‘Tariq?’
Whimpering, Lena Cona looked down at the ground to where her brother lay.
The two men were shouting now, their voices angry, intimidating.
She tried to comprehend what they were saying, but their jumbled words were muted, merging into background noise as her ears began to ring loudly, a high-pitched screech filling her head.
She was in shock.
Unable to think straight, Lena tried to move, but she couldn’t.
Her legs were shaking, but her feet felt weighed down, as if her shoes were filled with lead.
She was afraid. Paralysed to the spot, all she could do was stare; her eyes fixated on the thick stream of blood that oozed out from the gash at the back of Tariq’s head.
He’d been hit.
The taller of the men had whacked him around the head with the butt of his gun.
They had a gun!
Panic ripped through her at the sudden realisation.
Lena tried to shout out; opening her mouth, a strained squeak barely louder than a whisper was the only noise that crept out.
‘Get in the car.’
The man pointed his gun at her now. Aiming it straight at her. His words were devoid of emotion, reflecting the same vacant hollowness that she could see in his eyes.
Stepping closer, he shoved the barrel against Lena’s chest.
‘Now!’ This time he bellowed, his face twisting in anger as he pushed the gun harder against her skin.
Lena could see his finger hovering threateningly over the trigger. This wasn’t an empty threat. She knew he was dangerous, but still she couldn’t move.
A few minutes ago she and her brother had been laughing and joking together.
Tariq had been walking her home from school.
That was her parents’ order: that her brother would walk her to and from school every day.
Lena had thought her parents were overreacting. Of course there were risks, but they didn’t apply to her, surely. Now she’d realised she’d been stupid, naïve. She remembered, with increasing terror, Néné’s harrowing tales of girls from Shkodër being snatched. Abducted and taken to the city’s main port, Vlorë, before being shipped off on speedboats across the Adriatic Sea, never to be seen again.
Her parents had pleaded with her to stay at home, to accept the traditional life of a normal Albanian girl just as many of her peers had done, but Lena was anything but normal.
Strong-willed. Defiant. Unlike most of the other girls in her class who had left school at the age of twelve or thirteen due to the pressures that their families had bestowed on them, Lena had refused to follow suit, insisting on completing her education. Why should she be penalised just for being born female? Why should she submit to a life doing what was expected of her? Instead, adamant to remain, schooled in a classroom of eleven boys, Lena had strived to be top of her class.
Not only had Lena excelled in mathematics, but she was also fluent in English. Her teacher had been impressed. He had told Lena that she had mastered the language so well that, eventually, she’d be able to teach it herself.
Lena had loved that idea. Travelling the world, working as a teacher or a translator. Practising daily, she’d even started to educate her parents and her brother. Just the basic words of salutation, or naming the food they ate.
She wanted to learn as much as she possibly could, so that, one day, she could have more than just what her parents had chosen for her. She didn’t want to be stuck here in Albania as just somebody’s wife, or somebody’s mother.
It may have been enough for Néné, but it would never be enough for her. Lena wanted so much more: to be treated as an equal; to experience the same opportunities and freedom that her brother had.
Unwilling to back down, she’d argued so intently that her parents had finally given in; insisting, in the end, that if Lena must continue with her schooling until she was nineteen then she could, on the condition that Tariq chaperone her.
Only now it seemed that fate had played out a cruel hand. Staring down at him she could see that Tariq was hurt, maybe dead.
And it’s all my fault, a voice screamed in Lena’s head.
‘Help me! Please, somebody?’ Shouting hysterically, Lena finally found her voice as she prayed that someone would come to her aid.
‘Help me, please… ’
Lena caught the gaze of a woman across the road, her eyes pleading with her to help her, but all that stared back at her was the woman’s fear. With an apologetic look, the woman put her head down and kept walking, pretending that she hadn’t seen.
Crying now, desperate, Lena scoured the street, looking for anyone that might help her, but the dusty road was almost deserted. School had finished; people were already indoors, evading the mid-afternoon scorching heat.
A single car passed by. Slowing down, the people inside stared out from behind the glass windows, but they didn’t stop to help her. They didn’t dare.
‘Pick her up,’ the taller man shouted now, directing the shorter man.
He did as he was told: grabbing her roughly from behind, clamping his hand over her mouth to mute her cries.
Lena saw their car. It was a battered-looking bright blue Mercedes, covered in flaky patches of orange rust. The back door was wide open; the engine running.
They are going to take me?
Gripped with fear, Lena dug her heels into the dry mud, trying her hardest to resist as one of the two men tried to grab at her feet, but it was no use. The men were much stronger than her.
Overpowering her, they lifted her off the ground, hauling her over to their car.
A hand came from behind her, clamping tightly across her mouth, making her gag for breath. Silencing her. Lena struggled to break free but her attempts only caused the men to hold on to her tighter.
‘Stay still, you stupid bitch!’
The man’s voice was commanding. He was losing patience. The sternness of his tone indicated that he’d had enough of her not complying. ‘Do as you are told, or you will be punished.’
Punished?
Lena twisted her head back to where her brother lay sprawled out on the ground, motionless.
Hadn’t they punished her enough already?
She had no idea who they were or what they wanted. All she knew was that she couldn’t let them take her.
Her brother needed her. Despite feeling helpless, Lena couldn’t just leave him like this.
Kicking and clawing at the men like a wildcat as they tried to force her onto the back seat, her body convulsing, Lena fought to break free from her abductors.
If she got inside this car, maybe she’d suffer the same fate as all the girls before her.
She had to fight.
Kicking out her heel, her foot connected with the shorter man’s face. She startled him, just enough for him to lose his footing and his grip. Stumbling, he dropped her legs. But her small victory was short-lived.
A massive thud exploded at the back of her skull. The almighty blow from the man behind her immobilised her in an instant.
‘I warned you.’
Lena flopped forward like a rag doll.
She felt the man grab at her roughly, breaking her fall just before she hit the ground.
She felt herself being lifted up, thrown into the back of the car. She was dizzy, her head pounding.
A sharp burn of her scalp as the man seized a fistful of her long auburn hair. Wrapping it around his fist, he twisted her around to face him.
He was just inches away from her now; his face almost touching hers. He was so close that she could smell his stale rancid breath, see the glistening beads of sweat forming on his forehead. His face was puce from the heat and the struggle to get her into the car.
Still woozy from the blow she’d received to the back of her head, she tried to focus. Her vision blurred; she was surprised at how young her abductor looked. She had expected someone older. This man looked only a few years older than Tariq. No more than twenty, she guessed.
‘So, you think you’re a wild one huh?’
The man’s steely grey eyes flickered then, and Lena thought that she saw the tiniest hint of amusement behind them as he yanked at her hair even harder, ripping a clump from her scalp as he did so. The pain so acute, it forced Lena alert once more.
‘Well, it won’t take me long to tame you.’
Lena kept eye contact. Refused to let him see her pain; she stared back at him with nothing but pure contempt.
‘Stupid little girl.’
He punched her again, this time his fist locking hard with her cheek, her neck snapping back, her head smacking against the window behind her.
Slumped in the car now, Lena had nothing left. She was exhausted; her body weak and broken.
‘Tie her up,’ the man commanded, as the shorter of the men slid in beside her.
The man did as he was told. He bound her legs together tightly with coarse brown rope before wrapping thick black strips of tape firmly around her wrists. He was obviously taking no more chances with her.
The car began to move.
Petrified, Lena sat slumped in silence as she stared out of the window. Her gaze fixed on Tariq’s body, motionless, on the ground.
Move! Please, let me know that you’re okay?
Only Tariq didn’t. He remained completely still, lifeless, as the car continued off into the distance.
Lena watched until her brother was completely out of sight. All hope from her now gone.
She could feel the stream of blood pouring from her nose; the metallic taste mixed with the saltiness of her tears, filling her mouth.
Silent tears ran down her face as she wondered what fate was ahead of her.
She thought of Néné’s words once more.
About those girls. About what happened to them after they were taken.
How they were trafficked around Europe like cattle.
Her mother hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell her young daughter why the girls had been taken, but Lena knew. Rumours in Shkodër were rife. People in the village had spoken of how the girls that were taken were used for sex. Forced to earn money for men in ways so disgusting it was almost unimaginable to Lena.
Except maybe now she didn’t have to imagine it.
Maybe she was destined to experience the horror of it all herself, first hand.
Lena sobbed as she thought how she should have listened to her parents.
They only wanted the best for her, to keep her safe, but she’d been so foolish, so pig-headed. She’d put Tariq in danger.
These men were savages, animals.
Capable of anything.
Resting her head on the window as the car made its way out of Shkodër, out towards the rural mountains of the countryside, Lena closed her eyes and said a silent prayer.
She had no idea what fate lay ahead of her, but one thing she knew for certain, her nightmare was only just beginning.
Saskia Frost’s eyes snapped open.
With a sharp intake of breath she sat up in her bed.
Something had woken her.
A noise. Startling her from sleep.
She hadn’t meant to fall asleep; she’d just closed her eyes for a few minutes. Exhausted from the week’s harrowing events, her body must have finally given in. Yet even in sleep she hadn’t been able to escape the torment of her father’s death.
He haunted her dreams. He’d been back here at home with her. Sitting at the table having dinner. Laughing at something she had said, one of her stories. His eyes twinkling; his face lit up.
But as she had awoken to complete darkness in the cold, empty room, the realisation had hit her with full force once again.
He was gone.
Death was so cruel, so taunting.
Sitting up, her eyes fixed on the alarm clock next to her bed. She shook her head, dazed. It was past three a.m.
She must have dozed off. That was the longest she’d slept all week.
Saskia was annoyed with herself. She’d been determined to see the day through, to give her father the send-off that he deserved, but when she saw the measly scatter of acquaintances that attended his funeral, she had known it was never going to be that.
The day had been heartbreaking; the dismal turnout like the final twist of the knife.
Her father deserved so much more than a small cluster of people standing over his graveside – than the handful of mere strangers huddled afterwards in his kitchen. The stilted awkward conversations; their words full of clichés.
‘He’ll be at peace now.’
‘In time, you’ll be okay.’
She knew she’d never be okay, not now her father was gone.
Their empty meaningless words made her want to scream.
What did they know? What did any of these people know?
They didn’t know her. They didn’t know her father, how close they both were. It had been just the two of them. Always.
Saskia had held her tongue – determined to see the day through – to hold herself together, but the pretence had been too much.
Sneaking up into the sanctuary of her bedroom she had just wanted to escape. To have a few minutes alone with her thoughts.
That’s when it had caught her. Her grief.
She’d crumbled.
Falling down onto her bed she’d sobbed uncontrollably. The weight of her grief so immense that all she had wanted to do was curl up and die too.
She’d been in denial. She knew that now.
Up until the day of her father’s funeral she’d just been going through the motions, desperate to carry on as normal – trying to convince herself that somehow her father’s death wasn’t real. That there had been some kind of mistake.
You can’t deny death when you’re standing over a graveside, though. The memory of her father’s coffin being lowered into the ground would haunt her forever.
Wincing now, she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to shut out the bittersweet words spoken by the vicar that kept playing over and over inside her head.
‘Angeline and Daniel Frost – Reunited.’
Afterwards, other people had tried to console her with those same words.
At least her parents were together again now. As if it was some kind of comfort.
Saskia felt the tears threatening once more.
She had no one now. No family. No uncles or aunts. No cousins.
She was completely and utterly on her own now – and that thought alone scared her stiff.
She heard the noise again. Downstairs. Wiping away her tears, she wondered if someone was still down there. Maybe someone had stayed behind from the wake?
Rigid, totally still, she strained to listen.
There it was again. Louder this time.
A loud clang.
Someone was in the house? Frozen with fear, she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, her heart racing in time with her mind.
Shaking, she stepped out of bed, wrapping her dressing gown around herself, and tiptoed over to the doorway. Unsure of what to do, she pressed her ear up against the thick oak door.
There was nothing. Just silence.
Waiting just a little longer, she wondered if perhaps her mind had been playing tricks. If maybe she’d been hearing things.
This big old house could do that. The high vaulted ceilings and marble floors magnified every noise into an echo.
About to go back to bed, Saskia heard a creak from a door downstairs. She was certain now; sure she’d heard it.
Her mind went into overdrive.
What if it wasn’t a guest from the wake? What if someone had broken in?
Filled with fear, she stared over at the phone next to her bed, cursing silently to herself as she remembered it had been cut off. The bill unpaid. The line disconnected.
Shit!
She couldn’t even ring someone for help; she’d have to go downstairs and investigate. She tried to calm her nerves, convince herself she was probably just freaking herself out over nothing. It might be nothing. Just a window she’d forgotten to close banging in the wind. The cool draught pushing at a door.
She needed to check though, make sure that everything was secure. She’d never get anymore sleep tonight otherwise.
Slowly, gently, she pulled down the door handle and carefully crept out onto the landing.
Moving slowly along the thick pile carpet, Saskia’s eyes searched through the shadows as she scanned the long corridor of bedrooms. Checking that each door remained closed as they had been earlier.
She looked down then, her eyes following the sweeping curve of the marble staircase.
Nothing.
No movement.
‘Hello?’
Her voice quaking as she called out, betraying her.
She shouted again, this time determined to sound in control.
‘Hello? Is anyone there?’
Her question, echoing off the walls, met with only silence.
Nothing.
Silently she berated herself. She needed to get a grip. She couldn’t just hide away upstairs like a frightened little girl every time she heard a noise. This house was hers now. She needed to pull herself together.
She was halfway down the stairs now. She could do this.
Ensure that the house was empty, safe. She’d get herself a drink of water while she was at it. Her mouth was dry, her throat parched.
As her feet hit the cool marble tiles of the entrance hall, a loud shrill rang out to the left of her.
A loud crash, this time in the kitchen.
She could see the sliver of light shining through from under the kitchen door.
Shadows shifted as someone moved around; then she heard footsteps.
She wasn’t alone.
Someone was in the house.
Fuelled with adrenaline, her heart pounded inside her chest.
Saskia scoured the entrance hall for something she could use as a weapon, to protect herself. A small ornate letter opener was lying on top of a pile of unopened mail.
Grabbing it, she held the silver blade out in front of her.
‘Whoever you are, the police are on their way,’ Saskia called out; impressed that her bravado masked the fact that inside she was a trembling wreck.
She waited for some movement, for whoever was on the other side of the door to panic and leave at the sound of her words. Instead she heard the scrape of a kitchen stool. A clang of a cup as it was placed on the granite worktop.
Alone in the darkness of the hallway, she pushed her back up against the wall, confused.
She waited. It was a stand-off.
She’d have to go in there. What other option did she have?
Saskia felt physically sick now as she stepped forward, anxiously pushing at the kitchen door.
Standing in the doorway now, the silver letter opener gripped tightly in front of her body, Saskia looked at the man sitting at the breakfast bar, perplexed.
She recognised him from earlier.
He’d been here, at her father’s funeral. At the wake. Saskia had assumed he was an ex-work colleague.
Now, in the dark of night, with him sitting in her kitchen, grinning at her with an unfaltering look in his eyes, Saskia wasn’t so sure.
‘Who are you?’
‘My name’s Vincent. Vincent Harper.’
Picking up his cup of coffee, the man took a sip, holding Saskia’s gaze. Unperturbed by her sudden presence.
‘Why are you still here?’ She wondered if perhaps the man was drunk.
‘I could ask you the same thing?’ Vincent smiled, then taking another mouthful of coffee he held the cup up, grimacing. ‘By the way, this stuff tastes like shit! I take it your old man couldn’t afford any of the decent stuff though eh? Seeing as he owed fucking thousands to half of London.’
‘Excuse me?’
Saskia shook her head, even more confused. She had no idea who this man was, or what he wanted. What she did know was that she wanted him to get the hell out of her house. Now.
‘I don’t know who you think you are,’ Saskia said, irritated. ‘But I’d like you to leave.’
The man laughed then, throwing back his head. He was mocking her, and Saskia had no idea why, which only fuelled her temper further.
‘I said I want you to leave. Get out of my house!’
Waving the knife out in front of her, her empty threat only succeeded in making the man laugh even harder. Finally, he stopped, his eyes twinkling with amusement as he shook his head in wonderment.
‘You don’t have a fucking clue do you? You’ve got no idea?’
‘Don’t have a clue about what?’ Unable to hide her irritation, Saskia shouted. ‘You are trespassing. You need to leave. I’ve phoned the police; they’ll be here any minute… ’
Saskia stared with defiance. Letting her words hang in the air between them, hoping that the threat of the police would be enough to deter the man; that he’d finally leave.
He didn’t.
Instead, he sat back on the stool. Staring at Saskia, his expression cold.
His eyes unwavering from hers.
‘Is that so?’ He smirked.
Saskia nodded.
He knew she was lying. She hadn’t called anyone.
He’d already checked the house phones. They were dead. He’d been pleased because it had meant that he hadn’t needed to cut them, and she’d left her mobile phone down here. He knew because he’d already looked through it.
Reading through all her pathetic messages between her and daddy dearest. The photos of her with her posh-looking school friends. Pretentious little girls wearing too much make-up.
She was calling his bluff.
Only, Vincent Harper was too fucking smart to fall for it.
‘Well, you’ll be shit out of luck if the Old Bill do turn up, darling, ’cos I think you’ll find that technically it’s you who’s trespassing.’
Taking a sip of his coffee, Vincent screwed his face up once more at its bitterness before placing his cup down on the counter.
The girl looked confused. He was really starting to enjoy this.
‘Let me spell it out for you sweetheart! Your “daddy dearest” was up to his neck in debt! He owed a shitload of money to people all over the place. One of those people being my brother, Joshua Harper. You might have heard of him? No? Well, Joshua was nice enough to help your dad out. Only, the small matter of your father snuffing it means that the agreement they made is now null and void, isn’t it, seeing as your dad won’t be making any deposits into Joshua’s account anytime soon. So, it looks like we’re going to have to call in the debt. Just as it says in our contract here.’
Pulling out the envelope from the inside pocket of his leather jacket, Vincent waved it in front of Saskia.
‘This house is ours.’
Vincent smiled then, the insincere gesture not reaching his eyes.
‘But I don’t understand.’
Saskia’s voice shook now as the feeling of dread consumed her. Racking her memory, she was trying to remember her father mentioning the Harpers. She couldn’t. Joshua and Vincent Harper? She’d never heard of them and she was convinced her father hadn’t either. She would have known.
‘I think there’s been some kind of a mistake… ’ She faltered. ‘I don’t understand who you are?’
Standing up, Vincent threw the paperwork down onto the kitchen worktop.
‘You can just call me the messenger, darling. I’m here to let you know, politely on this occasion, that you have seven days to vacate this property.’
Vincent pushed his way past Saskia, both of them facing each other inside the doorway.
Leaning in, filled with arrogance, he raised his brow.
‘And trust me sweetheart, I only do “polite” once.’
Her hands were still shaking uncontrollably even though Vincent had left hours ago. Still, Saskia Frost couldn’t let that deter her. She needed to keep looking.
Slipping the knife between the gap in the wood, she levered the blade’s edge on the wooden lip of the drawer. The lock of her father’s desk was still not budging.
She’d been trying for almost ten minutes now.
Determined not to let it beat her, she leant against the silver handle, driving the metal into the gap again, using every bit of strength she had.
The contract that Vincent had taken great pleasure in delivering to her was sprawled out in front of her on the desktop.
The words were there in black and white. The deeds to the house signed over into Joshua Harper’s name.
Her stomach knotted. It couldn’t be true.
The paperwork was forged. A trick. They were lying. They had to be.
Pushing harder now, forcefully, the metal handle of the knife dug into her skin, indenting her palm, but she didn’t care.
She had to get inside this desk. It was the only part of the house that she hadn’t yet ransacked. Everywhere else had been ripped apart; every room, every cupboard, every box.
She was desperate to find something that would prove that it wasn’t true.
This was the last place to check, but without a key, getting inside her father’s desk was easier said than done.
Straining with all her might, Saskia gave the knife one last almighty push.
It wasn’t working.
She couldn’t open it.
Tears of frustration were streaming down her cheeks now.
Looking around her father’s office at the pictures of her mother, Saskia felt overwhelmed with sadness.
The house was a shrine to her mother. Every room the same. Her father had been obsessed. Every wall, every mantle, adorned with pictures of her late mother.
Saskia had grown up under her mother’s watchful gaze. Unable to escape those beautiful green eyes that stared back at her from every corner. Haunting her.
Saskia often wondered why her father had never blamed her. Resented her.
Because she’d been the one who had killed his beautiful Angeline.
Her mother had died during childbirth. She’d taken her last shallow breath just as Saskia had entered the world and taken her very first. It had been all Saskia’s fault. If she hadn’t been born, her mother would never have died.
Her father had never seen it that way, though. Instead of treating Saskia with any kind of resentment, the tragedy bestowed on them all had only made her father love her more. To him, Saskia was a precious miracle. His wife’s last passing gift to the world.
He cherished this house. The memories inside these walls.
‘You are not taking my house,’ Saskia shouted, rage suddenly filling her as she gave one last almighty stab.
Her eyes opened wide at the sound of the click of metal as the lock popped open. Tossing the knife down on the floor, Saskia pulled at the drawer and dragged out the mass of paperwork that was packed down inside. A thick, heavy pile of papers.
Searching through them, Saskia felt a sense of dread wash over her once more.
The words coming o. . .
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
