by Land, Alexa
His laugh was totally devoid of humor. “Trying to play hardball? That’s cute. But here’s the thing: my men will be reaching that place on Catalina at any moment, the one owned by someone with your last name. Is Renaldo Medina your father? Or your brother, maybe?” He waited for an answer, but I just glared at him. “If you don’t cooperate, I’m going to instruct my people to obtain Speros’s number from Renaldo by any means necessary. If he fails to provide it, they’ll shoot him. Then they’ll work their way through the rest of the staff, bullet by bullet, until I get what I need.”
I lunged at him and yelled, “You’re a fucking monster!”
Harris stepped back so he was just out of reach and smiled. “Sticks and stones, lover boy. Ready to give me that number?”
“How the hell can you threaten someone’s family so casually, like they’re nothing? Don’t you have people you love?”
“Of course not, and this is why. Loved ones are a liability. All they do is make you weak and vulnerable.” He held out the pen and paper, and after a pause, I snatched them from him and scribbled down the phone number. What choice did I have?
“Nice to know I struck a nerve,” Harris said, as he took the items from me. “I’m going to tell my men to hang tight once they arrive at Seahorse Ranch. You just showed me I can get you to do anything I want by threatening your family, and that might come in handy.”
I hissed, “I hope you fucking burn in hell for this!”
He held up his phone and said, “Smile pretty for your lover,” then snapped my picture.
“Eat shit, Harris.”
He seemed amused and called, “See you soon, Beck,” as he left the room. I heard a lock turn after the heavy door closed behind him.
I sat on the cement floor and hugged my knees to my chest. As the adrenaline drained away, I started to shiver, so I pulled down the sleeves of my dark blue sweater. I’d completely fucked up, and I knew it. Why had I thought it’d be a good idea to run off without Lee? And how the hell were either of us going to get out of this alive?
I felt like crying, and screaming, and slamming my fists against the wall. But where would that get me? Instead, I made myself get up and survey my surroundings. There had to be something I could do in this situation.
A few cardboard boxes were stacked nearby, so I reached out as far as the handcuffs would allow, but I couldn’t quite reach them. I thought about that for a minute, then laid on the ground and tried again. In this position, with my cuffed arm fully extended over my head and my legs stretched out, my feet touched the boxes.
I could just barely grasp the large, heavy box on the bottom with my heels. There were three more boxes stacked on top of it, and when I tried to slide the tower closer, they swayed precariously. I stopped what I was doing and held my breath until they stabilized. The last thing I wanted was to knock them over, because the noise would summon Harris and his men.
Over the next several minutes, I slid the boxes closer and closer. Eventually, I was able to stand up and unstack them. Come on, I thought, be full of guns and knives.
Not quite. The box on the bottom was loaded with files. No wonder it had weighed a ton. The next box held some dishes, presumably from when this has been an operational pawn shop. The box above it contained small appliances. How much money could someone really expect to get for pawning a toaster?
I’d saved the smallest box for last, and it was a bit more promising. It seemed to contain the contents of a junk drawer. There were pens, receipts, several calculators, takeout menus, and a lot of crap. At the very bottom of the box was a screwdriver. I tucked it into the waistband of my jeans and pulled my sweater over it. Then I grabbed a few pens and stuck them in my pocket. I repacked all the boxes, stacked them up again, and carefully began sliding them across the concrete.
When I’d just about gotten them back into position, the lock clicked. I sat down quickly and leaned against the wall. One of Harris’s men came into the room, then paused and eyed me suspiciously. I just stared at him. He continued to the door at the back of the room, which I hoped would open to the outside. It actually led to a small bathroom.
After he used the facilities, he glared at me on his way back through the storeroom, and I said, “You didn’t wash your hands.”
He smirked and said, “I hope Harris lets me be the one to kill you.”
When he returned to the front room, he left the door ajar. I heard the other thug say, “You forgot to lock it.”
“I want to be able to hear that little fucker,” the first guy said. “He looks like he’s up to something.”
“You’re fucking paranoid, man. He’s chained up. Unless he knows how to Houdini his way out of a pair of handcuffs, he’s not going anywhere.”
Speaking of which…
I pulled a ballpoint pen from my pocket, took it apart to get to the tiny metal spring inside, and straightened it out as much as possible. I was chained to the same wall that the door was on, which meant I wasn’t actually in their line of sight. So I sat there for the next half-hour or so, trying to pick the lock on the cuffs with the spring.
Stuff like that always looked so damn easy in the movies. They just stuck a paperclip in the lock, jiggled it a bit, and boom! Freedom. But I got absolutely nowhere.
Sometime later, I heard the front door open in the main part of the pawn shop. Apparently Harris had been out and had just returned, because he asked, “Why’s that door open?”
The second thug immediately sold his buddy out. “It was Neely’s idea.”
“I wanted to make sure the prisoner wasn’t up to anything back there,” Neely explained.
I hid the pen parts in my pocket, then curled up on the ground and pretended to be asleep. A moment later, the door creaked open a bit further. My back was to it, and I didn’t move. Harris snapped, “Oh yeah, he’s up to all kinds of shit.” He left the door open, though. Once I heard him walk away, I sat up again and sighed.
* * *
I was left chained to that pipe for several long, dull hours, during which I totally failed to pick the lock on the cuffs and escape. My windowless room was lit by two fluorescent bulbs in a long, metal light fixture, which was suspended from the drop ceiling. I couldn’t tell if it was day or night, or if I’d been in there five hours or ten.
Harris left for most of the day, and when he returned, he told his men, “Speros is going to be here in less than half an hour. I already have two teams of four men each in position outside, and Platt, I want you up on the roof with the sniper rifle. Neely, you’ll be right here, backing me up. Remember, Speros is mine, so don’t fucking forget that and shoot him before I get a chance to.”
A few moments later, Harris popped his head through the door to check on me and quipped, “Look alive, lover boy. Your man will be here soon to trade his life for yours.” He grinned at me, then stepped back into the main part of the pawn shop.
Neely asked him, “We’re doing this with just eleven people? What if he brings twenty men with him?”
“I told him to come alone, and I doubt he’ll do anything to jeopardize the safety of his little cupcake back there. Besides, after last night, I’ll bet he doesn’t even know which of his men he can trust. But if Rus Speros tries to sneak in, everyone is authorized to shoot that big fucker on sight.”
I got to my feet and looked around franticly. Lee was going to be dead in a matter of minutes, unless I did something. It was time for desperate measures.
Above me, the pipe disappeared through a hole in the high, false ceiling, which consisted of a thin, metal grid that framed dingy acoustic tiles. I had no idea what was above the grid, but finding out seemed like a much better idea than waiting around for Lee to get killed.
I stepped back as far as I could and tried to spot Harris and his men, who were talking strategy. I couldn’t see them, so that probably meant they couldn’t see me, either. I grabbed the pipe with both hands, braced my sneakers on the wall, and began to climb. The open door was only about ten fee
t to my right. I prayed no one would decide to check on me in the next minute or so, because I had no doubt that would end with me getting shot.
Aside from needing to be careful about rattling the cuff against the pipe and making noise, it was an easy climb. Why the hell hadn’t I tried that several hours ago? When I reached the ceiling, I pushed the rectangular tile upward, and it lifted right out of its frame.
The pipe was capped off about five feet above the drop ceiling, and it was anchored to the wall with a metal brace. I forced the screwdriver between the brace and the pipe and fought with it for what had to be a solid minute, all while waiting to be discovered. Finally, the rusty fastener gave way, and the cuff just barely fit over the domed cap at the end of the pipe. That was a wonderful stroke of luck, but there was no time to celebrate.
I paused to take a good look at where I’d be going, and then I put the tile back in place. It blocked out nearly all the light, and the darkness was problematic. But it seemed wise to hide my escape route, because it was just a matter of time before men with guns noticed I was gone and began looking for me.
It was almost impossible to move quickly. I made my way across the rafters more by touch than sight and nearly lost my footing at one point. My heart leapt, but I steadied myself and continued on. After a while, I stuffed myself through a crawl space. I figured I was probably in the business next door to the pawn shop at that point, but I kept going. It just made sense to put more distance between myself and Harris before trying to get outside.
As I crept along, I wondered if my captors had discovered my absence yet. I’d only been gone a matter of minutes, but it felt like an eternity.
I climbed through another opening, stretched my leg out until I found the next rafter, and stepped onto it. But the beam broke with a sharp crack, and I yelped as I tumbled into the darkness. Luckily, I landed on a large cardboard box, which broke my fall. It took a few moments for my heart rate to level out after that scare.
My baseball cap had fallen off, but that wasn’t important. I got up shakily and felt my way around a maze of boxes. After a minute or so spent stumbling around and bumping into things, I reached the front of the building and located the door. But then I remembered what Harris had said about eight men hiding outside and a sniper on the roof, and fear trickled down my spine.
When I slid my hand across the wall, I found paper taped over the plate glass window to the right of the door. I peeled a bit away and looked outside. There should have been a nearly full moon that night, but it must have been overcast, because I couldn’t see a thing. There were no streetlights, either. I wondered if Harris’s men had shot them out, or if roving gangs had taken care of that for him.
Lee would be arriving in a matter of minutes. I needed to make it to the street without getting shot and flag him down before he pulled into the parking lot. But with a sniper on the roof, leaving through the front door was suicide.
I made my way back into the maze of boxes and tried to keep track of the direction I was traveling in as I went in search of another exit. If I was right about which storefront I was in, this was the very end of the strip mall. Maybe there was a side door, and hopefully no one was watching it. Otherwise, this entire exercise was going to end with me taking a bullet.
A faint sound caught my attention, and a cool breeze drifted over my skin, but only for a moment. It was as if a door had opened and closed. Fear made all the hairs on my arms stand on end, and I took the screwdriver from my waistband and held it like a weapon.
The sound of fabric rustling made me spin around, and I bumped into a tall figure that had been right behind me. He clamped a hand over my mouth as I started to scream and caught the screwdriver before I could stab him. Then he whispered, “Calm down, Beck. It’s me.”
The voice was familiar, and I stopped struggling. When he took his hand off my mouth, I whispered, “Dante?”
“Yeah. Now come on, let’s get you out of here.”
As he started to lead me through the maze of boxes, I asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Helping your boyfriend save your ass.”
“How’d you know I’d be trying to leave through this shop?”
“I didn’t. We have people sneaking into this building through every door and window, looking for you. I just got lucky.”
“Oh. So, how can you see where you’re going?”
“I’m wearing night vision goggles.” Something in his hand lit up with a faint blue light. An electronic crackle told me it was a walkie talkie, and he whispered into it, “I’ve got Beck, and he looks A-OK. In fact, he was in the process of escaping when I found him. We’re about to exit from the south end of the strip mall and will be clear in about forty seconds. Tell everyone to evacuate the building, and let’s get ready to put the fear of God into this motherfucker.”
I asked, “Where’s Lee?”
“On the other end of this radio, along with enough firepower to make Theo Harris wish he’d never been born.”
I grinned for the first time in several hours and said, “Awesome. You should know though, there are eight men hidden somewhere outside, and another man is on the roof with a sniper rifle. Harris is inside the pawn shop with one other guy.”
“We know,” Dante said. “The sniper and the men who were hiding in the bushes have already been captured. We just needed to extract you before we could move on to the next phase. Now let’s see if we can make Harris shit his pants.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
We stepped through a side door a few moments later and ran along the edge of the parking lot at the front of the building. The clouds had parted a little, so there was enough moonlight to see where I was going. We crouched down behind a concrete barrier, and Dante set aside the goggles, then said into the walkie talkie, “We’re clear. Time to make a grown man cry, Leonidas.”
Lee’s voice sounded tinny through the little speaker. “Roger that,” he said. “Tell Beck I love him, and I’ll see him soon.”
“You just told him yourself,” Dante said. He swapped the walkie talkie for a phone and began recording.
I asked, “When exactly did you and my boyfriend become BFFs?”
“When he came to me earlier today, humbly and earnestly asked for my help, and told me a member of my family had been kidnapped. He also told me he was madly in love with you, and that he’d do anything in the world to make sure you were safe. Incidentally, this was sometime after four asshats on Harris’s payroll showed up trying to cause trouble and found out the hard way that Seahorse Ranch is under my protection.”
“A member of your family? Do you mean me?”
Dante shot me a look. “No. I mean some other guy that got kidnapped. We’re saving him next.”
I smiled at him and asked, “When did I become an honorary Dombruso?”
“The first time my family stayed at the ranch and you treated my grandmother like a queen. Now pay attention, because this is about to get good.”
He wasn’t kidding.
A few moments later, we started to hear a lot of noise. Two helicopters swooped in from opposite directions and lit up the night with a pair of powerful spotlights. Then ten black SUVs pulled up and lined both sides of the parking lot, and about thirty people with guns piled out and pointed their weapons at the building. They’d left a path right down the center, leading directly to the pawn shop, and a huge armored vehicle appeared and gunned its engine.
Dante looked absolutely delighted, like a kid on Christmas morning, and I yelled over the noise, “How the hell did you arrange all of this?”
He tried to play it off by saying, “I know people,” but I could tell he was damn proud of what he’d accomplished in a very short timeframe.
The almost-tank barreled across the parking lot and smashed into the front of the pawn shop, revealing Harris and Neely, who were cowering and seemed absolutely terrified. A hatch opened on top of the armored vehicle, and Lee emerged looking like a total badass. He pointed a machine gun at Har
ris, who blurted, “Speros? Is that you?”
I burst out laughing when Lee growled, “Who the fuck were you expecting, the tooth fairy?”
He jumped to the ground, circled to the front of the armored vehicle, and was flanked by Rus and Vincent, who were also carrying machine guns. Dante put his phone away and crossed the parking lot to join them. Along the way, one of the mercenaries tossed him an assault rifle, which he caught effortlessly and casually tipped back to rest on his shoulder.
Lee had literally brought the big guns, in every sense of the word.
Harris and Neely threw down their weapons and came out with their hands up. After Dante cuffed them, the helicopters flew off, and I ran to my boyfriend. As soon as I reached him, he lifted me off my feet and kissed me passionately.
When he put me down again, I flashed him a big smile and said, “This is a good look.” He was dressed like a commando in black fatigues and combat boots.
“Glad you like it.” He kissed me again, then grew serious and asked, “Did he hurt you?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Dante said you escaped.”
“I did. I thought you were coming here without backup, so I had to get out and save you.”
He smiled at me and said, “You’re such a badass.”
“Right back at you.”
Rus came over to us and said, “I hate to interrupt this love fest, but now that we have Harris, what do you want to do with him?”
Lee strode over to Harris and punched him in the face, which I found immensely satisfying. Then he leaned in and said something to him before returning to me and taking my hand. “Come on,” he said, “let’s go home.”
Some of the mercenaries dragged Harris and Neely to one of the SUVs and tossed them inside. Platt and eight other men were loaded into the various vehicles, and then our own, personal army drove off into the night. All in all, the operation had gone down in about five minutes. That was both surprising and a very good thing. Any longer and it surely would have drawn the attention of every police officer in the southland.