Page 94 of The Devil's Pawn

Her head jerks back. “No, I didn’t. Mom and Dad didn’t tell me a whole lot about your family, although I know your mom died when you were young. A teenager, I think.”

A spear pierces my chest. It’s funny how easily the wounds reopen. “Yes. Mum died two weeks after Annabel.”

“Oh, no.” She pinches the skin around her throat. “That’s awful. How did she die?”

“The day of my sister’s funeral, Mum took an overdose and drowned in the bath.”

A high-pitched gasp escapes her lips. “God, Alexander.” She touches me as if she needs to connect in some way, to comfort me, but doesn’t know how.

“Annabel was raped and strangled in a moldy cellar after we were both kidnapped. She was sixteen. Sixteen fucking years old.”

Her hands fly up and cover her nose and mouth, and tears for a girl she’s never known bloom in her eyes. “Jesus… You were kidnapped?”

“Yes. About two weeks after our sixteenth birthday, men somehow broke through Oakleigh’s security and stole us from our beds. They must have used a hell of a powerful drug because we didn’t know they’d abducted us until we woke in that cellar. I regained consciousness first, and I tell you…” I shake my head, the horror of it crashing down on me, even nineteen years later. “Seeing Annabel lying next to me… I lost it. I instantly knew what had happened. My family has many enemies, and as the oldest son, I was fair game. But something inside me snapped at the sight of my bright, feisty, amazing sister lying on the floor, unconscious. I smashed everything in that filthy space I could get my hands on. Midway through, Annabel came around and managed to calm me down. It occurred to us then that we must be alone. I’d made such a racket, if anyone was above us, they’d have come to investigate. So, we plotted our escape.”

As I tell a story I haven’t voiced in years, I’m transported back to that cellar, the events unfolding before me as if I’m watching a movie.

“The cellar had a small window, high up. A bit tight for me to get through, but Annabel was a lot smaller than I was. I told her that when she got outside, she was to run and not look back. That her safety was all that mattered to me, and Icould take care of myself. She argued, but eventually agreed, saying she’d bring help. I hoisted her onto my shoulders, but she lost her balance and fell, badly twisting her ankle. She could barely walk, let alone run for help. I tore off my shirt and strapped her ankle as best I could, then built a rickety platform to reach the window. I smashed the glass, but as I crawled through, a shard cut my shoulder. The pain didn’t register until much later. All I cared about was getting help and rescuing Annabel.”

She already knows how this ends, but she’s enraptured, listening intently and patiently, waiting for when the memories become too much and I need a moment. When that happens, she grazes my arm or caresses my face, little touches that mean so fucking much to me.

“I ran and ran, my lungs fit to burst by the time I saw a faint light in the distance. England may be tiny compared to America, but we still have vast swathes of uninhabited countryside, and our captors had chosen our prison carefully. Dawn had already broken when I finally hammered on the door, begging for help. A woman in her late sixties answered. I must have looked in a terrible state, naked from the waist up, covered in blood, my trousers muddy and torn. She had every right to slam the door in my face, but she didn’t. I blurted out enough of the details that she immediately called the police and then my father.”

I close my eyes for a couple of seconds, bracing myself for memories I mostly keep locked up tight. “But it was too late to save Annabel. I couldn’t give my father or the police enough information about where the kidnappers had taken us. It was dark when I left, and shock had set in, making it difficult to remember. By the time they sent up a helicopter to comb the area and located the house, she was dead.”

The guilt sitting in my chest is never far away, and it feels heavier than ever as I recall details and images I’ve tried to suppress. If I’d run faster, she’d be alive. If I’d stayed and fought the men who took us, she’d be alive.

I’d left her alone with a busted-up ankle and no way to fend off the men who violated her, then murdered her.

It should have been me. I’m the one who should have died.

“Don’t say that. Don’t you dare say that.”

My wife comes into focus, and as I take in her fierce glare, I realize I said that last part aloud.

“It’s true, though, isn’t it? I left her behind to suffer. Our captors must have demanded to know where I was, and when she couldn’t tell them, they assaulted and murdered her.” I hang my head.

“Hey.” She nudges up my chin, and our eyes collide. “You said yourself she couldn’t walk, let alone run. You had no choice. You did the right thing, which ended with a terrible outcome. If you’d stayed, they might have killed you both.”

“Or I might have been able to save us both.”

“You were sixteen.”

“I was a man. I could have done more. Ishouldhave saved her.”

I can tell she doesn’t agree with me, but she says nothing to persuade me otherwise. She recognizes, as do I, that it’s futile.

“Did the police catch the men?”

“My father did.”

“And did he turn them in? I hope they’re serving life in prison.”

My beautiful, innocent wife hasn’t a clue, and why would she? I kiss her lips. When I tell the full extent of whoshe’s married to, she may ask me for that divorce after all. Perhaps that would be for the best. There’s no future for us, although the selfish part of me wants to keep her a while longer. Sooner or later, though, I’ll have to figure out a way to end this marriage without causing issues for my family. I just don’t know how yet, but there’s little point in fretting about that. In the end, the solution will present itself, and then I’ll act.

“I told you once that you didn’t realize what you’d married into. The truth is, we, together with the other Consortium members, are more powerful than our country’s governments, which, in this particular instance, means we control the police. My father told the chief in charge to close the case, that he would deal with it. So, they did. Without question.”

“And the men who killed your sister?”

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