“Brought you a little dinner,” the man said with a forced smile.
Mia sat on the bed, her head hung low.
“Sorry we don’t have something a bit more appealing, but this is what we’re all eating.” The tray had two plates covered in cold cuts, two apples, a loaf of bread, and three bottles of water.
“I’m Jacob,” the brown-haired man said, trying to get a reaction from Mia, but she remained silent, her eyes distant. “Well, it’s here if you want it.”
When Jacob leaned down, both hands holding the tray, Mia sprang from the bed and snatched the gun from his holster.
Jacob spun around, but Mia already had the gun pointed at him.
“You’re kidding me, right?” There was a mix of fear and humor in the young man’s eyes.
Mia tapped the gun against his head. “Do you want to see how much I’m kidding?”
“You wouldn’t shoot.” Jacob’s words sounded more hopeful than definitive.
“Then you don’t know me very well.” Mia stepped back and pulled back the bedspread to reveal long white ropes, hand-woven from torn strips of bedsheet.
“Lash your legs together,” Mia said as she tossed him a four-foot length.
Jacob reluctantly sat on the floor and tied his legs, laughing as he did. “You don’t have a chance of escaping.”
“You’d be surprised how far a woman will go to save her family.”
“You’ll be surprised, then, because it won’t be very far.”
“On your knees,” Mia snapped.
Jacob shook his head as he complied. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Hands behind your back.” Mia brought the gun close to his eye, reminding him of what she held.
As Jacob held his hands behind his back, Mia grabbed a length of woven bedsheet tied in a noose and, walking behind him while jamming the gun hard into the back of his neck, dropped it over his wrists and pulled it tight, binding his hands together. She yanked it roughly for emphasis, wrapping the excess twice more about his wrists, ensuring that he couldn’t free himself.
“I can’t tell you what a mistake you just made.” Jacob’s humorous tone was completely gone, replaced with a mix of anger and fear. He sneered. “If Cristos has his sights on your family, they don’t have a chance.”
Mia’s temper boiled, and she drew back her arm, smashing the butt of the gun into the man’s temple. He tumbled from his knees and hit the hard floor face-first, out cold. She leaned over and grabbed the elegant cloth napkins from the silver tray and stuffed them into Jacob’s mouth.
She rifled through his pockets, empty except for a single key.
She slipped the key into the lock, and with a quick turn, the heavy dead bolt slipped back into the door with a click. She laid her ear on the door and listened. She wrapped her hand around the brass handle and slowly turned.
As she cautiously opened the door, what she saw shocked her. Despite the constant whine of city noise, the sounds of traffic and people, she could not have been farther away from the image the sounds of the city painted in her head.
Mia stepped into a room, and her captivity immediately took on a whole new perspective. While expecting to be met with a dingy, run-down warehouse, perhaps a decrepit apartment building, she saw before her anything but.
The room she had been held in for the last twenty-four hours was not a room but a closet, an anteroom to a large, elegantly appointed bedroom. The walls were covered with soft floral-print paper, and thick green velvet curtains framed the large windows. A canopy bed dominated the room, while its matching dresser and makeup table sat off to the side. She looked at a small stereo on the floor and felt the fool. A CD was on perpetual repeat, and the sounds of city noise, cars honking, bus doors closing, sirens racing off to nowhere poured from the speakers.
Mia’s fear grew as Jacob’s words began to ring in her ears, you won’t get far.
Jacka stood outside Peter’s house, looking at the dark clouds looming overhead, the orange lights of the city reflected off their underbellies. Flashes of summer lightning burst inside their five-mile-high confines.
There was no doubt in his mind that Frank was right. The list in the back of the book was a hit list. Reports were already coming in that FBI Director Lance Warren was dead. Being on Cristos’s hit list hadn’t fazed him; he was killed once already. He had never been involved in anything recorded in those books. His name was on the list for retribution, for revenge, for putting Cristos to death the year before.
Jack’s cell phone rang, startling him. He saw Mia’s number come up, but he knew who was calling. He placed it to his ear.
“Heard you escaped.”
“Where is my wife?”
“You betrayed me while I hold the proverbial blade to your wife’s throat,” Cristos raged through the phone. “If I’m not holding the contents of that case, every single piece in my hands by dawn, I will kill your wife… not quickly. Slowly, drawn out, where you will hear her screams no matter where you are in the world. And then I will kill your children. I will do it in front of you as you watch the life slowly seep from their young eyes. Then I will render you helpless, crippled, blind, with nothing but the memories of their cries to keep you company for the rest of your days.”
“You son of-”
“I imagine you’re at Peter Womack’s house trying to track me down. Don’t bother with that list in the back of my book. They’re all dead.”
“Where are you?” Jack begged through gritted teeth.
“You know exactly where I am.”
And Cristos hung up.
CHAPTER 39
Mia slowly opened the bedroom door to find a wide hallway, the ceiling at least twelve feet, the floor covered in a thick burgundy rug. She could see a cloud of dust rising up with her every footstep.
Several doors ran off in both directions, while a sweeping set of stairs lay at the far end of the hall and fell off into an enormous marble foyer. The paneled walls and coffered ceiling left no doubt about the extreme wealth of the home owner.
Mia crept down the hall, thankful for the pair of flats she wore on her feet, glad she had changed from the three-inch pumps when she got into the car the night before. She held tightly to the pistol, taking comfort in its lethal ability and the fact that she knew how to bring it to bear so well. She ejected the clip, confirming nine bullets, before slamming it back into the butt, resolving to use it only as a last resort. Her only thought was getting to her children. Jack said they were safe, but she had seen the look in Cristos’s eyes. She saw the picture that he had taken of them and knew that their innocent lives meant nothing to him except as pawns of leverage in achieving his goal. And while she was terrified for them, she tucked her fear in the back of her mind, knowing that it would do nothing but cripple her and keep her from reaching them before it was too late.
She stopped at the top of the stairs and peered down into the foyer. She tuned her ears, listening for any presence, but heard nothing. On silent feet, she crept down the stairs, her pistol waving back and forth, her finger poised on the trigger, ready to shoot.
As she stepped into the foyer, she was amazed at what she beheld. The house was enormous. To her left was a ballroom-sized living room, replete with antique furniture from a bygone age. To her right was an old-fashioned library, deep cherry paneling, a fireplace you could park a car in, bookshelves covered in never-ending volumes. There were large overstuffed sofas, and high-back wing chairs faced the fireplace.
But there was a coldness to the place, a foreboding of death and abandonment, despite the furnishings, the pictures that lined the tables. She couldn’t help feeling that the place was haunted. Dated pictures covered the desk and the end tables, images of a forgotten time that was only recalled by the depths of the house