The Alex King Series, A BATEMAN [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

ram the handle of the knife into the melted ice. It freezes in no time at all. What then? They hide? They call the wolf? No. They simply leave the blade for the wolf to find. The wolf smells the blood, watches, but sees no sign of a trap, nothing but the blood. The wolf sniffs the blood, then starts to lick. It licks the blood, cold and hard. Its warm tongue melts the blood, and soon the wolf’s tongue is slashed to pieces. Its mouth is cut and bleeding, but the blood adds to the taste, the frenzy it finds itself in. Blood, blood, more blood. Warm and delicious; its tongue numb from the lacerations. The wolf cannot believe how easy this meal has been to find, to exploit. But soon, the wolf is bleeding terribly, soon the wolf is weakening as it bleeds and bleeds and bleeds; yet continues to feed, to drink its own blood. The wolf is dying but does not realise. Not even at the end, when the wolf finally collapses and dies…” she paused. “You see, you are the bloodied knife. King is the wolf. He is doing my bidding, but he will die doing it…” She nodded to The Beast and he walked around the table and pulled Caroline roughly to her feet. “Because he’s performing certain tasks for me. I suppose to buy you time while he mounts a grand rescue. It won’t work out that way, but I guess he’s desperate enough to believe he has a chance.”

“What tasks?” asked Caroline, as she was propelled forwards and walked in front of them.

Helena said nothing as they reached a door and The Beast pushed Caroline up against the wall. Helena opened the door, then caught Caroline by the arm, linking her own inside. They stepped outside and to any casual observer, it could have looked like two old friends meeting for the first time in an age.

“Your man is a killer. I’m merely using him for business.”

“He’s killed, but he’s done it for the right side,” Caroline corrected her, but already she felt a sinking feeling.

“I was part of the Bratva, the brotherhood,” she paused. “The Russian mafia. Well, I suppose I wasn’t as much a part of it, as a sex slave for it. They used and abused me, degraded me. Sold me, bought me back, hired me out. But I learned many things. About myself, and about them…”

“I’m sorry,” Caroline said. She meant it and sounded sincere. But she knew she wasn’t going to win over this woman.

“I learned that vengeance is a dish best served cold, as they say. I also learned how powerplay works. That if someone in power dies, how you can exploit that position entirely.”

Helena slowed her pace as they reached a stone-built barn. It had been refurbished, fitted with windows, but Caroline noticed that the windows were barred.

On the inside.

“What do you mean?” Caroline asked, to bide time as much as understand.

“King has killed two prominent brotherhood bosses for me. I had the resources and insight in place to take over. To appeal to those who were left, shown them that my way would be the best for all concerned.”

“What? In the brief time since the rug was pulled from under you?” Caroline asked incredulously.

“I had no options open to me. I am a fugitive. I had some money in a few offshore accounts, got the funds out in time. Bought bitcoins, mined and sold them on. Digital currency quickly becomes untraceable. But what I had to give me my in, to get me ahead, was a great many contacts within the brotherhoods,” Helena paused. She stood aside while The Beast stepped around Caroline and opened the door. It was padlocked and bolted from outside. “This has been up and running for years,” she said, sweeping her hand across the façade of the building. “Come see inside…”

Caroline followed tentatively. She could hear voices, but they were hushed tones and the voices soon stopped altogether when the door closed again behind them. The light was dim. There was a dank smell, the odour of fear and of poor hygiene. Her legs felt so heavy, it was an effort to maintain forward motion. She knew she was being toyed with. She knew she was about to see something terrible, and as hard as it was to move, she felt compelled to discover what secrets lay within this prison. For any building locked from outside with people within, was exactly that.

Helena smiled, but it was a mirthless, crocodile smile. “This is what your boyfriend has killed for,” she said. “To save you from this…”

Caroline rounded the end of the corridor and stopped when she saw the Perspex viewing panel. “What is this?” she asked, her eyes transfixed.

The room on the other side of the panel was approximately five-metres by twenty-five. At some time or other it had housed animals because the remains of the stalls were clearly visible where the blocks had been removed, and there were still metal cattle ties in place. Most were hanging uselessly, but a woman had been handcuffed to one of them and there were welts on her bare back. Another woman was giving her a drink from a dirty bottle. It was water, but it looked cloudy. The woman was drinking thirstily.

“Ignore her,” Helena said. “She was naughty. Tried to escape. Jurgen here, gave her a lesson.”

Caroline shuddered at the thought of The Beast whipping the poor woman. She shook her head. “Who are they?”

“Trash. Waifs and strays,” Helena said lightly. “Girls wanting comfortable jobs in the west. A better life. Ironic really…”

“You’re sick!” Caroline snapped.

“I’m a realist.”

“You said you were in the sex industry, forced into it by the Russian mafia,” Caroline paused, looked at her in bewilderment. “Have you no feeling for them? You’ve inflicted your own