Bad Situation

- VANESSA -

This isn't about Jimmy. What does that mean? Why is the detective forcing me into my car?

My brain obviously isn't working fast enough to figure this out, because he curses when I fumble around with my keys trying to find the right one. He leans in, finds the right key, offers it to me, and then shakes me by the shoulders when I stare at him instead of taking it. 

"Focus," he growls. As if my heart needs another jolt of terror. "Start the car and go home." 

"Ow. Okay! Get off me!" 

"Ah, you found her." 

This other man's voice makes us both freeze. Dread slides like ice down my spine at what I can already sense from the shadows of this new guy. His aura is like Jimmy's, but different. And worse. So much worse.

The detective's eyes close resolutely, and I can almost hear the silent curses behind his lips. This is the danger he was warning me about. When he opens his eyes again, a whole different person is looking back at me. It's like I just witnessed his internal death, and now an empty shell is all that's left.

The hands that were trying to shake sense into me lock on my arms and pull me out of the car. He's so strong and I'm so shocked by this turn of events, I don't even resist. 

"Excellent," the second man chuckles, and then I'm faced with him. The entirely mundane face of a monster. "Thank God, I thought we missed you tonight, princess." 

He grabs my chin, grinning as he forces our faces close together. Thousands of female voices are crying around him, and my eyes pinch closed instinctively. I can still hear them, but I don't want to see it—the flood of images, the women and girls stripped of all hope and forced into enslavement. Their cries are bad enough. That's not even everything he's hiding, but it's definitely the worst.

"Open your eyes, Vanessa." Voice low and menacing, his grip on my chin widens until he's holding both sides of my jaw and shaking until he gets his wish. 

His eyes are cold, icy blue. They look like the detective's, and that's when it hits me: these two men are related. 

"What do you see?" He studies my face intently, looking for something that he's not finding. "Tell me what you see." 

"Ivan, we have to go." 

My gaze slides hopefully to the one who was trying to warn me. His voice is calm, detached, and so is his expression. Whatever help he was trying to be before is gone, and it's not coming back. 

"She can do this first." Ivan, apparently, presses me against the car and leans closer. If he thinks this is more intimidating, he's wrong. His secrets are enough. 

When I don't answer, he gets angry. I can tell by the way his hand tightens on my aching jaw and his manic smile widens. He's angry, but there's also a sick kind of joy he finds in being challenged or disobeyed, and my silence is feeding into that. 

My hands try clawing at his arm so I can get free or at least get him to ease up, but it doesn't work. Then I remember what Luciano told me. If I want to get away from a guy, kick him as hard as I can in the balls. 

The kick I deliver does the trick, because Ivan folds in half with a groan and drops me in the process. And then I run without looking back. I can make it to the bar's front door. It's not that far. 

A black SUV screeches to a stop in front of me, blocking my way, and I'm grabbed around the waist from behind. Screaming and kicking and finding nothing but air, a deep voice whispers harshly in my ear and arrests my struggle.

"That's just going to get everyone inside killed, Vanessa. The only option left is to cooperate." 

The detective who is surely not a detective hoists me up into the backseat and follows me in, and I scramble to the opposite door to try the door handle. It opens briefly before he reaches across and pulls it back shut. Now he's leaning over me, caging me against the seat.

"Stop." That's all he says, and it's so calm—like he's the voice of reason in this nightmare. 

"Let me go," I beg, brows pinched in a plea. "Please. Please let me go." 

Just when I think something softens and comes back to life in his eyes, a raging Ivan opens the front passenger door, and I'm forced into the blackness of those oppressive, tortured shadows once again. Nevermind the fact that Ivan's cursing and growling and calling me names, his secrets alone are enough to make me nauseous. 

I do a quick inventory. The 'detective' is with me in the back. Ivan is in the passenger's seat. A third man driving. It's three against one. I'm not getting out of here. 

"Luka, get out and wipe the car down in case Dominik left any prints." 

The driver gets out. Luka. That means the man in the back with me is Dominik. 

"Dominik," I whisper automatically. That's his name. 

He stiffens next to me but doesn't look at me again. Instead, Ivan turns around in his seat. 

"Switch me spots, Dominik." 

When Ivan gets out and shuts the door, I scoot away from the door where he's headed. 

"No. Please. No." 

Before I realize it, I'm pressed against Dominik who hasn't gotten out yet to take Ivan's place in the passenger seat. When the back door opens, Ivan climbs in with a wild look, and now I'm practically in Dominik's lap. 

"We're going to get to know one another really well, Vanessa Ricca." He closes the door behind him and gives Dominik a questioning look. 

"Please don't. My father will—"

"Your father and your brother," Ivan interrupts with a chuckle, "will do nothing. I'm not interested in them, sweetheart. It's you I want." 

"But why?" 

Ivan grabs my leg and pulls until I'm right next to him. Every inch of my body revolts.

"I've heard that you have a very special gift, Vanessa." 

"I don't know what you're talking about," I say, fully trembling now all the way from my toes to my voice. 

Is he talking about my shadow vision? How the hell would he have found out about that? So few people know!

"I hope that's not true, sweetheart. That gift is the only thing that's going to save you from a very bad situation."

I don't have to guess about what situation he's talking about. The vivid details are pressing in on me from every direction… every direction except the space that Dominik occupies behind me. The absence of his secrets is a gift right now, because that strange anomaly is keeping me from being entirely surrounded by the inescapable despair of Ivan's. 

Luka gets back in, and we start driving. My throat tightens around the realization that this is it—this is the moment when I disappear. My family isn't going to know what happened to me or where I went. And whatever these guys want to do, they're going to have a chance.