Cravings (21 page)

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

S
anj had said he liked her better as a blonde, her natural color—so Sasha hired a colorist from the spa to help her. Getting back to blond was an arduous task, but Sanj was worth it. Could it be they could come to some happy arrangement?

She looked at herself in the mirror. The diamonds glittered against her newly blond hair. Yes. Her skin looked much better now that her coloring was normal.

She decided to sleep in them—they made her feel so, so accepted. It wasn't as if she hadn't been given mounds of jewels, all of which she had left behind. It was the fact that Sanj's uncle chose these especially for her. A man who didn't want to sleep with her, or to be smacked around by her. It renewed her faith in men. She felt something in her give way to a strong emotion—what was it? Maybe it was hope. Maybe it would all work out. Once Maeve was back, of course.

She slipped between her covers and fell asleep almost as soon as her blond head hit the pillow.

It seemed as though the minute she drifted off, something fell on her head. She awoke with a start. What the—?

A man in her room. He took her head and neck in his hand and shoved her face in the pillow. She struggled as she gasped for air. Twisted her head around. She wanted to see who it was.

Who could it be?

He slammed her head deeper into the pillow.

Strong arms.

The scent of bayberry.

“Snake” was her last thought before everything went black.

Cold. Hard. Rock.

She shivered awake. No place on her body did not ache. Where was she? She struggled to lift her eyelids and heard a moan.

Another woman in the same room.

She blinked.

The woman was tied to a small boulder. She was naked, emaciated, with a bare amount of skin stretched over her ribs. Auburn hair, matted. Barely recognizable. But Sasha knew.

She knew she was looking at what was left of Maeve Flannery.

Sasha surmised they were in a cave. She struggled to sit up. Her eyes met with Maeve's shocked expression.
Remember, she thinks you are dead.

Were they alone?

She was being lifted and taken out of the area into another spot in the cave. The man leaned her up against the rock wall like a rag doll.

“You can go,” a voice said. And the man left from her view.

Sasha struggled to hold her head up, hold her eyes open. What had they done to her? She smelled of blood and piss. And pains shot through her head.

“Well, hello, my dear.” The voice was unmistakable.

Shivers started again in the very center of her. Her stomach clenched. She retched and dry heaved.

His face was now in her face. Pock-skinned. Tight lipped. Weak chinned. Cold dark eyes. She looked into the face of the man she hated, the man she'd been running from for years, the man who wanted her dead. She spat in his face.

“Bitch!” he said, then laughed. “As if that's going to do you any good. You're mine again. Nothing you can do about it.”

“Let her go!” Sasha managed to say. Her mouth was dry. Her jaws ached.

Snake laughed, maniacally. A sob escaped from somewhere deep within Sasha.

“I didn't know you cared,” he said, smirking. “In fact, I didn't know you cared about anybody or anything but your next fix.”

“Sam, please. Let her go. You've got me now,” she cried. “Why keep her?”

His hand came swiftly to her face. The searing pain was the last thing she remembered before Maeve's soft hand on her cheek. How long was it? An hour? A day?

Sasha tried to sit up. She was lying on a cot now. It swayed.

A boat. They were on a boat.

“I—” she began to say, but her tongue was thick in her mouth. She tasted blood and she licked her dry, swollen lips.

“They really worked you over,” Maeve said, her voice raspy, barely audible.

She wasn't the radiant, buxom beauty Sasha first came to know. But the voice was the same. The amber eyes were the same—even though they were hollowed out and haunted looking.

Sasha nodded; she reached for Maeve's hand, brought it to her lips, and tried to kiss it.

Maeve's head tilted. Her glasses were cracked. She bit her lip. “It is you. You are still alive. How can it be? I saw them take your body.”

Sasha shook her head. She tried to sit up, but the room began to spin.

“Don't try to sit up,” Maeve said. “Not yet.”

Sasha lay back down.

“You've got a pretty serious gash on your head. Might have a concussion. You look pretty bad, ” Maeve said.

You don't look so good yourself, Sasha might have said to the ghost of woman sitting on the edge of her cot. What was keeping her alive? She had a huge bruise on her left cheek and her eye was almost swollen shut. “We're in a boat,” she said a minute later, with effort. She struggled for breath. What had they done to her? “God knows where we are heading.”

She stood and walked to a very small window. She walked with a pronounced limp, and noticed Sasha watching her. “Yeah,” she said. “I think my leg is broken. They fashioned some kind of lame-ass splint for me.”

“I need to talk to you,” Sasha was finally able to say.

“Plenty of time for that, I'm afraid,” Maeve said. “Any idea on how to get out of here?” She pointed to the small circular window.

Sasha nodded and shrugged.

“Have you been using?”

“No. Not since—”

“Oh, girl, I'm proud of you,” Maeve said, tears forming in her eyes. “If Paul was still alive, he'd be, too.”

Something caught in Sasha's throat. It was as if those words had been the only thing she was living to hear. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to let go of her struggle, slipping away to a place, at last, that held no pain.

Chapter 52

S
anj, Chandan, and Josh sat at the breakfast table together. Sanj was famished and digging into the chocolate-chip pancakes room service had brought them.

His uncle whistled. “I had forgotten how you eat!”

Sanj sat back from his food. “I don't know why I'm so hungry this morning. Sasha can keep up with me, you know. Quite an appetite.”

“I bet,” said Josh, making Chandan laugh.

“Speaking of Sasha, I wonder where she is,” Sanj said. “She's usually here by now.”

“I'll check on her, boss,” Josh said, leaving the table.

“Please tell her to join us,” Chandan said. “I'd love to see those earrings against her skin.”

“She was quite touched you sent them to her,” Sanj said.

Sanj sat back and drank from his coffee. “Drink of the gods,” he said.

“That's a matter of opinion. You know I'm a tea man,” his uncle said. One of his assistants stepped forward and poured more for him.

“Thank you,” he said. Another assistant leaned down and said something in his ear. “I'll take the call in about an hour,” he said.

Sanj heard a commotion at the front door. Someone was yelling. He started to stand and his uncle's security detachment was on him.

“Sit down, please sir,” the large one said to him. “Let us see to the matter.”

Soon enough, a disheveled Josh stood before them, pale, looking ill.

“What is it?” Sanj said.

“It's Sasha.”

“What about her?” Sanj's stomach leapt into his throat.

“She is gone.”

“Gone?”

“As in . . . maybe she went shopping?” Chandan said. “To the spa?”

“No,” Josh said, voice quivering with anger. “The guards were in her room, dead.”

Sanj felt as if someone had kicked him in the gut. He looked at his uncle. He looked back at Josh.

“There's no sign of Sasha. All of her clothes are still there. Her books. Her purse. Everything.”

“Sign of a struggle?” Chandan said.

Josh shook his head no. “Nothing, except the dead men. Two of them. Shot.”

Sanj cradled his head in his hands. “How can this be? We have police from here . . . police from Ramsha . . . how did he get to her?”

“Please try to be calm, my son,” Chandan said and placed his hand on his shoulder.

Josh's head tilted as if the movement made him think of something.

“What is it?” Sanj said.

Josh looked at Chandan, then back at Sanj. “Nothing,” he said.

The scent of the chocolate-chip pancakes he had been enjoying suddenly sickened Sanj. Something was wrong here. This didn't feel right.

He reached for the pitcher of water and poured himself a cool libation, trying to breathe. Breath in. Breath out.

He drank from the glass and set it hard on the table. He looked at Josh square in the eyes. Josh's eyes met his. His uncle looked out the window. But instead of looking worried, what was it that came over his face? Contentment? How could he be content at a time like this?

Sanj's heart began to race and sweat formed on his forehead. Did he have something to do with this? Of course not, he chided himself. Of course not. He liked Sasha. He knew she wasn't looking for a husband. He sent her those earrings.

And yet.

And yet.

Here he sat looking content.

How his uncle despised Western women. How he almost cheered when he told him his engagement with Jennifer was off.

“Are you okay, boss?” Josh said, breaking the silence that had filled the room.

“I don't know,” Sanj said. “We need to inform the local authorities.”

“Already done, sir,” Josh said. “Of course, the place is crawling with police. I could barely get to her room.”

Sanj looked over his luxurious table, filled with food and drink on lavish, beautiful plates, and wept.

 

Later, he pulled Josh aside, without his watchful uncle too close.

“So you think he had anything to do with Sasha's disappearance? I mean, Snake is in Trinidad, right?”

“To answer your first question, honestly, I thought the same thing. But it hasn't added up. Secondly, all of our evidence pointed us to Trinidad. That doesn't mean anything.”

“A sort of a double cross, you mean.”

“Yes,” he said. “And a brilliant one at that. Jennifer. Jackson. Both in Trinidad. He double-crossed them all. A red herring, if you will.”

“More likely Snake than my uncle?”

“I gave up trying to figure out his next move after the last debacle.”

“You mean with Jennifer?”

He nodded. “I didn't really like her. But it wasn't . . . cool what he did to her.”

“Agreed,” Sanj said after a moment. “But to harm a woman? I don't think he would do such a thing.”

“What he did to Jennifer wasn't harm?” Josh's voice raised.

“It was . . . humiliation. Heartbreak. But he didn't kill her—or try to,” Sanj said, remembering the day Chandan had gathered the family together and demanded Jennifer bow down to him and kiss his shoe—a gesture many women made to his uncle, but one Jennifer found abhorrent. She respectfully declined. But he pushed the issue.

Sanj would never forget the way she looked at him in that moment—the man she was going to marry, standing beside her and not defending her. But he could not defy his uncle, especially in front of his wives and court.

Her expression held such disappointment and pain he could hardly stand to remember it. Even now.

He reached inside his jacket pocket. He needed to talk to Jackson. Where was he? If he was in Trinidad, it was a complete and utter waste of his time.

“Jackson,” he said into the voice mail system. “This is Sanj. I'm still in Saint Lucia. I know you are heading to Trinidad. But I think Maeve is here. I think they all are. Sasha has been kidnapped. Please don't go to Trinidad.”