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“This happened nine months ago?” I said. “I guess that means you went into the hospital soon after.”

“Yes,” she said. “I had a complete physical and mental breakdown over it. I couldn’t eat at all, and I got down to 80 pounds. I couldn’t sleep because of the constant nightmares. I had to be sedated when I got to the hospital. I was admitted two weeks after the incident. I was a shell of myself. Until you.”

I swallowed, hard. “Until me.” I didn’t want to ask this next question. “So, I guess I had a similar story to yours?”

It was then that I realized that I still couldn’t get in touch with my mother. She hadn’t returned a single one of my calls. I usually visited her on Sundays, but I didn’t this past Sunday, because I was with Asher. It was peculiar that she didn’t call me to ask me where I was. What I was bringing for dinner. Or any of that.

I suddenly felt that I needed to run away. Get away from Emily. Get away from everyone. Crawl into a dark hole, where I could never, ever find out what had happened to me. Something horrible happened, something that was horrible enough for me to check myself into a mental hospital.

Something that had commonalities with Emily’s heartbreaking story.

She nodded her head. “Yes,” she said. “Your story was very similar to mine.”

All at once, I had to talk to my mom. I had to. I had to make sure that she was okay, and that Nathaniel and Stella were too.

But fate had a way of keeping me in the dark, unfortunately. Because there was another girl who felt the need to get in touch with me.

Her name was Marisa.

E
mily
and I had stayed at that bar for a few more hours after she told me her harrowing story. I didn’t ask her, directly, what had happened to me, because it was all becoming too close. Too scary. The mind has a way of shutting out things that it doesn’t want to know about, and my mind was no different.

So, we talked around my issue for the rest of the evening. I really got to know her, though, and I felt for her. She seemed like such a cool person, and it was truly devastating that she had to go through so much. She was trying to piece her life back together, though, and had enrolled to finish her law degree at Columbia. Her parents were still supportive, and everyone was still hopeful that, one day, Shane would be back with her.

Because, while Shane was never found, his body wasn’t, either. That gave Emily and her parents a slight glimmer of hope. Her father had engaged every private investigator in town to look into the case, and, so far, all roads led to a dead-end. But Emily’s greatest hope was that Shane would be found and she could have her life back. Because, without Shane, her life was truly nowhere. She went through the motions of life, but never could feel any real joy in what she was doing.

We made a pact, though, to keep in touch.

“Because, CJ,” she said to me. “You’re going to need me someday, and I hope that I can be there for you, too. Just like you were there for me. I know what you’re going through. Or what you will be going through.”

I nodded my head. “Thank you for sharing your story. I’m sure that it was more than difficult to do so. And….” I couldn’t finish that sentence. I still couldn’t face that there was something, lurking in the distance, that was going to absolutely floor me. Stab me in the heart, more than I ever thought possible.

We hugged, and went on our way, with promises to meet for lunch or dinner at least once a month, if not more.

And I headed home. I tried, very hard, to muster the courage to go to my mom’s house. That, too, was where I knew the answer was. The real answer.

But, before I could get up that courage, I got a phone call.

“CJ,” an unfamiliar voice said to me on the phone.

“Yes?” I said.

“It’s Marisa,” she said. “Thank God you’re okay. Asher told me that you were in the hospital after you got into an accident, and I’ve been praying for you ever since.”

“I’m so sorry, but what did you say your name was?”

“Marisa,” she said. “Oh. Asher said that you might have memory problems. I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t have called you, but I wanted to hear your voice and make sure that you made it out alright.”

“Out of where?”

She was silent. “I shouldn’t have called.”

“No,” I said. For some reason, I
wanted
this particular answer. This would hold the key to where I was when I was in that accident. That was another piece of the puzzle that nobody, thus far, had been willing to tell me. “What did you mean by making it out alright?”

More silence. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, she finally spoke. “You and I were held hostage. Falsely imprisoned, my lawyer said to me, by this guy named Yuri.”

“Who was this Yuri?”

More silence. “He wanted us because he was selling us. He was some kind of a human trafficker. I think that he bought girls from men who would abduct them.”

Yuri? Yuri? That was a Russian name if ever I heard one.

My breath started coming, faster and faster. Was this Yuri associated with Asher? Was Asher lying to me about being only a legitimate businessman? Perhaps he was trying to lure me into some kind of a slave arrangement with this Yuri guy.

My head hurt. Asher seemed like the most normal, generous, sweet guy in the entire world. His attentiveness in bed made me forget that there was a world around me. He genuinely seemed to care for me.

But maybe it was all an act. It was too coincidental, really, that some Russian guy named Yuri would abduct me. Or buy me. Whatever happened. Yuri, at any rate, held me captive, according to this Marisa.

I felt sick to my stomach. “Tell me more,” I said.

“Asher came to save me,” she said. “But he couldn’t save you, because you were already sold to somebody else.”

How convenient.

My heart was even more in my throat than ever. This entire thing was getting more and more crazy. I was with a human trafficker? Was I in an accident because this human trafficker tried to transport me, drove a little crazy, and plowed into that semi? And what role did Asher play in all of this? Was this person one of the ones that he was talking about, when he said that there were men out there who would get to the person that he marries?

I wasn’t married to him, so why would this person even care about me at all?

Maybe it was all just a coincidence.

But I always learned that, in life, there really were no coincidences.

“Tell me more,” I said to Marisa. “How did I end up with this Yuri person?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I believe that Yuri bought you from somebody else. Another gang that kidnapped you off the street when you were working with some homeless people. At least, that was what Asher had explained to me about it.”

“Who were the people who actually abducted me? How did I manage to get out of all of this?”

“I’m only giving you second-hand information,” she said. “But, from what I understood, you were sold to this guy named Robert. He owned an escort strip club combination that was underground and illegal. You were being transported to the hospital for some reason. That’s unclear right now. But you were en route to the hospital when the limo you were driving in ran headlong into a jackknifed semi. You hit the windshield, which was why you ended up with head injuries and an induced coma.”

“Did Asher tell you all of this?”

“Nikolai did.”

“Who is Nikolai?”

“He’s a cohort of Asher’s from the old country. Asher contacted him to use him as backup when he found out that you were missing. Apparently, Asher feels that he’s rusty in some areas, and wanted to have somebody who was experienced in the mob world. In today’s mob world, anyhow.”

My head started to hurt. I didn’t know what to believe. On the one hand, getting abducted by people in the mob, any mob, was too coincidental for me to believe that it didn’t have something to do with Asher. On the other hand, it sounded like Asher at least attempted to save me. So, perhaps he was innocent of any kind of wrong-doing in this whole messy affair.

But why did he not tell me about any of this? He led me to believe that he didn’t necessarily know what had happened to me, or why.

And why would he be behind any of it, anyhow? Was he making me a sacrificial lamb for him? He said that there were men who wanted him, whatever that meant, because of the things that he did when he was over in Russia. But that they would never hurt him. Would never touch him, because of his father.

Might he have said “you can’t have me, but I’ll give you CJ?” And then, what, he had a change of heart and decided to do something to rescue me?

I realized that I didn’t really know the first thing about Asher. Scarlett told me that he was a good guy, even though she admitted to me that he did lie to me about his past, and he had broken up with me because he wanted to protect me. She told me that he had broken my heart, essentially, and that I was devastated beyond measure by his rejection. Yet, there he was by my bedside, saying the words that I wanted to hear. That he loved me, and never stopped loving me, and he was sorry for the things that he did. Things that I had forgotten.

He sugar-coated everything, that was for sure. Maybe he had laid a trap, whereby I was the bait, and he told these men that they could have me to sell, if they agreed not to touch him. He said that his father protected him, but maybe his father wasn’t so powerful anymore. Maybe something happened to where these men weren’t afraid of his father anymore, and they were going to come after him anyhow. When he found this out, he handed me over on a silver platter.

Then he decided that he wanted me back, after all, and negotiated a deal to get me back. Of course, that was bullshit, because if he was responsible, in any way, shape, or form, with me getting abducted, he was immediately off my list of guys I wanted or needed in my life. As much as I was falling for him, already, that would be an absolute deal-breaker.

Was my imagination running away from me?

It wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t. The reason why I knew that my imagination wasn’t running away from me was because Asher was clearly hiding major things from me. This whole abduction was something that he never told me. And the other thing, the devastating thing that I didn’t want to know about – he was hiding that from me, too. Granted, I didn’t try to pry it from him, but he certainly didn’t bring it up, either.

All at once, this man who I had the most magnificent weekend with, ever, was somebody shady to me. Somebody who couldn’t be trusted.

“CJ, are you still there?” Marisa asked me.

“Yes, yes, I’m still here. Now, tell me what you know about the original people who abducted me off the street. Who were they?”

“From what I can gather, according to Nikolai, they were Albanian gangsters. They were a part of the Bardha clan, whatever that means. I guess that’s a family that specializes in abducting young women off the street to traffic to other countries. This Yuri person saved you from being transferred to some of the wealthy men who buy these women to serve as sex slaves overseas.”

Okay. So, maybe this whole thing wasn’t as nefarious as it all seemed. But, then again, it wasn’t like this Yuri guy just gave me up to Asher. He refused, in fact, because I apparently belonged to some other guy.

So, the abduction was a coincidence, but Asher owed Yuri something, so he allowed Yuri to buy and sell me to somebody? Or these Albanians were perhaps the original people who Asher was dealing with?

I didn’t know. I just had a feeling that this Asher was behind all of that happening to me. He did save me, but maybe that was all a part of the chain of events, anyhow.

“Marisa,” I said. “Thanks for calling me. I appreciate
somebody
telling me something about what happened to me in that limo. If you don’t mind, I have to get off the phone right now. I have to do some thinking about everything.”

“Oh, sure,” she said. “Would you please keep in touch, though, CJ? I’ve been so worried about you.”

“Sure,” I said absent-mindedly. “I have your phone number, since you called me. I’ll just add your number to my contacts, and I’ll be sure to call you from time to time to tell you how I’m doing.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Take care, CJ. You’re a brave girl.”

“Thanks yourself,” I said, and I hung up.

I took a deep breath, and tried to think this whole thing through.

Okay. Here’s how it might have gone. Asher owed these Albanians something, or he did something to one of their members a long time ago. All this time, though, he has been protected by his dad. Something happened to the dad, let’s say. Maybe he was killed, maybe he retired, maybe he was deposed in a coup of some sort. At any rate, let’s just say that the dad no longer had the ability to protect Asher.

So, these Albanians want something from him, and he gives me to them. All along, though, he plans the whole chain of events whereby the Albanians receive good money for me, from Yuri, who’s an associate of Asher’s. That pays off his debt, whatever it is, and then, what, Yuri double-crosses him and sells me to somebody else? Then Asher gets upset, and makes a transaction for me at that end, when I’m with Robert.

I sighed and decided that I had watched too many movies. Because wouldn’t it be easier for Asher just to give these Albanians money, instead of giving them me? After all, these Albanians didn’t end up with me, they ended up with money from Yuri. Asher just giving them cash would be the same thing. Wouldn’t it?

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe those Albanians violated me while I was in their custody. That would be something extra for them, on top of the money they got from Yuri. Perhaps there was a whole sadism thing with this group, whereby it was much more “fun” to sell a woman than just to receive money for nothing at all.

I had no idea. All that I knew was that Asher was Russian, and ran with the mob when he was young. Yuri was clearly Russian, and, although there wasn’t necessarily a confirmation from Marisa that he was with the mob, all signs pointed to it being so.

I shook my head. I had to simply stop. Stop thinking all of these worst-case scenarios, until I got to actually talk to Asher about it.

The problem that I was having was that I knew nothing about him. I had a feeling for him, and that was that he brought out something in me, emotionally, that I had never felt before. I felt very strongly for him, almost as if I were drawn to him. I couldn’t pinpoint it. If I had to guess, I would say that there was a center of my brain that did remember him. Perhaps it was the part of my brain where my emotions were stored. So, while I couldn’t intellectually remember him, he brought out these emotions in me that were still in there, somewhere.

Because I felt that I was in love with him, and that wasn’t rational. According to my rational brain, I just met the guy a matter of weeks ago. But my emotional brain was head-over-heels for him.

Perhaps that was a good sign. Or maybe my emotions were clouding my reason. Because if I couldn’t really remember him, then he could hide who he was before very easily. And maybe he was a bad guy.

But wouldn’t Scarlett know if he were a bad guy before? She seemed to think that he was a decent guy.

Even though he hid his past from me before.

He wasn’t hiding his past now, though. Wasn’t that a strike in his favor?

A
ll day long
, I went back and forth with it.
There were hints that Asher was a bad guy, and hints that he was a good guy. I couldn’t really tell which of these thoughts were which.

Could I go with my gut? If I did, then I would take Asher at face-value, and trust him implicitly.

As soon as I decided to do that, though, my rational brain would take over, and I would be, once again, asking myself how I got into the clutches of this Yuri person. Asher found me, right away, and knew just where I was. How did that happen if he weren’t involved with the whole abduction? If he had no involvement in it, whatsoever, how could he just find out where I was?