Page 120 of A New Days Don

“Get Raphael, Adriano, Caleb, and anyone else you can round up and trust to the fucking desert now.” I hang up the phone and run for my car. The elevator can’t come fast enough.

I curse and jam my finger into the button for the garage. The wait is excruciating, but when it releases me into the dimly lit parking lot, I run for the Audi with my phone pressed to my ear.

The phone rings, once, twice, by the third one I’m speeding down the crowded streets, swerving between cars and drifting through turns I shouldn’t be going this fast through.

“Mas,” Mila’s soft voice echoes through the car, and I feel myself physically relax to the sound.

She’s alive.

“Sweetheart, where are you?” I try to keep myself as calm as possible, but with each mile she takes into the desert, I lose another piece of my control.

Chapter 50

Mila

The road and city pass in a blur, reminding me that I am currently trapped in this car with the man who started it all six years ago. Unless, of course, I want to jump out of this car going 100 miles per hour, which I won’t hesitate to do if it's either that or rape and torture before he eventually kills me.

No.

He doesn’t get to win.

I am not dying today.

“Six years is a long time to wait for you to finally wake up,” Vicek notes as if I am some kind of burden on him. When I don’t respond, he grits out, “Don’t get quiet on me now, Mila.”

“Don’t say my fucking name,” I growl back. The way his voice rolls over my name reminds me of that evening and the way he courted and played me.

I curse at myself for reacting. Every nerve ending is alight inside me like a million tiny jolts of electric energy have come to life.

Vicek chuckles, and I have decided that I hate his chuckle.

“Temper, temper. You have certainly blossomed into a little brat since we first met. Watching you each day, with the memory of me burned into your mind, has been so fucking beautiful.” I hold back the bile clawing its way up my throat, “You had to fucking ruin everything!”

I stiffen at his sudden outburst. He is as on edge as I am.

“What do you want, Vicek?” I grit out, keeping my face neutral.

“I wanted you to stop looking and get the fuck in line, but I couldn’t have that, could I?” Vicek’s voice is higher-pitched than usual. He’s spiralling, and I get to be the one present when he bursts.

Every ounce of me wants to whimper and cower in fear, but I don’t. If I’m going down, then I will go down fighting and leave nothing but pulp left of Vicek.

My foot twitches, but I don’t reach for the knife. Not yet.

Vicek still has his gun and taser on him. I can’t bring a measly knife to that kind of fight, unless I can surprise him and get close enough.

Vicek mutters incoherently to himself before snapping, “That first night was a fucking disaster. I didn’t have the drug ratio quite right or account for the whore to come safe your bloody ass.”

“I am surprised, Mila.” Vicek grunts, but this time I don’t react. He sneers at me when he doesn’t get what he wants. “Looks like everything I did for you has made you feel like you’re invincible.”

Everything you did for me?!

Expletives and arguments threaten to escape, but I don’t let them go. That’s what he wants. He’s antagonizing me.

“Sleeping with Massimo Bianchi really threw a wrench in my plans. That raid at the drug house was supposed to take care of you, either making you a casualty on a rogue mission or terrifying you enough to leave the force for good, but fucking Bianchi had to be there and grow a sympathetic bone for you. I loved watching you lose it at his club, though. That perfectly messed-up brain was my work of art.” His snarl makes my stiff muscles tremble despite how much I try to keep myself still. Vicek notices and grins, pleased. That’s all he’s fucking getting.

This man is more than sick. He’s a deranged, narcissistic sociopath. He got off to watching my fear and trauma all these years. Enjoying my slow descent into insanity before I pulled myself back out of it.

“I put every roadblock in your way to keep you from digging too far into the case, but you are too goddamn stubborn, aren’t you?” He’s rambling now, his fists turning white-knuckled on the wheel as he accelerates, kicking dust up in the desert, “Then you met my brother. The man you accused of raping you that night.”