Page 57

Dionysus

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Almost an hour before

“I’ve already located her,” Odin says.

“Where?”

“Cage left Manhattan. It’s about half an hour north.” He opens his phone and shows me the map, but I’m already standing.

“We have to go.”

“Dionysus, we need to act calmly.”

“No. We need to bring her back. It’s because of me he took her. Cecily is my woman. It doesn’t matter that I acted like a proud idiot who only thought about his own ass. I want her back. Her place is by my side.”

“Do you think it was out of revenge for putting him under investigation that Cage took her?” Ares asks.

“No,” Zeus says. “It’s too risky for a job. There is much more to this story that we don’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll find out later. The important thing now is to save Cecily,” I say, trying to hide the despair of imagining my wife at the mercy of that son of a bitch.

“The fastest way would be a helicopter, but it would also be the riskiest. He would hear it. Let’s go by car. We’ll gather some security guards. He is alone. He won’t be able to escape.” Ares says.

“Shouldn’t we call the police?” I ask.

“Not for the time being. The police need warrants, authorizations, a whole fucking bureaucracy from which we are exempt. We do it our way, and when Cecily is safe, we turn that piece of shit over to the authorities,” Zeus says, but I can see from Odin’s expression that he would like to resolve this another way.

I know well what his methods are, and to be honest, I don’t give a damn what Cage’s fate will be afterwards, as long as he pays for daring to take my bride.

“I can’t lose her.”

“You won’t,” Ares guarantees. “Let’s save her, brother.”

Cecily

“Yes, I called her,” I say, because it’s very risky to lie. I have no idea how much he knows about what happened that night.

“And what else?”

“We met at a roadside motel. We talked. I was really worried about the baby. Sue wasn’t worried about him at all. Joseph was only a few months old, and I felt sorry for him. I’m not all bad, Cage.”

Does he believe me? I pray to God that he does.

“No one is just bad, sweetie. We all have two sides. As for Sue, she didn’t want to get pregnant in the first place, but she knew that the boy was necessary to complete the image of an abandoned and needy young woman that Dionysus had of her.”

I nod and have to try hard to contain the bile rising in my throat. “Sue was angry that I sought her out. She told me to get out of her way or she would call the police. I knew she was bluffing. I wasn’t sure what had happened to Keith. I had no idea that she had killed him, but I was convinced that she had not told the whole story to her new husband and that she did not want to attract attention by calling the authorities.”

“She was married to a rich Greek. If your concern was for the boy, you got your answer. The child would be fine, right?”

I think carefully about what to say next. Negotiating with a madman who has bouts of lucidity from time to time is like playing chess. “Yes, at that point, I knew the baby would be fine, but I thought she could help me too. I didn’t want to go back to Kansas.”

“And then?”

“She refused. She didn’t care about me. She said she would have Dionysus arrest me if I insisted. At the time, I pretended to accept, but I wasn’t willing to give up. I said goodbye and left. I had to return the rental car. At that time, I didn’t have the means to stay in New York State,” I lie, “but I knew it was possible. With what I knew about her past, based on what Keith told me about her being ambitious and cruel, Sue would give me whatever I wanted. Apparently, she guessed my intentions. Came after me down the road. Chased me.”

“The accident that killed her . . . You were there . . .” He looks genuinely surprised.

“Yes.”

“How is it possible that they didn’t link you to her death?”

“Sue tried to run me off the road. Push me into a ravine. I’m a good driver, so I managed to escape the worst, but she didn’t. In the rearview mirror, I saw her car falling into the void.” I truly shudder as I remember the terror I felt when, that night, I saw that the crazy woman really intended to kill me. “I continued driving for a few more kilometers, but it was very dark, and being nervous, I went into the wrong lane. I hit a wall head-on. I almost died too. They never connected the two accidents."

“Fuck, that sounds like a scene from a movie! I could totally visualize the two of you fighting for survival. You got that bitch right. You have my admiration.”

“Aren’t you mad at me?”

“Angry? Why would I be? Sue messed up. She just needed to play it straight and we would have been fine, but no. The whore fell in love with the Greek and wanted to ditch me.”

“Had you given up on the coup, then?”

“She tried to give up, yes, but I never did. I threatened to hand her over to the police, and in a split second, all her pride disappeared. She went back to being the usual docile slut and gave me an insurance policy.”

“How so?”

“I forced her to get pregnant by the Greek man,” he says, and I feel like vomiting. “She would be tied to him forever, giving me money every time I ordered it. When you killed Sue that day, Cecily...”

“I didn’t kill her.” I try to remember any news item about her being pregnant when she died, but I’m sure I haven’t read anything about it.

“Who cares?” he says, rolling his eyes. “I’ve seen that you’re sensitive, so okay, I’ll change the way I express myself. When you didn’t die that day, Cecily, and instead sent Sue to the depths of hell, you sent the son of Dionysus to his death as well.”

He’s smiling, and I’m more scared than ever.

“The newspapers didn’t report anything about a baby.”

“The man is a tycoon, owner of a TV station. They must have hushed it up. But that doesn’t matter anymore. Now you will be the one to provide me with a good life.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ll be honest because I think we’re already friends, okay? I wasn’t going to give you back; I was going to kill you. Even though I don’t really like this violence thing, I wanted revenge. With what you just told me, the game has completely changed because I know you have a lot to lose. I need you alive. I’ll release you. You’re going to go to him and win him back, because eventually he’ll forgive you for lying about Keith. When you are settled again, you will sustain me for the rest of my life. We’ll both be fine,” he says, running his index finger along my arm. I try hard not to cringe. “Who knows, maybe we can be more than friends after the baby is born? Not before, I’m sorry. I don’t like pregnant bodies. They are deformed. It’s kind of disgusting.”

I stare at him, silent, terrified for so many different reasons that I feel like I’m about to faint. “What if I say no?”

“Why would you do that? We both want to survive. Now, here’s some motivation: what do you think Dionysus will do when he finds out that you were involved in Sue’s death and killed his other unborn child? You are a smart girl, but just in case you can’t see the whole picture, I’ll tell you. He will have you arrested as soon as the baby he is expecting is born. That will stay with your child and you, in jail, for the rest of your days.”

I don’t believe him. Any expert who investigates the accident I suffered will be able to prove that it was Sue who hit me, and not the other way around. Anyway, there’s nothing to connect me to her accident.

However, today I got to know a scary side of Dionysus. A cruel nuance of his personality. He sent me away without thinking twice.

I mentally review the information Cage just gave me.

Sue was pregnant.

Voluntarily or not, his heir was killed in a situation in which I was involved. He will never forgive me. He will take our child from me if he knows the truth.

“We have a deal?” he asks.

“Yes. I don’t wanna go to jail.”

“Good girl.”

I close my eyes because I can no longer pretend in front of this sick person; I’m afraid he’ll find out what I’m thinking.

Misinterpreting my silence, he says, “You need to rest, darling. I’m going to leave you here for another forty-eight hours. Just long enough for the Greek to become worried, desperate to get you back. Then I’ll let you loose on the city. After all, we don’t want anything to happen to the baby. He is our golden goose.”

I hadn’t intended to sleep, but apparently, I ended up dozing off. When I wake up, there is the sound of footsteps and screams. Doors slamming. Men giving orders.

Cage talks to me, but I don’t understand anything. I feel numb, like I’m in a parallel reality.

I open my eyes and see the frightened face of my kidnapper. Something is wrong.

I try to get up, but I have no strength. He must have drugged me again because suddenly everything goes dark.