My feet are soundless on the carpet. My throat stings with unshed tears. I want to scream and howl. It will be some kind of a release, but how can I? At this time of the night? I wish I could drive out to some lonely location and scream and scream and scream. But the moment I leave the front door, Brian or one of the men will start trailing me.

I pause at the entrance to our bedroom and stand gazing at Blake. He looks very pale sleeping among shadows. I feel as if I have lost everything. I am so incredibly scared. I need to hear him call out my name in that snarling voice again. Without thinking I drift, like a flower crowned Ophelia, toward him, toward the warmth of his body. At the edge of the bed I look down on him, my eyes exploring the tousled hair, relaxed muscles, the smooth and gleaming skin. He is so incredibly sexy. But I’m not wet with desire. I want to be wet with desire again.

Carefully, I lift the duvet and crawl onto the bed next to the magnificent body. His scent is sun ripened and heady. I take his soft penis into my mouth. Slowly, gently, I suck it. He tastes delicious.

The juices begin to gather between my legs.

He moans in his sleep, his throat moves, and I increase the pressure of my mouth. The shaft grows thicker and bigger. Blake’s hands come up to hold my shoulders. I don’t look up. I just keep on sucking. His hands grip harder. Suddenly they are under my armpits, and pulling me up, and over his body.

‘Let me finish,’ I say, but already I am straddling his hips.

I move my body encouragingly, and my sex, wet and willing, rubs against the short silky hairs on his thighs. He lifts me up silently and holds my body over the head of his cock. I hold onto the shaft and position it over the core of my heat. Slowly, my sex is stretched and fitted around that aroused throbbing shaft. He spreads my thighs even farther and flattens them against his hips. The action makes my clit touch bone. He grinds that bone against me. Then tension transfers to my belly, my thighs, my sex. My nerves overload, and soon I am lost in a red mist of forgetfulness. It explodes in my brain.

He holds me by the waist and rolls me under him. I close my eyes and let my body be a vessel for his satisfaction. For a while I am simply a body, a body that is being fucked by another body. I am nothing but a biological reaction. When I feel the first drop of water on my cheek, I think it is Blake’s sweat, but when the next drop splashes onto my forehead, I know. They are tears. And then it is impossible for me to even be a biological reaction. He feels the change in me, and stops moving.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers. The words are strange in his mouth.

I grab his wet face in my hands. ‘It’s OK. We’re not supposed to enjoy ourselves while he is not here.’

‘Trust me. I’ll get him back,’ he says. His words are like spells in the night.

I nod quickly, my eyes filling up with tears again. He runs one finger in my hair. The action is unusual. Affectionate. We lost our passion. We have become pitiful creatures. I look at him sadly. Maybe we have lost too much to recover.

Now I understand why so many couples who lose a child break up. Because you just can’t help it—the natural instinct is to turn on each other and tear each other to pieces, so that there is nothing living left to remind you of your terrible, terrible loss.

‘I will find him. If it is the last thing I do,’ he promises.

‘I know. I know you will.’ And at that moment I don’t think of any other possibility. I don’t think I might need to sacrifice him for my son. Because I cannot think it.

Billie is in my head. ‘If Blake and Sorab were drowning, and you could only save one person, who would you save?’

‘I’m not answering that. You’re a wicked witch, Billie.’

And she grinned evilly.

But now the choice is upon me. I want to, I want to with all my heart choose Blake, but I can’t. I just can’t. The great mistake I made was when I thought of my own pleasure before I thought of Sorab’s well-being. I’ve learned my lesson. This time I won’t think of myself. I’ll do what I have always done. Put the ones I truly love before me.

Blake Law Barrington

She makes a dreadful sound, like the last rattle in the throat of a dying animal. I turn around and wrap my arms around her tightly, and feel her open mouth press into my breast bone. Her fevered breath and the odd sounds seep into my skin and chill my heart. How effectively Victoria has wounded us.

‘I will get him back. No matter what the price,’ I repeat loudly. In the darkness my voice mocks me with its blustery hollowness.

‘I know that,’ she says sadly.

We lie awake for hours after that. Not speaking. Simply holding each other. At four thirty a.m. I switch off the alarm clock and get up. By five a.m. I am out of the house and itching for any kind of news of my son’s whereabouts.

Seventeen

Lana Barrington

I call Billie at eight in the morning. I don’t know why I do. Billie always sleeps late. I guess I just want to hear her voice. She sounds sleepy. I know I’ve woken her up.

‘What is it?’ she says into the phone. She tries to disguise it, but there is an undercurrent of panic in her voice. She is expecting bad news. The thought that she is expecting bad news makes me feel frightened. The tears that are at the backs of my eyes surge forth.

‘Nothing has happened. I just wanted to ask you something.’

‘What?’

‘If Sorab and I were drowning, whom would you choose?’

‘I wouldn’t. I’d let us all drown.’

I stare blankly at the wall. Maybe that is the right answer. Why should I choose between my husband and my son? Let us all perish if need be.

‘Do you want me to come over?’

‘Yes,’ I sob, and put the phone down. I am a mess. I am a terrible mess. I want my son back.

The phone rings almost immediately after I terminate Billie’s call. I look at it with surprise, my sobs dying in my throat. It is an unknown number. I only hesitate for a second. I don’t know how I know but I know instantly that it is her. She is calling me. My thumb hits the answer button.

‘Hello.’

‘Will you come and see me?’

‘Of course.’

‘Bring my money with you.’

‘When?’

‘When you’ve got the money obviously.’ There is a thread of amusement in her voice.

The line goes dead. I don’t hang about. I call the bank manager immediately.

‘I need it straight away,’ I tell him.

He tries to do what he does with anyone that wants a super large cash withdrawal. He starts making excuses as to why I can’t have it in the next hour. He picked the wrong woman. Coldly, in the same voice that Blake’s mother uses when she wants to decimate someone, I reduce him to what he really is. An idiot puppet implementing policies that he knows are wrong and immoral.

‘Listen, you spineless creep, it’s my damn money and I’ll damn well withdraw it when I like, or I’ll terminate the entire account from your pathetic little bank. You’ve got twenty fucking minutes!’

I call Billie and tell her not to come over.

‘Why?’ she demands.

‘Victoria called me. I’m going to see her.’

There is a shocked silence. ‘Does Blake know?’

‘No, and I’m not telling him. Not yet, anyway. This is between her and me. She’s asked me to give her back her money. And I’m doing just that.’

‘Are you fucking out of your mind? That crazy bitch is probably trying to make you pay for the cost of hiring the kidnappers or something.’

‘Maybe,’ I concede. ‘But Victoria doesn’t need money from me to pay off the kidnappers. She wants me there for a different reason.’

‘Yeah. To gloat.’

‘So let her have her satisfaction.’

‘Don’t go, Lana. You’ll only make it worse.'