you to make me another video.”
Automatically, Juliette’s gaze jumped to the corner of the ship, the cramped square of space housing a clunky camera on a tripod. It faced a fabric curtain depicting a concrete wall and a metal chair. Behind the camera was a set of construction floodlights and a table harboring a laptop. Her skin prickled just from the mere memory of having their beams burning into her.
“Who are you sending the videos to?” she asked, hoping to prolong having to sit in that chair. “Is it to Killian?”
“Not any of your concern, is it? Just be a good girl and make my video. When you’re finished, I’ve got a surprise for you.”
Whatever it was, she didn’t want it. She started to tell him as much when her elbow was captured in a bruising vice and she was forcibly twisted around. Her struggles proved futile when she was shoved into the seat with enough push to send the legs teetering backwards. Juliette flailed as she struggled not to get thrown. The floodlights were snapped on. The bulbs behind the glass hummed as the wires blazed to life. The burn scorched into her skin. She could feel her pupils shrinking to pinpricks. She winced, but could do nothing more than sit there as her guard prepared.
Like the last time, two of the men started the show. One clicked on the laptop while the other maneuvered the camera. He was also the one in charge of the cue cards.
“Just like last time,” he told her as he stepped over the tripod legs and ducked behind the camera. “Read the cards.”
Someone else must have written them, she realized with some relief. The old set had barely been legible. The words had been sloppy, misspelled, and some of the letters had been backwards. It was the workings of a six year old.
The little red light just beneath the fat lens blinked on. Her guard adjusted the lever, getting the camera angle just right before poking his head around and giving her the nod.
“Go!”
Juliette took a deep breath and started. “My name is Juliette Romero and I have not been injured. Not yet. But my time is running out. If you ever wish to see me alive again, I will be waiting for you under the golden arches.”
The guard hit the switch and the red light flicked off. The flood lights were shut off next, leaving little bulbs popping across Juliette’s vision. She stumbled as she got awkwardly to her feet. The cords and wires bunched around her feet caught her ankle and her guard caught her before she could take the camera down. She was returned before the assembly. The computer guy remained behind to put her video together and ready to send.
“Beautifully done,” Man-Child praised. “You’re a natural.” His subtle mockery toyed at the corners of his thin mouth. “I think you’ve earned your treat.”
“Why are you doing this?” Juliette demanded. “Who are you?”
“I am Cyril Konstantinov,” he replied without a second of hesitation. “But we will save the reason you are here for another day.”
With a curt bob of his head, he motioned to the man on Juliette’s left. The man rose and ambled to the compartment door without a word. Juliette watched with growing panic as he flicked the switch cleverly disguised as a strip of paneling and disappeared down the stairs. Concern for Maraveet had Juliette starting after him. She got two steps only to have her arm grabbed by her guard. He smirked, clearly amused by her unease. His dark eyes burned into hers with the same sick pleasure as the others.
