Page 115 of Jessica, Not Her Real Name
As the sky grew lighter, she could make out more details of her surroundings. The kitchen was in terrible shape. There were no appliances left, just gaps in the counter where once an oven and a fridge might have been. Most of the countertop itself was gone, the chipboard eaten away as if a giant rat had gnawed it, exposing the wooden framework beneath. Every cupboard door had been ripped from its hinges and the linoleum floor had been torn up in large strips. The whole place stunk like mildew, unwashed clothing, and urine.
She glanced at the dead woman in the cage next to hers.
And death, too.
With the increasing light, the sounds of the traffic outside grew, too. Cars, trucks, the distant rattle of a city rail. The rain kept up a steady patter. Then, those noises were joined by a much nearer one. A sound coming from within the house. A sound getting closer.
Footsteps.
Jessica took slow, controlled breaths, determined not to succumb to panic again. She held her hands close to her waistband, resisting the urge to tug the gun out.
A dark figure appeared in the doorway. Bald head, shoulders so wide they brushed each side of the frame. Made even wider by the bulky military jacket he was wearing. She would have recognized him from his shape alone, but as soon as he came further into the kitchen, there was no doubt who he was. A spiderweb tattooed, now faded, covered his pale scalp.
The infamous Terry.
At his feet was a humongous black dog. It was a German Shepard, with enormous paws that clipped as it walked. It stopped when Terry stopped. Stared when Terry stared.
The man squatted down in front of her cage. Smiled at her. “Well, hi there, darling.”
She stayed in the far corner, feeling lightheaded. She tried to keep still, but her whole body was shaking.
He smiled again. Like she’d confirmed something for him. “Yeah, Daniel always had a weakness for the pretty girls.” He pushed himself to his feet with a groan. “I told him it would be his downfall one day. But he wouldn’t listen.” He chuckled. “Stubborn son of a bitch, wasn’t he?”
He turned to the table. She noticed it was littered with bulky objects. There were several power tools, their cords draped over the edge and plugged into a powerstrip. One was a circular saw; the other, an angle grinder. Like they were doing renovations on the kitchen.
There were several guns, too. Very big ones.
He picked one up. It was a military rifle. He held it in both hands and gave a low whistle. “An AR-15. Nice” He looked at the other weapon on the table. Some kind of pump-action shotgun. “And a Remington 870. Your marshal had some very fine firearms.”
So, he’d found Ryan’s rifle bag. She swallowed the hard lump in her throat and said hoarsely, “If you’re going to kill me, you might as well get it over with.”
He chuckled like she’d said something funny. Then pulled out the chair and turned it so it was facing her. “I ain’t gonna kill you, darling.” He sat down, bracing the rifle across his knees. “Though it’s not like I ain’t got a whole bunch of reasons to. Ten of ’em, actually. One for every year I spent in that fucking place.”
He was talking about prison. Jessica hadn’t followed the trial of the twelveLa Mano Negragang members after she’d helped to indict them. She’d had no interest in what became of Daniel’s so-called friends. Not after what they’d done to him. But she learned from a vague source, possibly Inez or maybe just from idle online scrolling, that all of them had been convicted. Their sentences had varied from a couple of years to fifteen, and she’d heard Terry had received a lengthier one.
He leaned forward and said, “But you see, I now got a better reason to keep you alive. Borya Sokolov has agreed to pay me a lot of money for you.”
Sokolov. That name conjured the image Jessica still carried around in the back of her mind of Sasha Sokolov’s brain matter splattered behind him.
Daniel’s handiwork.
She’d heard about his brother Borya, too. He was a Russian businessman who owned multiple brothels and strip clubs in New York City and Philly. A few of the women working at Femme Fatale were former employees of his establishments. And the stories they’d told of the way those places were run—stories of girls being beaten and gang raped by the patrons—had made her sick to her stomach. Apparently, he produced porn too, the kind you could only find on the filthiest corners of the dark web. The kind that involved animals and knives and hooks and chains and other things she didn’t even want to think about.
And she still remembered the story Special Agent Weck had told her about poor Svetlana, who’d been about to testify against him, but had been murdered before marshals could get her into protective custody.
Terry smiled when he saw Jessica had recognized the name. “Yeah, he hasn’t forgotten you either. See, you and your boyfriend pissed off a lot of people when you went blabbing to the feds. Sokolov had to go underground for years until they stopped sniffing around him. So, when I called him up just now and told him I’d found you, he offered me fifty grandnotto kill you.”
He sat back in the chair, the gun still in his lap. “But I’ve seen the place you’re going. The girls don’t last very long in those rooms. And he told me I could watch, so I guess everybody wins.”
He laughed again, like he’d made a great joke. But she knew he wasn’t joking.
And she knew she’d rather take a bullet from that sniper rifle than to go to Sokolov. Or, if it came down to it, a bullet from her own gun.
If it came down to it, she’d do it. But it hadn’t, yet.
So, she stayed silent. Stayed in the back of her cage. And waited.
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