Page 66 of Vow of Vengeance
"Shh!" I tell her, my hands up to show her I'm not a threat. I reach for the cloth tied around her mouth, but there's not enough slack to yank it free, so I grab the knife, still wet with Khan's blood. "It's okay." I tell her. "I'm going to cut this off you, okay?"
She closes her eyes and sobs as I slide the blade beneath the fabric and pull, letting it shred against the sharp edge. As soon as the fabric is free, her sobs fill the small basement.
"Help me." She sobs. "Please."
We found Marissa.
"Shh." I soothe. "It's okay. We're going to get you out of here. Just take deep breaths."
She shakes her head and then dissolves into more sobs.
"Can you find her some clothes?" I ask Wes, trying to keep my voice calm. "Or a fucking blanket. A towel. Anything."
Wes heaves a sigh like he's inconvenienced by the woman we just found naked and tied down in Khan's basement. I suppose I did only ask him for his help getting away with murder. I didn't expect that it would turn into a recovery mission.
It’s been months of searching for her, writing and rewriting code to try and make her searchable for the shot of pulling a partial view of her face. And all this time, she was in her best friend's basement.
Fucking hell.
I want to kill Khan all over again.
I don't appraise her too closely, afraid of what I'll see if I do, and cut the straps that have her secured to the filthy table beneath her. Her entire body trembles as I free the last strap, and she sits up fast, wrapping her arms around herself. Wes wraps a blanket around the front of her and turns to me, bewildered.
"Did he have you here the whole time?" I ask, placing a hand on her arm to try and get her to look at me, instead of the dead body of her captor and supposed best friend on the floor. To my surprise, her eyes snap to mine as she jumps back, pressing herself into Wes' arms.
He looks at me, confused. But I think we'reallpretty fucking confused right now.
"Marissa." I say softly. "It's Declan. Remember me?"
"You murdered her!" Marissa sobs, clutching the blanket around her. "You fucking monster."
I blink, confused that she'd callmea monster. Sure, I killed Khan, but judging by the fact I found her tied up bloody and stark fucking naked in his basement, I'd say the bigger monster has been dealt with appropriately.
"Calm down." I tell her coolly. "I don't know what's going on here, but you're alright. Khan is dead, okay? He won't hurt you anymore."
Marissa sobs, shaking her head. "What the fuck did you do to him?"
I blink, wondering for a brief, bizarre second, if I read the situation wrong, if maybe this was all some sort of kink for her.
But then I remember that we've been looking for her for weeks, that Khan watched Soren cry and search for the girl standing before me now, and even ifhewas a sadistic bastard, there's no way she would have done that to Soren in the name of fun and kink.
"Marissa." I say, trying desperately to summon some patience and half an idea about how to deal with this.
A small part of me knows the right thing to do would be to call Soren, because Marissa probably needs her right now. But I can't let her see Marissa like this, can't let Soren see the mess, the body.
Fuccccck.
"You're okay. He can't hurt you anymore. But I need to know what the hell happened here. He kidnapped you?"
She stares at me like she doesn't know if she can trust me, and then her eyes cut to Wes. After a minute, she nods. Her throat bobs as she swallows back tears.
"I'm so stupid. I fell for it. He told me you killed Ren, and he had proof. I was already in the car with him, and I told him to take me to see her, so I could check on her myself. But he wouldn't go to her house, and he just drove me here. He said there was proof down here."
She sobs, staring at the ground.
I won't ask her for anything more. It's pretty clear why he did it.
Upstairs, when I'd asked him why. He thought I was asking aboutMarissa. It's her that he thinks he loved. Her that he was obsessed with. He thought I'd found him out, that I was here to collect on the girl he'd locked in his basement. But there's no way I could have seen him rapeher, which is why he realized the truth right before we covered his mouth in tape.
