We sat down in front of Apollo and Wendy.
“Was your drive here okay?”
I didn’t know what was going on. This guy was here to collect a shit-ton of money from me, but he was being nice to me. Well, as nice as he could be with Wendy tied to a chair.
“Uh, it was good. I thought we were going to shopping, so you can imagine my surprise coming here.”
Apollo chuckled. “I can only imagine.”
“Am I the only one wondering how we went from Bobby licking Carnie’s face to having a little chat with suit here?” Wendy asked.
She apparently wasn’t too distraught by being kidnapped. “Shut it,” Carnie hissed.
Wendy rolled her eyes. “Says the chick who managed to bring a kidnapper right to our door.”
Apollo watched the exchange back and forth with amusement. “My wife and her sister argue like you two. Drives me crazy when I’m there, but since she’s not with me, I miss it.”
Carnie and Wendy snapped their mouths shut.
These two were the younger version of Elle and Agnes. Ten minutes ago, Carnie was willing to feed me to the wolves to save Wendy, and now they were bickering like they were possibly going to die.
“Let’s get down to business so I can get back to my Greer.”
“Pretty name,” Wendy whispered.
If we managed to get out of here alive, I was going to have a talk with Wendy and Carnie about knowing when to keep their mouths shut.
Apollo tilted his head to the side and smiled. “A pretty name for a gorgeous woman,” he retorted.
“Am I the only getting turned on by the fact Apollo is completely in love with his wife?” Wendy whispered.
Jesus Christ.
“I think there was a compliment…somewhere in there,” Apollo pondered.
“Totally,” Wendy assured him.
Bobby cleared his throat, and Apollo looked over at him. “Impatient?” he asked.
“Just thought we would get this over with so we can head back to Chicago.” Bobby shrugged.
“You’re right. We do need to get back to Chicago so I can have a talk with Leo about personnel.” A slick smile spread across Apollo’s lips.
Uh oh, looked like Bobby had opened his mouth one too many times. Carnie snickered and Wendy snorted.
“We will just cut straight to the point now that Bobby thinks he has a stopwatch timing me.” Apollo crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. “Your father owes Mr. Banachi a lot of money, Miss Zinker.”
“Thank God your name really isn’t Bertha Norman,” Wendy sighed. “That was the worst name I had ever heard before.”
“Would you shut up, Wendy,” Carnie hissed.
I made a mental note to never get kidnapped with Carnie and Wendy. They really didn’t know when to shut up.
“Mayra really does suit you much better,” Apollo agreed.
I blinked slowly. It was like I was in the twilight zone where kidnappers were nice and complimented you on your name. Next, he was going to tell me I was pretty and free to go.
“Back to your father,” Apollo continued.
“My father is dead,” I pointed out.
“I know. As is your mother who had been paying his debt for the past ten years after he died.”
“But now my mother is dead.”
Apollo tilted his head to the side. “So now the debt is yours Mayra.”
I shook my head. “I don’t have that kind of money. I don’t even have a job or a place to live.”
“You have the cabin,” Wendy pointed out.
“The cabin does not belong to Miss Zinker. It belongs to the Fallen Lords.”
“The who?” Carnie squeaked.
“They really don’t know anything about you,” Apollo laughed.
I shook my head. “No. They know nothing so that is why you should just let them go. I promise they won’t speak a word of this to anyone.”
Apollo took it upon himself to clue them in. “Miss Zinker took refuge with the Fallen Lords in Ohio. The Fallen Lords is a motorcycle club that had not been on the radar of the Banachi’s.” He splayed his hands out in front of him. “Until of late.”
“I have so many questions,” Carnie muttered. “So, you and your husband went to some motorcycle club to hide?”
Apollo shook his head. “Boink is a member of the club.”
“Boink?” Wendy squeaked. “Who the heck is that and what kind of name is that?”
“Is that Melvin?” Carnie asked at the same time.
I dropped my head and pressed my chin to my chest.
“Boink is Melvin,” Apollo clarified.
“So, you married a guy named Boink?” Wendy asked.
I shook my head.
“Miss Zinker and Boink are not married. It was all part of the rouse to hide in plain sight,” Apollo explained. “It worked quite well for a while.”
Carnie pressed a hand to her chest. “I feel so betrayed,” she said dramatically.
“So, what happens now?” Wendy asked.
“Now Miss Zinker pays Mr. Banachi.”
I raised my head. “I don’t have fifty thousand dollars just laying around, Mr. Apollo.”
“We figured as much when you decided to run.” He splayed his hands out in front of him. “Unfortunately, now there are consequences.” He nodded to Bobby. “Start the truck.”
“Wait, what?” Wendy yelled. She struggled against the ties on her arms and tried to get out of her chair.
“Please, don’t get up,” Apollo smirked. He was a nice guy, but I could tell that he also had quite the asshole streak. Luckily, I had seen mostly the nice side.
“We’re not going anywhere with you,” Carnie spat.
Apollo stood up and tugged the sleeves of his suit down. He looked down at Carnie. “You’re not.” He looked over at Wendy. “And neither are you.”
“But…you’re not taking Bertha either,” Wendy sputtered.
“Mayra, Wendy,” Carnie corrected her as if it really mattered.
“It doesn’t matter what the hell her name is, Carnie. He’s not taking her.” Wendy struggled against her holds again but couldn’t get out of them.
“What happens if I don’t come with you?” I asked.
The click of the safety of a gun sounded loudly. “Unfortunately, these will take a turn if you decide not to come with us.”
Wendy and Carnie both gasped when Bobby walked back into the shed with a gun pointed at us. There went my thinking about neither of them having guns.
“You’re going to get in the truck, Mayra, and your friends are going to sit in this shed ‘til we are gone.” He snapped his fingers at Bobby. “Tie the other one up.”
“Wait, what?” I gasped. “Please don’t do this. There has to be something I can do.”
Apollo tilted his head to the side. “You had the time to figure out something to do. You ran instead. Now it’s time for Leo to figure out what to do.” He nodded at Bobby and strolled out the door.
Carnie lunged at Bobby, but he caught her wrists and forced her back in to the chair. “Don’t fight me, Carnie. I know what you like, pretty.”
Jesus Christ, this guy was beyond creepy.
I could have ran.
I could have gotten up and tried to get back to Boink.
I didn’t.
Bobby tied up Carnie, took her keys out of her pocket, made sure Wendy was still tied up tightly, then he grabbed me by the arm and hoisted me up. “Say goodbye to your friends,” he growled.
“Apollo plays a much more convincing mafia guy than you do,” I snapped
He twisted my arm behind my back, and I yelped. “Keep it up, pretty. I’ll show you just what the Banachi’s do with people who decide not to pay what is owed.” He hauled me toward the door.
“Mayra,” Carnie called.
“I’m fine. Just stay here.” It wasn’t like they had much choice, but at least I knew they were going to be safe
“If I see any trace of you following us,
I will end her.” Bobby pushed me out of the shed, and I fell on my knees in the dirt.
“Bobby. Do you really need to be such a dick?” Apollo called.
I got off my knees, and Bobby grabbed me by the arm again. “Can’t help it that she’s clumsy,” he grumbled.
Apollo rolled his eyes. “Put her in the backseat with me.”
“I was going to tie her up and put her in the cargo area.”
Apollo started at Bobby. “Pretty sure I just said to put her in the backseat with me. You got a problem with that? Better idea of what we should be doing?”
Bobby curled his lip but didn’t disagree with Apollo. There was an obvious struggle going on between the two, though it seemed to be completely one-sided. Bobby had a problem taking orders from Apollo.
Apollo got into the truck, and Bobby put me in on the other side. I rubbed my arm he had squeezed and twisted. I pulled my seat belt over my chest and was surprised when Apollo spoke.
“My apologies for whatever he did to you or your friends. I left because I can’t stand to be around the guy more than I need to.”
I looked over at him and frowned. “And yet he still works for you.”
“He doesn’t work for me.” He looked out the windshield. “He works for Leo, and when Leo isn’t here, I’m in charge.”
“Same difference.”
Apollo glanced at me. “It is, but it’s not. Things are much more complicated than you would know, Miss Zinker.”
I had heard the same words from Boink numerous times before. It made me wonder if the mafia wasn’t much different from an MC.
Bobby climbed into the truck and turned it around.
“What happens now?” I asked as we bumped back down the driveway.
Apollo pulled out his phone. “Now I make a phone call to Leo to let him know I’ve secured the package.”
“And then?”
“And then I kick over the first domino to start things moving.”
“Taking me wasn’t that first domino?”
He shook his head. “The first domino is letting your man know I have you. Then things will get moving.”
He turned to look out the window and pressed his phone to his ear.
Boink was going to freak out once he found out the Banachi’s had me. I had convinced him to let me go shopping with Carnie because I thought I was safe. There hadn’t been any indication that the Banachi's were near, and yet I was in an expensive SUV headed to God knows where.
I had to come up with a plan.
Boink might not be able to make it to save me, so I was going to have to save myself.
If only I knew how to do that.
*
Chapter Twenty
Boink
“Hey, I thought I was supposed to be the one checking in on you, not the other way around.”
“Hello, Mr. Wynn.”
My feet dropped to the floor, and I sat forward. “Who is this?” I demanded. Whoever it was, they had Mayra’s phone and they knew my real name.
“Apollo Banachi. I believe you might know why I’m calling.”
I felt the blood drain from my face and stood up. “Where is Mayra?”
“Sitting next to me,” he said simply.
“You better not have touched a single hair on her head.”
“I haven’t, though I can’t say the same for Bobby. He seems to have some anger issues that I think I’ll have to tell Leo that he needs to work through.”
Fucking Bobby. I should have known. My first instinct about him had been right. “What are you doing with her?” This guy sounded too chill and calm.
“I wouldn’t worry about that, Mr. Wynn. Right now, you need to get in touch with Wrecker.”
Wrecker was over seventeen hundred miles away. There wouldn’t be a damn thing he would be able to do. “You don’t need to talk to Wrecker. Whatever you want, I can get it for you.”
“As much I appreciate your white-knight attitude, this is bigger than you or I. Leo wanted me to grab Mayra, call you, and then head back to Chicago.”
They were going to Chicago. “Wrecker isn’t here. There’s nothing he can do.”
“We know he’s not here, Mr. Wynn. That’s not why I want you to call him. Listen very carefully to me.”
I ran my fingers through my hair and paced in front of the TV. “I’m listening.”
“Miss Zinker will be in Chicago. Call Wrecker. Tell him Mr. Banachi is ready to have a meeting with him. In the meeting, he is going to discuss the options of Miss Zinker.”
“But I—”
He cut me off. “Call him. That’s all you need to know.”
The line went dead, and I looked down at the phone.
This wasn’t happening. I didn’t just talk to the guy who had kidnapped Mayra.
I had not just fucked everything up again.
I scrolled through the numbers in my phone, swiped over Wrecker’s name, and put the phone to my ear.
“Hello,” Alice sang.
“Alice?” What in the hell was she doing answering Wrecker’s phone?
“Boink?! Oh, my God! I was just asking Wrecker about Mayra. How’s it going?” she chirped.
Hell. I did not need to deal with Alice right now. “Where is Wrecker?” I demanded.
“Uh, he’s taking a leak.”
Of course. “He gonna be long?”
She laughed. “I don’t think he’s dropping a deuce so he shouldn’t be long.”
“Woman. What hell are you doing on my phone?” I heard in the background.
“Boinkers called,” she explained.
“Put Wrecker on the phone, Alice.”
“Give me the phone,” I heard Wrecker reply.
“Do you always have to sound so gloom and doom? Maybe we need to work on relieving some of that tension you hold in your shoulders.”
It sounded like the phone dropped then was muffled from someone trying to pick it up.
“—who does that? It’s like you don’t like sleeping in bed with me anymore. Maybe I’ll go sleep with Wren and Maniac.”
“Not fucking happening,” Wrecker thundered.
“I’ve been reading these MFM books lately. I’ve sure MFF wouldn’t be so bad. Wren’s a good-looking chick wh—”
“Stop,” Wrecker thundered.
The phone sounded like it dropped again, but this time, Wrecker came on the line. “Swear to fucking God, that woman is going to fucking be the death of me.”
“Bye, Boink!” she shouted.
“Where in the fuck do you think you are going?” Wrecker yelled.
The phone was muffled again, and then I heard a door slam. “Your ass is staying there ‘til I get off the phone, and then I can paddle your ass.”
When Alice was around, it was a freakin’ circus. “Wrecker?” I called.
“I’m here. Why the hell are you calling me for? You’re supposed to talk to Clash.”
Yeah, I was supposed to talk to Clash, but I figured it would be a hell of a lot easier to just go straight to him and not play fucking telephone by telling Clash and then waiting for him to tell Wrecker. “I need to talk to you.”
“What the fuck is going on.”
“Apollo Banachi just called me.”
“Fuck,” he shouted.
I hadn’t even told him what had happened, and Wrecker was pissed as hell. “Mayra went out with a friend tonight. Turns out her friend’s boyfriend was working for Banachi.”
Wrecker growled into the phone. “He’s got her,” he finished. “You let her out of your sight, and he took her.”
“It’s not like that. There hasn’t been any indication that the Banachi’s were here. Nothing seemed off.” I mean, I had a bad feeling about Bobby, but he didn’t seem like the type of guy who worked for the Banachi's. The feeling I got from him that he was going to abuse Carnie, not kidnap Mayra.
“Did you think the Banachi’s were going to roll into town with a big fucking banner and a parade? Fucking think, Boink. Everyone was a
threat to you and Mayra, and you just let her go off by herself?”
I already felt like shit for letting her leave without me. I didn’t need Wrecker beating me up over it. “I fucked up, Wrecker. Now I need to fix it.”
“Fix it?” he laughed. “How in the hell are you going to fix something with the Banachi’s?”
“Look,” I sighed. “Apollo called me and wanted me to tell you to get in touch with Leo. They were headed back to Chicago with Mayra.”
“Fucking cleaning up shit for you again,” he mumbled.
“I don’t want you to clean it up for me,” I insisted. “He wants to talk to you right now, but I’m coming with.”
“You’re coming with,” he laughed. “Fine, you wanna fucking come with, get your ass here now. You got ten hours to get here.”
It had been over a twenty-hour drive to get to the cabin from the clubhouse. There was no way I was going to be able to drive and make it back in time. “I’ll be there.”
“Fucking better be,” he growled. The phone went dead, and I instantly moved.
All I needed was my wallet and money. And the envelope Mayra carried around with her. I didn’t know when or if I would ever be back to the cabin, and I didn’t want anyone finding it.
I pulled on my boots, turned off all the lights, and pulled the door to the cabin shut behind me.
The nearest airport was an hour away.
Headlights shown down the driveway. “Boink!”
Fucking hell. It was Carnie and Wendy.
The car that had carried Mayra off to be kidnapped careened down the driveway and skidded to a stop a foot away from the front porch. “He’s got her,” Wendy shouted as she jumped out of the car. “Bobby and Apple have her!”
“Apollo,” Carnie corrected.
“I know,” I growled.
Carnie stayed in the car, and I moved to her open window. “Did you know?” I asked.
She shook her head and swiped at the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I had no idea. He never said anything about you or Mayra. He made me make up the lie about shopping and then drop her at the shed. They tied us up, and left. Wendy managed to wiggle out of the ropes and free us.”
Of course, he fucking didn’t. Like Wrecker said, the Banachi’s weren’t going to roll into town and do anything to draw attention. Bobby had bided his time and struck when the time was right. “Get home, don’t tell anyone about this. If your mom or aunt ask you where we are, tell them Mayra had a family emergency back home and we had to take off.” I didn’t need Carnie and Wendy going around telling everyone about what happened to Mayra.
Fallen Lords MC: Books 4-6 Page 28