“Prison,” Tom replies. “Where we put him.”
“He should be dead and buried!”
“Stillwell is one cog in a large, sophisticated machine.” Warner steeples his fingers. “Gael’s cartel could have any number of honeytraps operating across the globe. His operation is beyond vast.”
Each bleak word breezes over me unacknowledged. All I can do is stare at Gracie’s young face. The same face that I last saw warped and misshapen to the point that she was unrecognisable as this sweet, carefree girl.
I tried so hard to escape Gael and his men before I was carried away. Even when I was re-cuffed and stabbed with a hypodermic needle while Luis negotiated my price.
It still wasn’t enough to escape their bondage. The last thing I saw before the room faded into nothingness was Gracie’s terrified face, mouth frozen in an ‘O’ as she screamed my name.
“We need everything you have on those involved in your captivity.” Warner doesn’t realise I’ve checked out. “Don’t leave a single person out, Ember.”
“Stillwell is still in HMP Wakefield,” Tom chips in. “The place is a shit hole. We could run Ember’s intel past him, try a little bribery. See who he’ll verify as key players.”
“Send the interview request.”
“He’s just a foot soldier.” Axel stands up to begin pacing the room. “Stillwell won’t know shit.”
“We have to start somewhere,” Warner reasons.
“No, we need to identify who’s organising the shipments from the UK to Mexico. Someone official who knows what’s in those containers.”
“We tried that angle years ago,” Warner dismisses his suggestion. “Spent months interrogating freight workers, dockyard bosses and even executives from the shipping firms. We didn’t find a scrap of evidence.”
“Then who is being paid to keep quiet?” He throws up his hands.
Between their back and forth, no one has stopped to realise that I’ve inched my chair backwards from the conference table. The longer I sit there, the louder Gracie’s photo screams at me.
When I abruptly stand up, Tom turns to me. “Em? You okay?”
My tongue feels thick and heavy in my mouth. “I… N-Need to get out of here.”
“Okay, trouble. We can be finished for today. I’ll take you home.”
“No… Not there. Not… Fuck!”
Words mixing and jumbling, I can’t vocalise the riotous confusion running through my mind. My thoughts have scattered in the rising winds of fury, sending me into a free fall.
The moment I lay down in his spare bed, I see women being brutalised all around me again. I can still hear their sobs when I remain awake at night. The begging and pleading. Agonised wails. Fists pummelling flesh.
Even at Gael’s estate, the onslaught was relentless. Evil lurked around every corner. If it wasn’t in the fights I was forced to endure, it was the sight of others being controlled and degraded while I remained untouchable.
“One date!” I lash out. “One fucking date, and I lost my entire life. Everything! And Gracie… She… She never even got to…”
Grabbing the back of my chair, I angrily fling it across the room. The metal legs crash into the wall, leaving a large dent. It still isn’t enough to quell the fury corroding my insides.
“Em…”
When I feel Tom’s hands landing on my arms, I recoil so fast, he stumbles backwards. My first instinct is to slam my fist into his face in case he’s trying to attack me.
“No!”
“Okay.” He backs off, hands calmly raised. “Just take a breath for me.”
“I don’t need to breathe… I need those animals burned alive! I need to know if Gracie is still out there so I can go find her and save her!”
“Ember.” Warner circles the table to approach us. “I know you’re angry?—”
