Red

C H A P T E R T W E N T Y S E V E N

“Daria?” I whispered.

She wasn’t doing too good, she was still alive; barely. Her whole face had swollen and she was unconscious.

Had Ace not cauterised her wound she would’ve died days ago but she was here suffering instead.

However, without medical attention she was likely to die soon along with any real chance of my escape.

“Daria!” I yelled louder and she somewhat grunted but ultimately couldn’t move, speak or even breathe properly. Daria had lost all worth to me, she was about as useful as a white crayon.

Time moved by, I couldn’t keep up with it. I didn’t see daylight, I didn’t see nightfall. I just heard a water drip that got faster at certain times of the day - I hadn’t yet figured out the pattern.

My mind had constructed the blue prints of my master plan and that started with the sandstone.

I chipped away at it little by little. Vigorously moving my arms to scrape away millimetres of stone from around the bolt. It was working. Over the course of a few days the chain had loosened considerably.

The door pulled open and I stopped twisting my hands and stood still. Aces men lifted a torture victim into the room and strapped him to a metal chair resting upon a plastic tarp sheet.

Ace walked in, slipping on black latex gloves. He wore a coat over his suit and it had splatters of rain water covering it. I was so unbelievably thirsty that even the splashes of rain looked appealing to my dry tongue.

Ace dragged a chair to sit opposite the guy and set out a tray of torture tools. I licked my cracked lips and focused my attention on the men, fighting through my dehydration just to listen.

“We’re gonna have a little chat you and I. It can be friendly or-” he ran his fingers over his shiny instruments “it can be not so friendly. That’s up to you.

There’s a ship with a container on, departed on Friday. Where is it docking?” The man stayed quiet, sworn to loyalty by whatever faction he was working for. Ace sighed. “Who signed off on the container?” Another question met with silence. “Last chance, where is the ship docking?” No reply.

I sighed and both of their eyes shot to me.

“Yes?” Ace quirked a brow.

“Nothing.” I croaked out, a throat sore and a voice raspy. He turned back to his other hostage.

“Okay, where shall we start? Your fingers?” He held up a bone cruncher and the guy finally found his voice.

“Look, I swear - I don’t know anything. Certainly nothing about the shipment. I collect the goods and hand them over but it’s all an anonymous trade so I don’t get to know who signs off on them or who signs to receive them.”

“Oh please.” I commented with a scoff and an eye roll. “He’s lying, hit him.”

“Shut the fuck up Red.” Ace snapped but he punched the guy in the face with a knuckle duster attached to his hand. The guy whimpered.

“Is it my container? My men?” Ace questioned.

“I swear, I don’t know. They keep me out of the loop. They have men on the inside I guess. They have men everywhere.”

“What do you know about Petrov/Valentino merge?”

“Alessio and Nikolai formed a temporary alliance but Petrovs plan all along is to double cross Valentino. He wants you all dead.”

“How does he plan on double crossing Valentino?” I asked, my interest suddenly peaked.

“Red!” Ace shouted. “Do I need to fucking remind you that you’re a hostage here. Shut the fuck up before I gag you or rip out your tongue like I did to Daria.”

“You’re asking the wrong questions and you’re not hitting him enough. Untie me, I’ll show you how it’s done.” He breathed deeply through his nose, pissed off. I could see his sexy jaw clenching and his palms twitching. It was hot, so fucking hot.

He got up from his chair and grabbed my face, digging the point of a silver blade into the soft skin of my neck. “One more word Red, I swear to god, one. more. word.” He threatened.

He returned back to his male hostage and stabbed the dagger through his thigh, the man screamed and I smiled, satisfied.

“So you collect the goods, give them to one of Nikolai’s men who load them into my containers onto my ships and then they dock somewhere I’ve not instructed. But you don’t know who signs for them, where they dock or who issues them out in the first place?”

“Exactly.”

I grunted again and slammed my head back against the sand stone wall. Ace pinched the bridge of his nose through his mask.

“Honestly Ace, just fucking kill me. I can’t stay here a second longer listening to his bullshit. It’s fucking torture.”

“Is something going on between you both?” The hostage had the audacity to ask.

“No.” Ace replied a little too quickly.

“See, even he thinks he’s in a position to ask the questions.” Ace turned to face me, narrowing his eyes on me. “Give me five minutes.” He tsked with his tongue and sighed.

“Fine just to shut you the hell up, but you’re not getting freed.” I sucked in my lips, trying to rein back some moister into them.

“Listen to me cunt-flap, you know exactly who is signing off on those shipments and you’re gonna tell me everything you know. First off, what are these goods that you collect?”

Silence.

“Grab those scissors, cut through his trousers. We’re gonna play with his dick.” Ace whipped his head to face me, alarmed.

“Ew, really?”

“Now Ace.”

The hostage started begging for mercy, promising to talk. It was a prolonging tactic, one Ace was falling for because behind the mafia man he had a good heart.

“Ignore him and cut his trousers open.” I demanded. Ace got to work, slicing through the material in just a few clean cuts. “Now grab that clamp.”

“Wait! It’s kids! Kids. In the shipment! It’s kids!” He panicked.

“Kids?” Ace asked.

“Yeah. Kids. We take kids, the ones who have no families or the ones who are too poor to pay for people to look for them. Easy kids. Vulnerable kids who willingly come with us. Any kids. Just kids.”

“You sick fuck.” I spat out. “I told you.”

“What do they want with these kids?” Ace asked.

“Isn’t that obvious?” I asked him. “Same thing your father wanted with me. Sex trafficking.”

“Stop saying that! He kidnapped your mother you were just collateral damage. He wasn’t into sex trafficking, that was Alessio and Petrov.”

“Who signed off on the container, Valentino or Petrov?” Ace asked, he was met with silence so he attached a silver clamp to one of the hostages testicles and twisted. The screams echoed around the basement.

“Neither!” He shouted and Ace released the grasp. “She’s right. Barney, your fathers right hand man has been running the ring on your behalf since you took over from Titus. The Blackburn family owned the biggest sex trafficking ring in the country.

They earned millions of dollars selling women and children. When your father died Nikolai managed to worm his way in, he joined forces with Barney secretly and they’ve been dabbling in sex trafficking right under your nose this whole time.

They’ve been using your resources to ship women and children across the Atlantic.”

“So where does Valentino fit into this shit?” Ace questioned.

“I don’t know anything about the Valentino’s. They’re powerful, I keep my head down and stick to my job. All I know is Petrov was never strong enough to go up against you and your men, even with people on the inside. It would risk everything that he’s built up. So when Alessio approached him he finally dreamed it possible.”

“Everything fell into his hands.” I stated.

“Alessio believed the Blackburn name were the ones responsible for the mass kidnappings and sex trafficking of women. Your father and your most trusted men always told you it was Valentino.” The hostage explained.

“Nikolai played us both.”

“Why do you seem to admire that?” Ace asked me and I realised I was smiling.

“He’s clever, credit where credit is due.”

“So, now he wants to take us both down and rule over all of our men by himself.” Ace cleared up.

“Precisely and his plan is working, the two fractions are so focused on killing one another nobody is seeing the bigger picture.”

“So what, I’m supposed to form an alliance with Valentino now and double cross the double crossed?” I shook my head.

“It would never happen, you killed my mother. All we want is to avenge her death. We’re not mixed up in this ring, we never have been.”

“My dad killed your mom, not me.”

“Blood must have blood.”

“Alessio knows they’re kidnapping and raping women and children and he doesn’t want to do anything about that?”

“That’s not fair, don’t do that. We’re not cops.”

“You know as well as I do Red that the cops would never be able to stop Petrov. The only chance we have of stopping him is by working together.”

“No.” I told him. “My family wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. You’re responsible for my mothers death. My kidnapping. We fight to kill you, not for your cause.”

“Well then, I wasn’t wrong. You are part of the problem. All the Valentino’s are.” He banged a bullet between the hostages eyes and peeled off his gloves.

“I got you so wrong Red. How did I get you so fucking wrong?” He said to me before exiting the basement.