Claimed (14 page)

Ellie:

I woke up in the middle of the night again. Last night, my dreams had been filled with unease. Tonight, it was for a more prosaic reason. I’d been drinking wine and I’d forgotten to drink water at the same time. My throat was parched.

The clock near Alexander’s head glowed in the dark. It wasn’t too late, just a little after two-thirty in the morning. I hoped that Anton and Sasha weren’t still downstairs. It would have been really,
really
awkward to interrupt them in the middle of a make-out session.

I tiptoed out of the room, turning to look back at Alexander as I did so. In his sleep, much of the tension he carried around during the day eased. His face was untroubled and I wanted to go back to bed and kiss his soft lips and nestle against his warm body.

Downstairs, I walked into the deserted kitchen and opened the refrigerator door, reaching in for a bottle of water. I heard the sound of footsteps enter the room and I looked up, wondering who’d still be up.

It was Sasha. I was about to tease her about Anton when I noticed her distracted expression. “Ellie,” she asked, her brows furrowed, “did you and Alexander put Andrei to bed in your room?”

A cold frisson of dread prickled at the back of my scalp.
It was nothing. It had to be nothing.
“No,” I responded. “He fell asleep in his bedroom. We read him a bedtime story and he was out like a light at the end of it. A little after nine?”

“He’s not there now,” she said distractedly. “I should check the front door, but he can’t get it unlocked by himself, can he? Kids get into so much trouble…” She was babbling a little as worry bubbled in her.

My sense of unease crystallized. Every single instinct was screaming that this was more than a child waking up in the middle of the night and wandering away.
Trust your intuition, Ellie.
“Wake Alexander and Jean-Luc,” I said. “I’m going to call the grounds-keeper.”

***

Less than five minutes later, we were gathered in the living room in perfect silence.

For days and days, ever since I’d arrived in Paris, I’d been certain that someone in Alexander’s inner circle was betraying him. I’d suspected Pavel and Katrina and George equally, until Katrina’s story yesterday had quieted my misgivings.

But I had been wrong, as had Jean-Luc and Alexander. We had all believed her story because we had known it was true. Jean-Luc had confirmed the facts. Katrina
had
been taken by Durov. Her fiancé
had
been killed.

Yet the man in front of us had just confirmed that Katrina had left the compound with Andrei.
The child is sick
, she’d told him.
She was taking him to the hospital,
she’d said.

“Yes,” he said when questioned. Of course he had thought it was strange that the woman was venturing out in the middle of the night with the child and no one else to guard her.
But who was to tell the way of these foreigners?
He’d been told that he needed to call the dogs inside when someone from the house wanted to leave. He’d done so.

Our faces were tense and strained. Sasha’s expression was hopeless beyond belief. She wouldn’t look at Anton as she spoke. She hadn’t been in the living room. She’d been upstairs. She hadn’t heard the door of the bedroom next to her open.

We’d all been distracted, lulled to inattention by the arrival of Anton and the extra guards he’d brought. We’d celebrated Christmas Eve with food and drink and laugher. I’d ground myself against Alexander, losing myself in our lovemaking, and though Sasha didn’t say the words, she’d been with Anton.

Katrina had been assigned to the control room, in charge of watching the footage from the security cameras that ringed the fence. Nothing more was required, we’d believed. Why should it be? Everyone in the house had been
trusted
.

Except Katrina had betrayed us. Katrina who had been kidnapped by Durov, who had seen her fiancé killed so that a rich and powerful man could possess her as if she were an expensive trinket to be coveted and taken.

I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t even begin to try.
Not now.
If I did, I would fragment under the realization that Durov had broken her so thoroughly that she’d turned traitor against the man who had been responsible for freeing her from her prison.

Now was not the time to dwell on that. Now was the time for action. Understanding could come later.

I felt the guilt harden like a rock in my heart. I shouldn’t have dropped my guard and I shouldn’t have relaxed. I had sensed something wasn’t quite right.
I should have trusted my intuition.

“What’s the standard procedure here?” That was Alexander’s voice. He sounded calm, though I knew him well enough to hear the strain underneath.

“Most likely, a ransom note will arrive in the morning,” Jean-Luc spoke up. “Alexander in exchange for the child. We have to assume that she’s taken Andrei to Bectell.”

Sasha whitened and swayed. Anton was immediately at her side, steadying her. But she refused to meet his gaze, and her eyes stayed fixed on the floor. Her misery exuded off her in palpable waves. She was quietly reproaching herself for her inattention, as if she too could have predicted Katrina’s treachery. She wasn’t the only one. Everyone in the room was blaming themselves. We were drowning under our crushing sense of failure.

“No.” Alexander’s voice was firm and certain. “Sasha, I promise you, Andrei will be safe.” He didn’t say the next words, though I heard them as if he’d screamed them aloud.
Even if I have to ensure it at the cost of my own life.
He turned to Jean-Luc.
“If the ransom demand will come in the morning, then he’s not expecting us to attack now, is he?”

Jean-Luc shook his head. “Unlikely,” he said. “Katrina was going to be on watch for the next six hours. Everyone had retired to bed. They’ll have every reason to believe we won’t discover that Andrei is missing until the morning.”

“So we attack now?” This was Anton.

“How?” Jean-Luc asked the obvious question. “They could be anywhere in the city. They could be headed back to Lagos. How can we locate them?”

There were so many bad days that I wished to forget, so many memories that I wanted to erase. But today, one long-suppressed memory rose to the fore. “I might know where to find them,” I said out aloud into the sudden silence.

***

As certainly as I know that my name is Ellie Samuelson, I know that today is the day I am going to die.

I have sworn to myself that I will escape from these men who intend to make me a whore in their brothel in Lagos. But how? I am weak. I can’t hope to overcome them and run, and even if I did, where can I go? There are no American embassies in this small town. Plus, Dylan is a generous employer here. Anyone I ask for help is just as likely to take me back to him.

The three men approach me. Their hands paw at me and they laugh as I struggle to stay still. Their words compliment Dylan’s training. Fingers poke up my skirt and find me naked underneath, because I have been forbidden underwear.

I’m a slave. Slaves don’t need to cover themselves. Slaves just do as they are told.

My pussy is dry but they aren’t fazed. They grope my folds and I can see the lust rise in their eyes.

One of them suggests a house that they can take me to. I’m fresh meat and they are ready to feast. Besides, the drive to Lagos is better undertaken in daylight. Even Nigerians won’t attempt the road at night.

The others laugh and leer and agree.

We all know what’s going to happen when I reach that house.

I shake all over. I’ve sworn that I’m going to escape. The Naira bills in the hem of my dress rustle faintly as I run my fingers over them. When should I make a break for it, I wonder. I can only hope that after they rape me, they will eat and drink and fall asleep. Then, I can try to run.

Where should I go? I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. Where ever I end up, it can’t be worse than anything I’ve had to endure in the last two years. It can’t be worse than the brothel that lies ahead.

We arrive at the house and I’m shoved carelessly into a bedroom. I can hear the men argue good-naturedly about who will fuck me first. I cower in fear as I wait for my rapists.

Then the shooting starts. In the silence that descends afterward, Lucien walks in.

I negotiate for my life that day. I beg him to train me. I assure him I remember everything. I promise him I will be useful.

I’m shaking and terrified and he’s impatient and nervous. The shots would have been heard. People will come to investigate and he can’t deal with my panic. I’m falling apart. I’m rocking back and forth. I’m terrified and I can’t move.

“Can you walk?” he asks me.

I nod. It is a lie, but I have to do what it takes to preserve myself. I don’t think my feet will support my weight but they do.

“Follow me,” he says. “I’m not going to wait. If you can’t keep up, you are on your own. I don’t have time to baby you.”

In that moment, I think that he’s unnecessarily cruel. Later, I come to understand his laser-like focus. Killing Dylan McAllister is the only thing that matters to Lucien. Nothing else can interfere.

In the pitch black of the night, I follow a dark shadow through twisted streets to a house that seems architecturally inspired by a M. C. Escher painting. Lucien picks the lock and we stay for an hour, just long enough for me to recover from my panic and my terror. Then we move on, getting into a car and speeding towards Lagos. Though the men who bought me didn’t risk the drive, Lucien does.

***

I told them what I remembered. Once, almost eight years ago, I followed Lucien in the dead of the night through twisted alleys to a house that he took shelter in for an hour. It was the thinnest of leads, but it was
something
.

“Wouldn’t he know you’d remember the house?” Jean-Luc sounded skeptical.

“Maybe the old Lucien,” I responded. I’d been thinking about this. The entire operation had been remarkably sloppy. The Lucien I knew would have never missed shooting Alexander in Hanoi. He wouldn’t have missed in Paris. He’d already been a shadow of his former self when I’d visited him after Hanoi. It appeared he’d gotten worse. “But he’s become careless. Maybe he’s made a mistake.”

In the morning, when the ransom note came, I knew Alexander would walk into death. I had only a few hours to avert that unthinkable fate. A full-frontal assault against that house would be a disaster. Lucien would kill the child before we could even get close, and that could not be permitted to happen. No, our only hope was to try and sneak in and take him unawares.

“Fine, I’ll take a couple of Anton’s guards and go investigate,” Jean-Luc said. “Ellie, can you mark the house on a map?”

“No,” I shook my head. “I can’t. I have to be there. It was dark and I’m going to be finding my way back on instinct.”

“Then I’m coming with you.” Alexander’s voice was calm. He nodded at me. “I told you once that there was no one I’d rather have at my back in a gunfight,
bright star,
” he said wryly. As much as he was trying to hide the tension, there was no disguising the way it was radiating from his body. “I really was hoping we wouldn’t have to put it to the test.”

“Alexander, you can’t go,” Jean-Luc argued. “It’s too dangerous. I’ll go with Ellie.”

“What if it’s a trap?” Alexander asked. “What if this is a way to lure the guards out? No, you need to be here. I’m the unexpected one. Conventional wisdom says that everyone will close ranks around me, doesn’t it? Protect the client at all costs?”

Jean-Luc opened his mouth to contradict Alexander, then closed it again. Alexander was right. No one would expect him to go after Andrei.

“I’m coming too,” Anton spoke up.

I saw Alexander exchange a long look with him. I could almost see the wheels spinning in his head. If Anton was handy with a weapon, he would be useful. But I also knew the guilt Alexander carried with him about Sasha’s boyfriend’s death. He would not risk another potential love.

“Don’t do anything foolish,” Jean-Luc growled. “If you can snatch the child and run, then that’s what you do. We’ll deal with Katrina and Bectell later. This is not the time for heroics.”

Alexander grinned, an attempt to defuse the tension. “You know me, Jean-Luc. I’m terrible at heroics.”

The true story of the bullet he’d taken for Jean-Luc had never come out. He’d made a joke of it, as he did in this moment. He never hid from danger. He never attempted to hide.

***

We had guns and in addition, I’d strapped my Bowie knife to my hip. There was something very comforting about the weight of the blade against my thigh.

Though it was a risk that we’d be observed, we needed to move quickly. Pavel pulled a Jeep out of the garage and we crouched in the back.
Would the car be seen leaving the estate?
I couldn’t tell. All I had to go off was Lucien’s previous patterns. He’d always worked alone. He believed in getting a good night’s rest before a mission. He’d grown sloppy.