“Alessia.” I crash through the front door and don’t bother with the lift. Leaving Caroline at the foot of the stairs, I race up all six flights to my flat. When I unlock the door, the alarm starts beeping, confirming the worst of my fears.
Alessia is not here.
I silence the alarm and listen, hoping beyond hope that I have this wrong. Of course I hear nothing except the wind rattling the skylight in the hallway and my blood pulsing through my ears.
Frantically I start running through each room, my imagination shifting into overdrive. They have her. They have her again. My sweet, brave woman. What will those monsters do to her? Her clothes are not in my bedroom. Nor the spare room…
In the kitchen I find her keys and the note.
Mister Maxim
My betrothed is here and he is taking me to my home in Albania.
Thank you for everything.
Alessia
“No!” I scream, overwhelmed by my despair. Picking up the phone, I hurl it at the wall. It shatters into pieces as I sink to the floor, my head in my hands.
For the second time in less than a week, I want to cry.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Maxim, what the fuck is going on?”
I take my head out of my hands, and Caroline is standing at the doorway. She looks windswept and unkempt, but calmer than she did a few minutes ago.
“He’s taken her.” My voice is hoarse as I struggle to control my rage and despair.
“Who has?”
“Her fiancé.”
“Alessia has a fiancé?”
“It’s complicated.”
She folds her arms and frowns, with what seems like genuine concern. “You look shattered.”
I turn blazing eyes at her. “I am.” Slowly I get to my feet. “I think the woman I want to marry has just been kidnapped.”
“Marry?” Caroline blanches.
“Yes. Fucking marry!” My voice booms off the walls, and we glare at each other, the words hanging between us, ripe with regret and recrimination. Caroline closes her eyes and tucks her hair behind her ear. When she opens them, they are steely blue with resolve.
“Well, you’d better go after her, then,” she says.
* * *
Alessia stares unseeing out the car window, drowning in tears she cannot stop. They flow freely as grief shrouds her misery.
Maxim and Caroline.
Caroline and Maxim.
Was what she experienced with him all a lie?
No! She can’t bring herself to think that. He said he loved her—and she had believed him. She still wants to believe him, but of course it doesn’t matter anymore. She’ll never see him again.
“Why are you crying?” Anatoli asks, but she ignores him. She doesn’t care what he does to her now. Her heart is in shreds, and she knows that it will never heal. He switches on the radio, and an upbeat pop song blasts over the speakers, jarring Alessia’s nerves. She suspects he’s done it to distract himself from her silent sobbing. Anatoli turns the volume down and hands her a box of tissues. “Here. Dry your eyes. Enough of this nonsense, or I’ll give you something to cry about.”
She takes out a wad of tissues and continues to stare listlessly out the window. She can’t even bring herself to look at him.
She knows that she will die at his hands.
And there’s nothing she can do.
Maybe she can escape. In Europe. Maybe she can choose how she dies….She closes her eyes and drifts into her own version of hell.
* * *
“Go after her?” I ask, my mind racing.
“Yes.” Caroline is emphatic. “But I have to ask, what makes you think she’s been kidnapped?”
“Her note.”
“Note?”
“Here.” I hand her the crumpled piece of paper and turn away, rubbing my face, trying to gather my splintered thoughts.
Where will he take her?
Did she go willingly?
No. She only had revulsion for him.
He tried to break her fucking fingers!
He must have forced her to go.
How the hell did he find her?
“Maxim, this note doesn’t read like she’s been kidnapped. Have you thought that maybe she’s decided to go home?”
“Caro, she did not leave of her own free will. Trust me.”
I have to get her back.
Fuck.
I storm past Caroline and head into my drawing room.
“Fucking hell!”
“What now?”
“I don’t have a working fucking computer!”
* * *
“I need your passport,” Anatoli says as they speed through London’s streets.
“What?”
“We are driving to the Eurotunnel train. I need your passport.”
Eurotunnel. No!
Alessia swallows. This is real. It’s happening. He’s taking her back to Albania.
“I don’t have a passport.”
“What do you mean you don’t have a passport?”
Alessia stares at him.
“Why, Alessia? Tell me! Did you forget to pack it? I don’t understand.” He frowns.
“I was smuggled into this country by some men who took my passport.”
“Smuggled? Men?” His jaw clenches, and a muscle twitches in his cheek. “What is going on?”
She’s too tired and too broken to explain. “I don’t have a passport.”
“Fucking hell.” Anatoli smacks the steering wheel with his palm. Alessia flinches at the sound.
* * *
“Alessia, wake up.”
Something has changed. Alessia is confused.
Maxim?
She opens her eyes, and her heart sinks further into hell. She’s with Anatoli, and the car is at a standstill, parked on the side of the road. It’s dark, but by the glow of the headlights she can tell they are on a country road surrounded by frosted fields.
“Get out of the car,” he says. Alessia stares at him, and a small blossom of hope flowers in her chest.
He’s going to leave her here. She can walk back. She’s done it once before.
“Out,” he says more forcefully.
He opens his car door, climbs out, and comes around to her door, opening it wide. Taking her hand, he hauls her out of her seat and leads her to the back of the car, where he opens the trunk. It’s empty but for a small rolling suitcase and her duffel.
“You’ll have to get in here.”
“What? No!”
“We have no choice. You don’t have a passport. Get in.”
“Please, Anatoli. I hate the dark. Please.”
He frowns. “Get in or I’ll put you in.”
“Anatoli. Please. No. I don’t like the dark!” He moves quickly, picking her up, dumping her in the trunk, and slamming the lid shut before Alessia can fight back.
“No!” she shouts. It’s pitch-dark inside. She starts to kick and scream as the darkness bleeds into her lungs, suffocating her like the black plastic bag from the last time she
crossed the Channel.
She can’t breathe. She can’t breathe. She screams.
Not the dark. No. Not the dark. I hate the dark.
Seconds later the lid pops open and a blinding light shines in her face. She blinks. “Here. Take this.” Anatoli hands her a flashlight. “I don’t know how long the battery will last. But we have no choice. Once we are on the train, I can open the trunk.”
Stunned, Alessia takes the flashlight and holds it protectively to her chest. He moves her bag so that she can use it as a pillow, then shuffles out of his overcoat and lays it over her. “You may get cold. I don’t know if the heating works in here. Go back to sleep. And be quiet.” He gives her a stern look and shuts the trunk once more.
Alessia clutches the light and scrunches up her eyes, trying to regulate her breathing as the car starts to move. In her head she begins to play Bach’s Prelude no. 6 in D Minor on repeat—the colors flashing brilliant hues of bright blue and turquoise in her mind—her fingers flexing, tapping out each note on the flashlight.
* * *
Alessia is shaken awake. She looks sleepily up at Anatoli, who towers over her as he holds open the lid of the trunk. His breath is a foggy cloud around him, lit by a solitary light from the parking lot. His face is stark and ashen. “What took you so long to wake up? I thought you were unconscious!” He sounds relieved.
Relieved?
“We’re going to stay the night here,” he says.
Alessia blinks, huddling down into the coat. It’s cold. Her head is fuzzy from crying. Her eyes are swollen. And she doesn’t want to spend the night with him.
“Out,” he snaps, and extends his hand. Sighing, Alessia sits up. The cold wind whips around her, blowing her hair across her face. Stiffly she clambers out of the car, refusing Anatoli’s help. She doesn’t want his hands on her. He reaches past her for his coat, which he shuffles on. He grabs his case and hands her the duffel containing her clothes before shutting the trunk. The parking lot is deserted except for two other cars. Not far away stands a squat, nondescript building that Alessia assumes is a hotel.