Page 69 of Savage Obsession

We’re about ten minutes into the journey when I realise the road is unfamiliar. “Hey,” I call. “You’re going the wrong way.”

He glances back at me and shrugs, saying something in Spanish.

“No,” I protest. “You missed the turning. We want to go to Los Viñedos.”

“Sí, Sí. Los Viñedos. Atajo…” he mutters.

“No, you need?—”

“He says this is a shortcut,” Lily tells me. Her Spanish is clearly improving.

“Tell him we don’t want a shortcut. We want to go the normal way.”

“No queremos un atajo. Queremos ir por el camino normal,” she duly translates.

I’m impressed, but apparently the driver is not as he takes no notice.

“Tell him to stop. We need him to turn around. Now.”

Lily does her best, though we do seem to have reached the extent of her linguistic prowess. If anything, the driver speeds up.

I take to rattling the door handle, but it’s locked. “Let us out. Now,” I screech at him.

Lily is trying the other door, with the same result. “Para, para,” she shouts, which I assume is ‘stop’ in Spanish.

The driver is having none of it, and meanwhile, we’re well off the beaten track, rattling along a dusty lane surrounded by dense shrubbery. No way is this a route back to Los Viñedos. Panic sets in. We’re both screaming at him to stop and let us out, when suddenly he stamps on the brakes, almost standing the decrepit vehicle on its nose.

“What the fuck?” I protest, lurching forward to crash into the back of the driver’s seat. “Are you some sort of maniac?”

Lily is no better off, ending up curled in the footwell. She clambers back into her seat, eyes wide with shock. “Mom…?” she sobs.

“You idiot. You could have killed us.” I grab the door handle again, but it’s still locked. “Open this fucking door,” I scream at him.

I’m so intent upon heaping insults on the driver that I fail to notice the approach of several more men from within the dense shrubbery until they have surrounded the car. One of them opens the door from the outside.

“Get out, both of you,” he snarls.

I’m stunned, so shocked, it doesn’t even register with me that he has spoken in Polish.

Lily grabs my arm. “Mom, I don’t like this. I want to go home.” She’s weeping piteously. “I’m scared, I want my father…”

“We’ll be all right,” I try to console her. “Let’s just get out and?—”

I’m seized and dragged from the car to end up in a heap in the dust. Lily is subjected to the same treatment, and together, we huddle in the dirt, peering up at the strangers surrounding us. I count five men, dressed in what appears to be some form of combat gear. Most terrifying of all, they each tote lethal-looking weapons.

“Who are you?” I croak.

“Up,” the one closest commands us.

“What do you want? We have money…” I offer.

The man grins, displaying a gleaming set of perfect teeth. He might even be handsome but for the ruthless glint in his dark eyes, and I don’t like the way his companions are staring at the pair of us.

“My husband will seek you out for this. Do you know who we are?” I try for a show of bravado. Maybe this is just a simple robbery, surely if these men are common criminals they’ll know better than to cross the Kaminskis.

“Yes. We know who you are, and we know exactly who your husband is.”

He pauses when the taxi bursts into life and screeches away in a cloud of dust. Moments later, a white van appears and takes its place. One of the men opens the rear doors.

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