Note: I've posted the cover and the intro/cast page of book two on my Wattpad profile if you guys want to go ahead and save it. It's where season 2 will be published.
He came to fairly quickly, vision swimming as his eyes blinked open. The first thing he saw were his own legs, which told him he was seated. The strain of his shoulders and the crimping of his wrists told him he was handcuffed behind his back, which didn't bother him nearly as much as the blood splatters beneath his feet did.
Lifting his head took a bit more effort than he was expecting, but when he succeeded, his eyes landed on Shiralai Arlov and a relaxed expression settled over his face immediately.
The Russian mobster was confused. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you almost seem pleased to be here."
Cho studied the blood beneath his feet again, and concluded that it wasn't nearly enough to suggest that Ronnie had been murdered or dismembered or anything to that degree.
Of course he was pleased to be there. It was the biggest break in the case since they'd discovered who'd grabbed her. "I'm prepared to offer you a trade." Cho announced, eyes lifting once more. "Me and Masters for your son."
Arlov's eyes darkened furiously, and his fists clenched at his sides. "How dare you?"
"If you want him back, you'll make the trade." Cho responded simply.
The tall, blonde diplomat gave an arrogant laugh and shook his head. He couldn't believe the absolute nerve of both CBI agents in his captivity. How could he have managed to nab two of the most infuriating people in the state of California? "Why would I trade one body for two?"
"You can have him alive for both of us." Cho bargained coldly. "You can have him dead for Masters."
Arlov flew across the room to drive his fist into the agent's face, succeeding in drawing blood on the first strike. "I already know my son is dead. How dare you try my patience?"
Cho couldn't speak to carry out his attempt to deceive him. When he'd moved, he'd cleared Cho's line of sight to the steel, hospital-style table that stood in the back corner of the stall. A naked woman lie atop it, bound by the wrists and ankles, covered in visible burns and bruises.
As he watched, the woman turned her head and met his eyes.
the MENTALIST
"He already knows Vanya was killed, Cho." Ronnie muttered into open air. It hurt to crane her neck enough to see him, and besides, she didn't like to see that overwhelming horror that had taken over his face as soon as he'd laid eyes on her.
"Are you okay?" His voice came to her raspy and choked, like he couldn't bear to get the words out. He'd seen it all already—not just the entire length of her body that was completely exposed, fortuitously angled away so he wasn't looking up her legs, but the injuries that mottled her skin with marks that would add to her dozens of pre-existing scars.
She pondered on her answer, filtering through the levels of agony that constantly overcame her from the burns across her stomach to the lacerations across her legs. Arlov had left significant parts of her body clear of marks for strategic reasons that weren't hard to guess. He'd avoided her face and throat, ignored her shoulders and chest, and took special care to harm her in places that wouldn't be immediately evident in a revealing evening gown.
Arlov very clearly intended to use her as an escort and a lure again, and he didn't want his targets knowing she'd been disfigured until it was too late. She knew it, even from underneath his knife, and there was no way Cho wouldn't know it. "I need you not to look at me, Cho. Please."
When they got out of the Russian's grasp, they'd go back to working together; she couldn't bear to be in the car next to him on any given morning, driving to a crime scene, and knowing he was thinking about the forced vulnerability he'd found her in. It was humiliating. It was degrading. She was better than that.
Arlov's laughter came between them like a shot. "I'm very sorry, my dear girl, but he's not going to have much choice." He stepped away from Cho and came around to put himself in Ronnie's line of sight again, grinning chillingly down at her.
"You want Vanya's body, don't you?" Her voice reached him stronger than it had been since the first day he'd grabbed her. She'd been rejuvenated by the presence of her partner, and he'd have to be quick to snuff that fight out of her before she tried to do something stupid about it and hurt herself in a place he couldn't hide.
He set to work unfastening the latches that secured the table in the horizontal position. "I think you lost the right to bring up Vanya's name when your boss shot him in the head." He pushed the head of the table upright until the woman was sitting up just enough to not have to push her chin to her chest to be able to see straight ahead.
"Vanya's body won't be expedited to Russia." Cho's voice called from behind them, slowing Arlov's movements. "He was shot before we got the all clear to subvert your diplomatic immunity. State Department isn't too fond of the idea of outing ourselves to the Russian government by announcing that we were forced to take the life of your son. So either we trade his body to you under the table or he gets buried in an unmarked grave in middle of nowhere, Nebraska."
Arlov pivoted the table to bring the state agents face to face.
Pressing her thighs together awkwardly, Ronnie shifted around the surface of her table as much as she could to preserve what little modesty she had control of. It worked just enough to not give Cho an unobstructed view, but she needn't have worried because he kept his eyes pinned firmly on Arlov and didn't spare her a single glance.
She couldn't hide while Cho was there. There was no withdrawing into her mind, there was no creating a fictitious reality to fade into, there was no falling unresponsive to defer trauma. She couldn't just disappear while he was on the real side of things, potentially being punished for her lack of engagement. Arlov was the type of person to lose his tiny little temper at the idea that he wasn't quite as powerful or effective as he wanted to be, and if he couldn't hurt her for it, he'd hurt Cho for it.
"Let me explain how this is going to work." Arlov pulled a new chair in from outside of the stall and sat himself down, leaning over his knees comfortably. "Miss Veronica abandoned my business the moment you took her into custody. I don't take kindly to that. She's been punished for it, and reminded of her place."
Cho's eyes darted to Ronnie for a second before looking away once more, cheeks turning red either with anger or embarrassment or both. "You—"
"I'm still talking." Arlov snapped. "I am going to let her go. She'll go back to work, she'll heal, she'll be good as new. But from now on, she answers to me. I owned her the second she was born and I own her now. So don't worry, Agent Cho, she will make it out of here just fine."
Ronnie rolled her eyes back, staring into the rafters angrily. Still under the delusion that she would just take orders from him as though she didn't already know exactly what it meant to exist in that kind of world, was he? Did he think she'd just forget that she would be working for free, her legal paycheck and whatever illegal bribes she received at his instruction pilfered by him before she could even pay her rent? Did he think she liked being treated like a tool, like a piece of meat, like a bit of currency to acquire any means he needed?
How many good people would she murder to keep him comfortable? How many children would she steal away for his little side business? How many suspects would she sneak away and release without conviction?
"But first, I'm going to kill you."
Arlov's words received only silence.
Ronnie had heard his plan before, and he'd heard exactly what she thought of it.
Cho, on the other hand, likely wasn't surprised by his latest tactic.
"Veronica needs to be reminded of the consequences of betrayal, and you need to punished for Vanya. And then, after you're gone and she's back at work, my son's body will be shipped off to that unmarked grave in Nebraska, and Ronnie will let me know exactly where I can intercept it. So don't worry about me, Agent Cho. I always get what I want."
the MENTALIST
He beat Cho for hours.
Pummeling him with his fists until he was swollen, bleeding, and bruised from his face to his belt, Arlov took great pleasure in making his own knuckles bleed.
Ronnie didn't give him the pleasure of screaming or begging him to stop. He'd feed off of it and take it as encouragement to graduate from his fists to the taser or the torches or the knives faster than he'd planned to.
Cho took it in silence, spitting out blood and heaving breathlessly.
When Arlov left the stall somewhere around hour three to get something to drink, Ronnie took a chance. "I'll be your bitch if you let him come back to work with me." She shot a glance at Cho and found him squinting at her through swollen eyes.
Arlov gave a short laugh. "I've told you, Veronica, that's not how this is going to work. You are my bitch, unless you need another lesson to remind you, and you're going to watch your partner die for your betrayal." He shook his water bottle at her playfully. "There are consequences to these things. Losing Cho is yours. If it happens again, it will be someone else on your team. Honestly, it's kind of pathetic that the only people I can threaten you with are your coworkers. You'd think you'd have friends or relationships by now."
She made herself ignore the jab and hold his eye contact. "If you kill him, I'll kill myself the moment you let me out of here."
He didn't have a response to that yet. Watching her spin a new deal, looking for a bluff, Arlov scanned her carefully. She would kill herself or she would try to kill him—he knew she'd at least try it. Nothing about her stubborn body language indicated that she was trying to play him.
"If you thought I wasn't useful enough to invest in me, you would have killed me the moment you were done torturing me. You may not need me, but you definitely want me. You want me to use all of the skills and relationships and resources that I gained while working for Carla because you know you couldn't train someone like me in ten years." She looked at Cho. His face was purple and green, his eyes swollen, blood trickling from his mouth. He'd hurt her partner and she would kill him for it.
CBI be damned, she'd kill him for it.
"If you kill Cho, I'll kill myself. Then you've wasted your time and given up a valuable resource. I'm sure you can afford the loss, but I'm not sure you'll survive Carla's wrath when she gets out. After all—hell hath no fury like a psychopath scorned."