by Mae Doyle
“Of course they did.” I sigh and spin the phone on the table. I’m half-hoping that they’re going to send another picture of Hannah. It’s not that I want to see her all tied up with a fucked-up face, but I like knowing that she’s alive.
“Then let’s go. We’ll end this, get her back, and get you two married this weekend.” Pops plants his hands on the table and stands up, signaling that the meeting is over. We all stand up with him and I slip my phone back in my pocket before touching the butt of my pistol.
We’re all packing and ready to go. Nobody fires off a quick text to a broad. Nobody has to go home to get anything. We know that when we leave the house, we have to be ready for any shit that may come down the pipe.
Valentino and Ricky drive, and our two cars wind quickly through the city and then into the industrial district. I’m glad that they know where we’re going – I just want to get there, kill the fucker who took Hannah, and get her out. The last thing I want to worry about is how to get to the right fucking building.
We pull off to the side of the road about 100 yards from the building where they’re holding her. I’m in Ricky’s car, and he turns around to smile at me. “You ready to go get your bride, Arlo? You think that this will help her warm up to you a little?”
“It fucking better. I’m not risking my fucking ass for her to continue to be a bitch.” Even as I say this, though, my heart twists a little for her. She’s pissed me off, sure, and managed to put all of us in danger, but I still want to protect her.
It was supposed to be a quick little fuck to get my mind off of what was coming down the pipe for me, but somehow she got under my skin. I glance at Roque, remembering that he said the exact same thing about Eva.
Fucking hell, are the Torenti boys all just pussies for a sweet little cunt?
We walk silently down the sidewalk and line up against the outside of the building. I’m in the front, with Roque directly behind me and Pops behind him. She’s my broad. I’m going to be the one putting myself in the most risk to get her back.
It’s how it has to be.
The door’s unlocked. They’re expecting us, but according to the instructions, not until the afternoon. There’s no way that they think we’re coming this soon, but when I push open the door, I realize just how wrong I am.
It’s an empty room with doors leading off from the back of it. There’s a loud bang as soon as I step inside, and I instinctively duck, but then I realize that the sound came from behind one of the doors, so I start running.
Hannah must be back there.
I’m so focused on what’s behind the doors that I don’t pay much attention to what’s in the room. There are huge tables placed in the room, with tools spread out on them. A cursory glance at them tells me all that I need to know – someone here is planning on torture, but I’m not going to let that happen.
Not to Hannah.
Drawing my gun, I burst through the cracked door at the right of the room. Roque’s right on my heels and I know that everyone else is clearing the room and checking behind the other doors. We have to find Hannah, but we also have to catch whoever thought that they could kidnap her without any repercussions.
There’s a big table in the middle of the room I run into, and Hannah’s strapped to it, spread-eagle, even her head strapped firmly to the table so that she can’t sit up or move around. I think that she’s asleep, but before I can get to her, there’s movement in the corner.
I whip around, bringing my gun up and zero in on the person moving.
“Don’t fucking move! Don’t you fucking breathe, asshole!” I scream, lowering down into a partial crouch and working my way across the room. I need to free Hannah, but first I have to make sure that he’s not going to hurt her.
He’s silent, and in the silence as I walk closer to him, I hear dripping. Fucking weird, to have water dripping in here, but I can’t focus on that right now.
The fucker in front of me bends over and pulls something from his waistband. I know without having to see it that it’s a gun, and I stop to plant my feet before pulling the trigger. Thank god for the silencer or shit would have been too loud in here to think.
He drops like a fucking bag of wet sand and the blood has barely started to pool around him when Roque calls my name.
“Arlo, you better get over here!” He sounds a little panicked, and when I look back at him, I see that he’s trying to free Hannah from her restraints. He’s got a knife out and is cutting through the straps holding her wrists down. Her head is free, but she hasn’t moved.
Hannah’s eyes are closed and she’s breathing, but I finally realize what that dripping sound is. The table she’s strapped to is at an angle, with her feet lower than her head. The fucker’s done something to her feet. Blood drips from her feet, splashing into a bucket on the floor.
I rush to her. Her hair’s soaking wet, like they dunked her in water, and when I look closer, I realize that her clothes are sopping, too.
What the fuck did they do? Frantically, I pull my knife and start cutting through the straps on her ankles.
We have to get her free.
We have to get her to the doctor.
“Faster!” I scream at Roque.
He nods.
The straps are just so thick.
Chapter 11
Hannah
Every time I move, there’s shooting pain through my legs. It travels up my spine and down my arms. My head feels like it weighs 100 pounds and my eyelids are glued shut.
It feels like I have the worst hangover of my life. I’ve never wanted to die after a night of drinking, but there’s apparently a first time for everything, because I have literally never felt this horrible. My entire body feels exhausted, like I got hit by a car, and my mouth is so dry that my tongue feels stuck in place.
What the hell did I drink last night?
I have to open my eyes if I’m ever going to find out the answer to that question. Groaning, I raise one hand to my forehead and then slowly open my eyes.
The room is so bright that I immediately shut them again.
Nope. Don’t want to do that.
The other reason why I shut them so quickly is because I don’t recognize the room where I am. I don’t think that I’ve ever been here before…or, if I have, it was only once.
“Hello?” Someone’s in the room with me, and it’s this knowledge that makes me force my eyes open. Everything is blurry and I blink and shade my eyes with my hand to try to see what’s going on.
I’m on a huge bed in the middle of a room. Someone is standing by the door with it cracked and calling out of it while I look around. Their voice sounds familiar, and it suddenly hits me.
Johnny. I’m pretty sure that guy’s name is Johnny.
And Arlo? The name he’s calling?
It’s not until he comes into the room that I remember who he is. Or, rather, I remember some of the things that we did together. My face flushes as I think about what it was like to have him between my legs, sucking my tits. I can’t stop thinking about how huge his cock is as he walks across the room to me.
“Hannah.” His low voice is almost a purr and I instantly feel my core start to throb and get wet. What the hell kind of effect does this guy have on me?
Was it just last night that we were together? I don’t feel sore.
He brushes hair out of my face. “Hannah, sweetheart, are you alright?”
I raise my hand to reach for him, but the bright glint of a diamond ring stops me in my tracks. We’re engaged?
The more I try to remember, the fuzzier it seems, but I remember trying to get away from him. Running away from him.
Then a car.
Being tied up.
“No!” I scream, thrashing in the bed. I swear, I can still feel the restraints holding me to the bed, but when I kick and move my arms, I move freely. There’s nothing holding me down.
I’m panting, my heart racing faster than ever. I know that I look like shit, but I don’t
care. I’m terrified, and I know that he has something to do with it, but I can’t quite piece it all together.
“Do you hurt? Do you want some more pain medication? The doctor is still here,” he says, turning away from me to call to Johnny.
I listen to them talk, but it honestly feels like I’m stuck underwater. My entire body is so slow and painful to move, and it’s hard for me to concentrate.
I want to trust him. I want to think that he’s helping me, but there’s something about him that I just can’t put my finger on. Something about him that makes me think that maybe he’s not the good guy that I want him to be.
There are so many questions that I want to ask him, but before I even get a chance, someone else is standing at the side of the bed. He has a syringe in his hand, and I shake my head, turning to twist away from him.
I don’t want it. Whatever it is, I don’t want it.
Even though I try to tell them this, my words must be slurred. The doctor sticks the needle into my arm and even the prick of pain feels dull.
I want to fight them. To tell them to stop.
But my body feels like it’s sinking into warm water that’s so deep I don’t think I can ever find my way back out again.
***
The room is different when I open my eyes again, but it’s only because the sun’s gone down and the only light in the room is from a lamp in the corner. Opening my eyes but careful not to move too much, I try to see who’s there.
It’s the guy.
Arlo.
He makes my heart race and I’m not sure why. There’s just something about his quiet presence that makes me feel safe, even though that feeling is competing with a fear that I have of him.
I’m not sure what to make of it.
My hips ache from being in the same position for too long, and I try to shift over a bit, but I can’t help but cry out at the pain. His eyes immediately dart to me and he puts down the book he was reading, crossing the room to the bed in just a few long strides.
“Hannah, are you here with me now?” His voice is so, so gentle, but I remember a hardness there. I don’t think that he’s showing me all of him.
But I nod anyway. I’m obviously in no condition to make a run for it from him, and if my memory serves me, I’ve been with him before. And the ring. Something doesn’t add up.
“Good. You gave us all quite a scare today, sweetheart.” He leans down and kisses my forehead, and although I’m sure that I look and smell terrible, I lean into it.
“Where am I?” My voice sounds like I’m talking through a pit of gravel, and before he answers, he turns and grabs a glass of water on the table next to me. There wasn’t any way that I could have reached out and taken it for myself, and I’m grateful when he holds the glass and manuevers the straw so I can take a sip.
“You’re in my house. You’re safe here, Hannah, I promise.”
His house. Emotion floods through me as I realize that that’s why this room felt a little familiar. It did because I’d been in this bed before. Naked.
But that doesn’t really explain the ring.
“The ring?” I ask, pulling my hand from under the covers. I swear, he must have a weighted blanket or some shit on the bed, because it takes all of my strength to pull my hand out and show him the ring.
He glances at it but then looks me in the eyes before answering. “I’d just proposed when you took off. You don’t remember?”
Not really, but I hate to admit to the guy I’m apparently supposed to marry that I don’t remember his proposal, so I just give a little shrug and I hope that he’ll drop it.
He doesn’t. Instead, he sits down on the edge of the bed. He’s heavier than I am and I roll a little towards him.
“Listen, Hannah, the past few days have been a little crazy. How much do you remember?”
I don’t want to go through this with him, but I also know that I can’t expect him to be honest with me about what’s going on if I’m not honest with him, so I clear my throat. “I remember…um, sleeping with you.” Dipping my head so that I don’t have to look at him, I continue. “I remember being in town for my mom. Someone pulling me into a car.”
I stop.
There’s no way that I want to relieve the other things that I remember after that. He gives me a hard look and I sigh. Obviously, I have to go through with this. I have to tell him everything.
“They tied me up and hit me. I cried out for help, but nobody came. Then they dunked my head in water over and over. I thought…I thought that I was going to die. Each time it was harder for me to breathe, and each time I thought that it was over, but I didn’t die. I must have passed out, because I woke up tied to a table.”
My heart is racing as I talk through my memories. I don’t want to relive them, but I know that I don’t have a choice.
“They cut me.” At this admission, my feet start to ache. I can practically feel the knife sliding through my skin. I swallow hard. “I bled. A lot.”
“Okay.” He stops me, and for a moment, I wonder if he can’t bear to hear anymore of what happened, but then I have another memory.
“You killed someone. There was blood on your pants. That’s…part of why I ran, but I don’t remember the other reason. Why did I run? What made me want to get away?”
I’d answered his questions, and it is his turn to answer mine. It’s all coming back to me, but in bits and pieces. I need him to fill in the parts that I don’t know or I’m going to struggle to find out the truth.
His eyes narrow and he searches my face like he’s looking for something that will let him be honest with me. I give him a little smile.
“Please tell me, Arlo. What happened that I ran? Why do I have on your ring? How do we even know each other?” It’ll all come back to me in time, I’m sure of that, but I don’t have time. I don’t want to have to wait to remember what happened between the two of us.
“Let’s get you something to eat first. You must be famished.”
As soon as he mentions food, my stomach rumbles. All of my body hurts so badly that I haven’t even paid attention to the fact that I’m getting hungry, but I still want answers. Even more than breakfast. I open my mouth to argue with him, but he shakes his head and stands up.
Instantly, there’s a cold spot on the bed where he had been sitting and I shiver.
“I’m going to make you breakfast. Let me help you to the bathroom and then when you eat, we can talk, okay?” The tone of his voice made it clear to me that I didn’t have any say in the matter and that I better suck it up.
This guy is used to getting his way.
So, even though I want to argue with him and demand that he tell me the truth, I nod. He gently flips the covers down and then scoops me up, pulling me tight against his chest. I can feel his heart beating and I lean into him, amazed at how safe he feels.
Was this how I felt when we slept together? There’s something niggling at the back of my mind, like the memory of the two of us being together isn’t all good, but I shove it away. I can deal with that later. Right now, though, I look my arms around his neck and snuggle in while he carries me to the bathroom.
I want to walk. I want to do this on my own, but just the thought of trying to put any weight on my feet makes my stomach twist.
If I’m going to make it through this in one piece, then it looks like I’m going to have to rely on Arlo for help. That thought thrills me a little. I can remember how strong he is, how attentive he was in bed. I remember so many good things.
But there’s a part of my brain that’s screaming at me that I should be afraid of him, and I can’t help but listen to that, too.
Chapter 12
Arlo
She doesn’t remember.
The thought thrills me and terrifies me. If she really doesn’t remember everything that the two of us have already been through, then I have the amazing opportunity to become a better man in her eyes. She hates me. I know that.
But that can change,
especially if she’s forgotten all of the bad things.
It’s two in the morning and I scramble her some eggs quickly while bread toasts. I don’t know what she’d normally have to eat for a midnight snack, but I figure that this should be pretty easy on her stomach. The last thing I want is for her to get sick.
A terrible thought occurs to me as I pour her a glass of juice.
What if her memory comes back later? What if, after however long of us being together and her being happy, she suddenly remembers all of the terrible things that we’ve gone through?
Fuck.
I carry the tray of food down to my bedroom and leave it on the bed before knocking on the bathroom. She calls me and I carry her carefully back to bed. This broad, this fucking mess of a woman, has squirmed her way into my heart after just one fuck.
Seeing her tied up yesterday, her feet cut and her face bleeding, made me sick. It’s why I was all too happy to shoot each of the bastards in the face.
They all saw it coming. They all got to watch as I worked my way down the line, and the family made sure that they kept their eyes open so that they would know exactly what was going to happen to them when it was their turn.
I’d saved the bastard who took her for last. My pistol fit perfectly in his mouth and I’d rammed it against the back of his throat to make him gag. He’d begged, drops of spit and blood flying from his fucking mouth, and then I put the gun between his eyes and pulled the trigger.
My pants were ruined, but fuck them. It was worth it to get Hannah back.
She settles on the bed and I prop some pillows behind her to support her back. I’m sure that she’s in a world of hurt, but the last dose of medicine from the doctor must not have completely left her system yet, because she’s not complaining or wincing when she moves.
She just can’t walk. Or run. Or lift anything. And I probably shouldn’t have let her look in a mirror, if I’m being honest. Nobody, especially not a broad, wants to see their face all fucked up like that. It’ll heal, but it’s going to take a few weeks.