by Blair Grey
Shaking so hard that I couldn’t even grip the damn thing, I had to take a deep breath and count backward from ten before I got it under control.
Making the call, I knew I had to come up with a plan and I had to do it right now. Before Lyle could say a word, I started speaking, “He’s got her. I need you right now. Can I count on you?”
“You’ve got it. Drop a pin on your location and send it to me. We’ll get heading your way. You can text me what you want us to do.”
Your time has come, Dean Strong. And not even God can help you if you’ve hurt Nicki again, you fucking bastard!
Chapter Twenty
Nicki
The pounding in my head came in second to the inability to move my limbs as my eyes opened, but just barely. Heavy eyelids made it difficult to fully open them. Even with the headache, I still remembered what had happened to me.
Dean drugged me.
No sound met my ears, so I knew I had to get moving while he wasn’t around. The old hardwood floor became my best friend as my fingernails sank into it. Every ounce of strength I had went into moving my body across that floor.
Pulling myself toward the bar, the idea was to use one of the barstools to get my ass up. If I could get to the sink, I could splash cold water on my face to help the effects of the drug wear off faster.
Even sticking my head in the freezer might help. Whatever I had to do, I had to do it quickly. Dean would be coming back. I wasn’t out of the woods at all.
Although cold radiated throughout my body, I knew that was only because my heart rate had been slowed down by whatever he’d given me. Moving would make things better.
I have to move.
Inch by inch, I got to where I could reach the metal bar near the bottom of the tall stool. Lifting my arm, it felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds. But I did it. Gripping the bar with my right hand, I threw my left arm at the same place and caught the bar.
The metal was cold in my palms as I pulled on it. My progress went so slowly that I didn’t know if I had made any or not. The chair began to wobble, and I had to stop pulling on it or it would fall on top of me.
Releasing the bar, I lifted my head as high as I could - maybe an inch off the floor - and saw something at the far end of the kitchen that might work.
A washing machine and a dryer were there. Although it would be a bitch to get myself into one of them, either would be good places to hide.
But then I looked in the other direction and found a window on the other side of the living room that I could climb out of. Trying to open it or breaking it open might be too hard for me in my current condition though.
The washing machine seemed the best option, so I went for it. The wood floor transitioned to linoleum that was slippery, making it much harder to move without slipping.
The backs of my eyes began to sting as tears threatened to burst from them.
I can’t be weak right now. There is no time to cry!
Blinking the tears away, I didn’t let myself think about anything other than getting to that washing machine. I had to hide. I couldn’t let Dean kill me.
Halfway to my destination, I heard the sound of a key clicking in the lock of the door. Blood coursed through my veins as my heart pounded. Adrenaline filled me. It became easier to move as blood rushed around inside of me, giving my muscles the energy they needed.
Dean had no idea that he’d given me a boost of energy with the fear he’d created in me. By the time the door opened, I was on my feet. My eyes jerked as I looked around to find some type of weapon.
A knife. A heavy blunt object. Anything!
The heavy wooden cutting board near the stove would have to do and I reached for it just as our eyes met.
“How in the hell are you up?” Dean asked with surprise.
My mouth opened, but nothing came out of it as the drug still affected me. I hurled the cutting board at him as he lunged at me. It hit him in the shoulder but didn’t slow him down at all.
His speed increased and the next thing I felt was the cold countertop against my cheek as he’d gotten to me. With my arms behind my back, bent me over the kitchen counter.
Once again, adrenaline coursed through me and suddenly I could speak, “Let me go.”
“You’re not in any position to tell me what to do, you little idiot. I’m in control here. You’re going to submit to me this time. You can’t keep fighting while you’re this weak.”
More and more of my body was waking up as the way he handled me pissed me off. Holding me down, he jostled around behind me. I was sure he was trying to undo his pants to release his dick.
Ramming my ass back as hard as I could, I smacked into his cock hard, making him scream in pain, “You fucking bitch! You’ll pay for that.” A sharp blow to my back knocked the air from my lungs.
Gasping to catch my breath, I hadn’t lost a thing other than that. Throwing my hips around, I used them to make it hard to keep holding me down. And as soon as I took in air, I yanked my head up as I felt him leaning over my back.
Bashing him in the face with the back of my head, I heard a crack and had no idea which one of us was injured.
My head had already ached, but a renewed bout of pain shot through it, nearly making me blackout. Taking in quick breaths, I managed to bring myself back from the edge of unconsciousness. “Let me go.”
Suddenly, he yanked my arms, making me spin around. Pushing me in front of him, my feet slid on the floor as I refused to walk. “Now you’re going to get tied up. I’m done playing with your ass. You’re about to find out what it means to belong to me.”
“I’ll send you to hell before that ever happens to me again.” My mind became clear as I knew I couldn’t let him rape me again. Catching my foot on the leg of the sofa, I tripped myself and fell to the floor, taking Dean with me.
One quick roll and I was free of him as he fell facedown on the hardwood floor. “Fuck!”
Scrambling to my feet, I grabbed the lamp and jerked the plug out of the light socket. The cord whipped through the air, catching Dean across the face as he rose like some sea serpent off the floor. A thin line of blood oozed across his cheek, joining the blood that ran down his face from the gash in his forehead I’d caused.
For a moment, he stopped as he ran his hand over his face, drawing back a bloody palm. I wasn’t going to wait around for him to catch a break. Slamming the lamp against the side of his head, I knocked him sideways, but not all the way to the floor the way I’d hoped to.
“I’m not going to go down so easy this time, you motherfucker.” I hadn’t let go of the lamp and hit him in the same spot with it again. “And I’m not running away either. This ends here. Neither of us will be running away today.”
Stumbling backward, he reached back and pulled his gun from behind his back. I dove on the other side of the couch to use it as cover as he pulled the trigger only once. The shot was close, coming out of the back of the couch only inches from me. “I’m not going to waste a bullet on you unless I have to. I’m not afraid of a little hand to hand combat, bitch.”
“Neither am I.” Jumping up, I kicked my foot up high enough to knock the gun out of his hand. “So, let’s get rid of that.”
As I was off the ground with the jump, he came at me like a linebacker, tacking me to the floor and once again knocking the air out of me. “You should know that I consider this the best foreplay I’ve ever had.”
He lay on top of me as I looked into his crazed eyes, unable to draw in a single breath. His weight on my chest made it impossible for me to inhale. Darkness began to come in from the edges of my vision as the oxygen my blood needed was restricted and what was left was being used up.
Rolling off me, Dean jumped up. My air came back and I chocked on it as it filled my lungs. Turning over on my hands and knees to get up, I suddenly rose several feet rapidly. He’d grabbed my belt loop and hoisted me up.
With a hard lunge away from him, the sound of the denim ripping as the belt loop g
ave way made me smile for the first time.
I can do this.
Spinning around to face him, I put my fists up. “How about you tell me what you did to those men who had the misfortune of wanting to spend a little time with me? It’s just to satisfy my curiosity since neither of us is leaving here alive.”
With a jerk of his head, he gestured toward the ceiling. I glanced up briefly to see an overhead light. “You’re on candid camera, sweet thing. Whatever you say will be used against you. There’s also sound recording with that camera. And it is running.”
I jabbed at his gut, but he pulled back before I connected. “Where are the monitors?”
“The bedroom closet.” He laughed. “I knew you were coming here, you little fool. I had that woman come to bring you to me. She’s one of my newest subs. I just picked her up yesterday. She was so willing to lie to you too. I owe her one. To be honest, I wasn’t sure she could pull it off and get you to come to me.” He moved his right hand like he was going to go for my face but then his left fist caught me in the side.
Grabbing my ribs, I stumbled a few steps to one side. “She didn’t get me to come to you. And she didn’t really fool me. I wanted to come here. I wanted to find Garrett. The poisoning was over the top – even for you. How long have you been breaking into my home and pouring vodka down my throat while I’m sleeping?”
Another loud laugh came from deep within his chest. “How crazy are you? I’ve never broken into your home.” He shot another punch to the same ribs. “I’ve got keys to get in.”
Pain shot through me as I’d heard a slight crack with that punch. “So, you admit that you’ve made me ingest alcohol without me knowing. And how’d you accomplish that?”
“With the same type of medical syringe that parents give their babies medications with.” He faked with his left toward my ribs again and when I flinched he hit me with his right fist on the other set of ribs. “But I only did that after you begged me to. I never did anything to you that you didn’t ask me to.”
Gasping with the pain, I wasn’t going to just give in. His words were lies for the audio to pick up. He was still covering his ass.
Leaning over as I hugged myself, I saw him leaning in and I came up hard and fast with an uppercut to his chin. He staggered backward with a surprised expression on his bleeding face.
I’d thought I had some horrible addiction, but the alcohol had been forced on me. I wasn’t a closet drunk. I wasn’t an alcoholic who drank to point of blacking out. And I didn’t have a split personality.
I did have one evil as fuck man who delighted in mind-fucking me. “You bought the vodka using my credit card each and every time. You took that without asking. And you’ve fucked yourself there, Agent Strong. The liquor stores have surveillance systems and you’ve been caught on them all.” It felt good to know that I now had evidence of his actions.
“How delirious are you right now? You gave me your card to go get you the vodka, you silly imp.” He ran his hand over his face then splashed the blood he’d wiped away all over the white wall behind him.
“Ah, you’re saying what you have to say for the camera that’s recording this whole thing. But what will it matter when we’re both dead anyway?” I thought I’d taunt him into saying more. Because I wasn’t going to die. I’d changed my mind about that. I wasn’t going to let him win. “I’ll give you a truth and you give me one. My truth is that when I first saw you, I thought you were cute. So, give me one. How about you give me the truth about taking my card without me knowing you’d done it?”
Rubbing his chin, he grinned. “I knew you thought I was hot. I never get the attraction wrong. So, why’d you fight it so fucking hard?”
“First, the truth, Dean.” I pointed up at the camera. “I gave you one – now you have to give me one.”
“Fine. I took your fucking card without you knowing.” He took a deep breath to steady himself. “Let me give you one more so I can get one more from you. I forced the vodka down your throat while you slept. Now, tell me honestly if you liked it when we had sex. And remember, you had an orgasm. Don’t lie, Johansson.”
“You raped me. We never had sex. You took something from me that I did not give to you.” I’d had it with his idea that he hadn’t raped me. “Yes, my body turned on me and gave in to the constant manipulation you gave my clit. But I didn’t want to give myself to you. If you didn’t want my mouth on your cock, but I’d tied your ass up and sucked it anyway, don’t you think that eventually, you’d come?”
“I don’t know. Let’s try it and see.” He eased around to one side of me then opened a cabinet in the kitchen, grabbing a rope out of it and tossing it to me. “If you can tie me up, then we can test your theory.”
The rope landed on the floor near my feet. I couldn’t believe the man. Looking at the rope, I shook my head. “You’re crazy.”
My body flew through the air as he came at me so fast I hadn’t even seen him moving. The rough rope scraped the flesh on my wrists as he bound them.
Yanking me up high, my feet left the floor. Closing the bedroom door, he tied the other end of the rope around a metal hook that was at the top of the door on the outside of it. I hung there like a fucking side of beef, unable to get free.
Dean pulled a small black remote out of the pocket of his jeans and pointed it at the camera above us. “We don’t want to record this.” He turned off the camera as he smiled at me.
Kicking, I wasn’t about to let it go down like this. “Don’t do this! You’ve already done enough. Don’t add to it!”
Laughing all the way back to the kitchen, he got another rope out from underneath the same cabinet and a gag too. Holding them up – the smile gone from his face, he growled, “Oh, I’m going to add to it.” Pulling open a drawer, he took out a long, shiny, sharp knife. “This time I’ll add a sense of danger. I’ve been practicing on some subjects I’ve been keeping in an underground dungeon back home. Thin slices in the flesh make endorphins flood the brain. It gives a sense of euphoria and when combined with sexual stimulation, it sends the subject into an orgasm of insane proportions. You can thank me later.”
“I will kill you later.” I couldn’t go through this again.
I won’t go through this again.
Chapter Twenty-One
Garrett
The sounds of Harley’s in the distance made my heart race even more than it already had been. It had only been ten minutes, but it had felt like an eternity.
The plan was simple. Dean’s apartment was on the end. Two windows gave us access to the inside. The front door may have been close to impenetrable, but the windows could be broken.
My mission wasn’t to kill Dean Strong at this point. It had changed a bit for the time being. This was a rescue mission to get Nicki away from him.
Along with that, I would put two men on searching the place for the video monitoring equipment I knew had to be in there. The plan was to have Strong arrested. I wanted him off the streets.
He’d get back out of jail on bond within a day, I knew that. During that time I would take him out for good. But for now, getting Nicki was all I could think about.
I heard the loud engines cut off well before they approached where I was. At the end of the block, I was within running distance to Strong’s apartment.
Lyle, Axel, Clyde, and Danny came walking toward me from the street over. Lyle gave me a nod. “Tell us what you need, kid.”
“We need to gain access to the inside through the two windows at the end of the building. They lead to Strong’s place. Clyde, you and Danny go in through the windows first. Lyle, you and Axle go in after them and secure the place. I’ll come in last through the front door which Danny will open for me. I’ll be covering that exit point to be sure Strong doesn’t get out of the apartment.”
“And once we’re in, then what?” Danny asked.
“You will hold Strong at gunpoint, Danny. Axle, you and Clyde will begin a search throughout the whole place to find al
l the surveillance equipment that you can. Plus, anything you feel he can be used to charge him with any type of crime.” I had a feeling there were plenty of things he had that would incriminate him.
Lyle raised one brow. “You gonna take him out, kid?”
“Not today. I’m going to call the cops once we’ve secured the situation. This mission is all about getting Nicki out of there alive and unharmed. If Strong gets roughed up, then that’s fine too. But let’s all remember that he’s probably got cameras rolling in there. Don’t do anything to warrant you going to jail.”
Axel shook his head as if he wasn’t agreeing with me. “Buddy, let me remind you that going in through a window is breaking and entering.”
“Not to worry. I’ll have Nicki say that she saw us at the windows and told us to come in through them. As long as someone from the inside asks for us to come in, then there’s nothing illegal about that. No matter which entrance we use.” But I wouldn’t let them go to jail. “Let’s move out. Guns at the ready, gentlemen.”
As we moved toward the last apartment in the long row of them, a short but loud pop came from the direction we went in. “Gunshot,” Lyle said. “Speed it up, boys.”
Fire spread through me as I ran for all I was worth to get to Nicki.
Please let it be her who had shot him.
“Same setup, kid?” Lyle asked as we approached the front door area.
“Yes, same setup on faster.” I stopped by the door, leaning my back against the side of the wall to block any gunfire that might come my way.
The others went around the side of the building. All I could do was wait.
My eyes went skyward. “Lord, I don’t ask much but I need your help right now. Keep my girl safe. Amen.”
Lyle came back to me. “They’re fighting in the middle of the living room. I know you said for us to go in through both windows. But I think it’s best to come in from the one that leads into the bedroom. I’ve changed the plan. The men are going in that way. We’ll get the element of surprise since they’re in the middle of an altercation.”