With This Secret

“What?”

They looked at me, and then at themselves as no more information seemed to be available.

“You said she was the one who called the ambulance right?”

“Yes sir,” he replied.

“And they couldn’t detect what was wrong with her even after she arrived at the hospital?”

“She couldn’t speak, so the doctor couldn’t help her.”

“Hmm.” I pulled out my phone and called her number, but she had either switched it off or her battery had died. I was guessing it was the former.

If he got a hold of her, it was over. He would hurt her in a way that she would never be able to recover from. Horrible pain struck me at the possibility … I couldn’t breathe.

I tried once again to reach her and when the message that her phone had been turned off was repeated to me, I stopped trying. I paused and thought hard about this.

Obviously, Bogdan didn’t have her yet or he would have called to gloat.

Why did she run though?

She would only have put herself in danger if she was threatened or wanted to do something to save her father or … I thought back to the house and recalled the open door to my study … the video on the computer.

Damn! I dialed Alex.

“Put the girl on the phone,” I said.

“Yes, Boss.”

“Hey, Levan,” Aldie answered a few seconds later.

“Did Bianca try to reach you?”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t have any idea where my phone is.”

“Fuck,” I swore under my breath.

I ended the call and called Maxim. “I need to know where Bogdan is right now. I think … Bianca saw the video in the study and might be going to him to save her friend.”

“I don’t know where he is,” he said coldly. “If I knew then why the fuck would I have gone to the mart?”

“Then how did you know her friend was there?”

“I didn’t. Bogdan was spotted there but he took off before we got there. We missed him and now, no one knows where he has crawled into. Until he pokes his miserable head out again his whereabouts are anybody’s guess.”

“I need to find him,” I snarled.

“Forget about him,” he said. “We have bigger problems. The Solicitor General’s office just announced an emergency news conference in forty-five minutes. So you need to make a decision, right now. I’m giving you that courtesy at least. Who am I going to take out?”

I couldn’t say a word.

At my silence, he went on, “Either Sarah Dale is silenced before that conference, or I contact Bogdan and offer the girl up on a platter.”

I remained silent because he knew my answer.

He ended the call.

28

Bianca

I thought of how to reach Bogdan.

My dad would probably know, but he had conveniently disappeared. The only other person who could reach Bogdan …I couldn’t speak to.

My chest ached at the thought of the man I was walking away from. My eyes stung and filled with tears, but I blinked them away furiously. This was neither the time nor the place.

Currently, I sat outside the 7-Eleven I had managed to walk to. I thought hard on what to do, my nerves sizzling at the thought of how Aldie was losing time. What if Levan had found her?

My heart skipped at the possibility. I looked at my dead phone, then glimpsed for the umpteenth time into the convenience store.

I rose to my feet and made my way into the store.

I didn’t have a single dime on me, so my only hope was the cashier would overlook my lack of a purchase and help me.

The man behind the counter had ginger hair and comically large ears. He was munching quite loudly on a bag of chips as he watched the news on the small television by his side.

I approached him with a massive smile on my face.

His eyes narrowed at my suspiciously positive approach. He sent me a tight-lipped smile in response and went back to his news until I reached him.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Bianca and I um … I have a huge favor to ask of you.”

“Look, I’m just the cashier, so I’m not authorized to give anybody store credit. The manager won’t get here until this evening, and there’s a surveillance camera up there watching you,” he said in a bored tone, his gaze still on the news.

I brought out my phone. “Can I borrow your charger for just a few minutes? It’s an emergency and I need to call someone to come pick me up.”

He looked from me, to my dead phone, and back to me. “I don’t use that. I have an iPhone.”

I looked at the Samsung in my hands and I was about to ask to borrow his phone when the news coming from his TV grabbed my attention.

There was a room of reporters and cameras and the breaking headlines underneath read: