Frigging men! This was all their fault.
Well, culpability aside, I needed to get myself out of this, starting with a way to defend myself. I slowly got up and looked around for something—anything—for defense, but there was nothing in the room except a mattress on the cold cement floor, a small, doorless bathroom with only a toilet—no lid on the tank—and a sink. Nothing else. If I were strong enough, I could throw the toilet at my captors, but sprouting Hulk-like powers wasn’t going to happen to me.
Hopeless.
And hopelessness only turned into utter despair as I thought through the events that led me to this place. Paolo had handed me over to go into hiding. He’d said that in my case, when there was a leak, all communication would be broken. Possibly for months.
He wouldn’t know I’d been taken.
No one would come looking for me.
I was a dead woman.
The door opened, startling me from my deep, dark thoughts. When I looked, however, it wasn’t Derek, but a very familiar face. “Mr. M?”
“Dakota.”
I was about ready to run over to him and hug him, but one obvious question prevented me from doing that. “What the hell?”
He pointed toward the mattress. “Please, sit.”
“Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“Sit!” he screamed. That’s when I noticed the wild, desperate look in his eyes bloodshot eyes.
I was already past the point of terrified, so his screaming didn’t intimidate me exactly, but I did want to hear what he had to say. Simply put…why the hell was my English teacher holding me hostage in a basement?
I sat cross-legged on the mattress and waited for him to speak. Mr. M paced across the cement floor, mumbling frantically and running his hand over his thinning hair. Usually, his clothes were a wrinkled mess, but now he looked worse, like he’d been sleeping in them for a week. Then he began to do a disturbing little dance, wiggling his hips, making the number one sign with his index fingers.
I simply stared, unable to believe my eyes.
He twirled on his heel and pointed. “Gotcha! I got her! The best-hid girl in the world, and I,” he pointed to himself, “got her! With a fucking pen! Ha! Take that, Mr. Dane!”
With a pen? My pen? I suddenly remembered what Paolo had said about tracking devices. It was the reason he hadn’t wanted me to take anything personal from my dorm.
Mr. M laughed like a madman, the veins popping from his forehead as he did. “I’m not going to lie to you, Dakota, you are going to die. The only question is how.”
Holy shit. Not good. “And I’ve done what, exactly, to deserve this?” I asked.
“You’ve done nothing. Nothing. But that bastard father of yours ruined my life, so now I’m going to ruin his. I’m going to make it hurt while I do it.”
“If you plan on torturing me,” I said quietly, “I can save you the trouble. I only just learned who my father is, and other than knowing he’s some high-powered information broker, I barely know the man.”
He laughed again, howling at the ceiling. “Is that what he told you? Your evil bastard of a father is much, much more than a librarian. The CIA and Interpol are his lapdog whores! He’s the man behind the curtain,” Mr. M waved his red, sweaty palms through the air like a magician at a border town carnival, “who decides who lives or dies.”
“But he’s the g…g…good guy,” I mumbled.
“Is he? Is he good? Because I worked for him for years, my dear Dakota, and there are a few hundred thousand people who’ve died who might not agree. He’s a ruthless, fucking animal.”
I couldn’t believe that.
Okay, okay. I didn’t exactly know the man, but he wasn’t psycho. He worked hard, loved me and my mom, and tried to keep us away from whatever crap he was mixed up in.
Yeah. And has a secret life—an army at his beck and call, including the police, and people who are scared shitless of him. But “fucking animal”?
Crap. Had that been the real reason Paolo resisted getting involved with me?
My jaw dropped. Paolo said that my father would kill him for touching me. I assumed he’d meant it figuratively, but perhaps not. Add the fact that my father had some very determined enemies, and, well, maybe he wasn’t such a good guy.
“Then why did you work for him?” I asked.
“He’s the lesser of evils. But a good guy? Not a fucking chance, my dear Miss Dane. And his luck just caught up with him.”
I swallowed hard, wondering what they would do to me. Then I remembered poor Christy. I now had to assume the fire had been meant for me. “So what’s next? Are you going to burn me alive like you did that poor girl?” They’d probably videotape it for my parents, or something sick like that.