by A. K. Evans
Apparently, he needed to pick up a couple of tools from the hardware store.
Ever since we went out and selected paint for the nursey—the actual painting being something Roscoe refused to allow me to help with—there had been a steady effort made to get everything ready for the baby’s arrival. Roscoe did things like put together the crib and changing table while I washed the bedding and baby clothes and decorated. It became a real team effort.
And I loved how it was all coming together. I still wholeheartedly believed our baby was the luckiest baby in the world.
But I had to admit that seeing the change in Roscoe, seeing how enthusiastic he was, it made the whole experience even more special. My heart swelled watching him pour himself into the project. And the reality was that I believed he was even more excited about the baby’s arrival, knowing that we were officially together.
In the beginning of all of this, I had merely hoped for him to accept the fact that we’d made a baby together and want to be part of the baby’s life. He’d gone above and beyond that in so many ways.
And with each day that passed, I was falling more and more in love with him.
Because it didn’t just end with the bonding we did over our nursery preparations. Ever since we’d shared the truth of our feelings with one another, our relationship had progressed in other ways.
We officially began the process of getting me moved into his place. That moving consisted mostly of Roscoe carrying everything for me while he all but demanded I sit down and watch him. I loved his overprotectiveness.
I’d also spent every night in his bed. I was no longer living in the guest room, and my things had made their way to his bedroom.
It really struck me because other than the rough patch in the beginning, Roscoe seemed to effortlessly fall into the role of a boyfriend and an expectant father. If he was struggling with it, he hadn’t shared.
I’d made it to the end of the block, still wearing a smile on my face. It was hard not to with all the wonderful thoughts in my head.
But in an instant, all of that was blasted to bits. Just as I rounded the corner, I heard a loud screeching sound. I looked off to my left and saw a van come to a stop. It felt like a scene out of a movie, and I was stuck, frozen to the spot as I watched to see what was happening.
It was the biggest mistake of my life.
Because by the time I figured out what was going on, a man had exited the vehicle and moved right toward me. Maybe it was the thought that I didn’t have any enemies that made me remain in that spot, but for some reason, all I could think was that he wasn’t coming after me.
Only, he was.
And by the time I figured it out, it was too late. He’d already made it to my side, gripped my bicep in his hand, and pressed something hard into the side of my waist.
“Move, now,” he ordered.
A gun. It had to be a gun pointed at my belly… at my baby.
I panicked.
If I ended up in that van, I knew my chances of being found would drastically decrease. And Roscoe had to be so close. I needed to stall. I needed to fight.
“I said move,” the man demanded a little louder.
Keep your baby safe, I thought.
Grateful that this guy was on my right side and that I’d learned how to use my left hand over the last several weeks, I swung my arm up and aimed for his face. He loosened his hold on me slightly, and I wrangled my arm as I screamed, “Help!”
I managed to get myself away and started to run back in the direction I’d come from, but I hadn’t gone more than two or three steps in that direction when the man who’d been driving the van darted out from behind the vehicle and grabbed me.
I struggled against him, fighting with everything I had, but my arms were pinned at my sides. I kicked and screamed.
“Help!”
It happened so fast, even if I felt like everything was moving in slow motion.
But just like in the movies, the good guy shows up just in time.
“Sienna!”
Hearing my name through the struggle caused me to stop and look.
“Roscoe!” I shouted, as he ran toward me.
He made it there just in time to hit the guy who’d been struggling to take me into the van. The force of Roscoe’s hit had been enough to get the guy to let me go. Roscoe put his arms around me and held me.
“Oh my God,” I cried.
“It’s okay, baby. I’ve got you.”
“She’s coming with us.”
Roscoe moved fast, quickly positioning his body in front of mine. “You’re going to have to kill me to take her,” he barked. “And I’m not planning on dying today.”
The man’s eyes slid away to the driver Roscoe had hit who was now getting up off the ground.
When he returned his attention to Roscoe, he smirked. “We’re not going to kill you. But we are taking her. So, I guess that means you’ll have to be injured.”
In the next instant, a shot was fired. Roscoe’s body fell to the ground as he let out a grunt. I dropped to my knees, letting out a scream of despair, as I saw the blood soaking through his shirt.
But no sooner did my knees touch the pavement when I was yanked back up and carried into the van.
I never stopped screaming for Roscoe, and the tears never stopped rolling down my face as the van raced off.
Roscoe
“Hello?”
“Killian, I need you to call Royce,” I barked.
“What’s going on?”
“Sienna was just kidnapped,” I told him. “I’m on my way to see Royce.”
“Jesus,” he breathed. “I’ll call him and meet you there.”
I dropped the phone onto the seat and drove as fast as I could to Harper Security.
It didn’t matter that blood was pouring down my arm from my shoulder or that it hurt like crazy to turn the steering wheel. Sienna was in trouble, and I needed to get to her before something horrible happened.
The force of the bullet hitting my deltoid had dropped me to the ground, and I recovered from that too slowly. By the time I got to my feet again, Sienna was already in the van that was driving away with her.
I ran to my car, even though bystanders had told me I needed to wait for the police or an ambulance.
And that’s precisely what they were.
Bystanders.
Not one of them acted. None of them had done a single thing. None of them stepped up when Sienna was in trouble.
If they thought I was going to stick around now because they asked me to, they were crazy.
Every second I stood around doing nothing would be another second wasted. The police could come and find me if they needed to talk to me. I was going where I needed to go. I was going where I knew there’d be reason to hope we could find her.
This was all my fault.
I got so caught up in what I was doing, in what I was planning, that I lost track of the time and didn’t make it back to pick her up on time.
And now, everything I’d been doing, the whole reason I was late, might not even matter.
I had dropped Sienna off at therapy, knowing I’d have about an hour before I needed to return to pick her up. Just as I had told her I was doing, I’d gone right to the hardware store. I ran in, got what I needed, and ran out. When I made it back to my car, I pulled out my phone and made a call.
For several weeks, I’d been doing some research. I planned to ask Sienna to marry me. I knew it seemed quick, but I didn’t have any doubt about her.
I’d spent years doing the same thing over and over again, believing I was living a life that others would be envious of. I never thought I’d be ready to give it up. But over the last few months, I learned just how wrong I was. Finally, I understood what each of my bandmates had gone through when they’d fallen in love. And now I wanted it for myself.
So, I decided to take the time I had today between the run to the hardware store and going back to get Sienna to make a call to Quinn, the
owner of Quinn Jacobs Jewelry. Apparently, Quinn had opened her business under her maiden name, but she was now married and had taken her husband’s last name, making her Quinn Reed.
I had sent a couple of emails initially, but Quinn wanted to have a phone conversation with me to go over the specifics of what I was looking for when it came to ring I wanted to get for Sienna. Since I wanted Sienna to have the very best and I wanted her to be surprised, I thought the perfect time to have the call would be while Sienna was at therapy.
I was wrong.
Because while the call with Quinn went well and all the details had been sorted, it took substantially longer than I had anticipated.
And now Sienna was gone.
As I pulled into the lot at Harper Security, I prayed they’d be able to locate her.
When I walked in, I was met by Royce and Nixon. Royce was Killian’s cousin and the owner of Harper Security Ops. Nixon was Killian’s brother.
“Killian told Royce your girlfriend was kidnapped,” Nixon greeted me as I walked through the door. “He didn’t share that you were shot.”
“I’m fine. We need to find her,” I demanded, even though I knew I couldn’t really be the one to make the assessment about whether I was actually fine. I just knew that compared to whatever situation Sienna was in, I was doing much better.
“What happened?” Royce asked as we moved toward his office.
I explained the situation to him, telling him as much as I could remember about what happened.
When I finished, Nixon announced, “I’ll call the Steel Ridge PD and let them know Roscoe is here.”
Royce dipped his chin. Nixon walked out.
“Please tell me you’re going to find her,” I begged.
“I’m going to find her,” he promised.
With his vow, I sank down into the chair.
“Oh my God.”
I twisted my neck and looked behind me to see that Magnolia and Killian had just walked in.
“Are you okay, Roscoe? What happened?”
I looked at Royce, and he said, “Stay here. I’m going to get to work.”
After Royce walked out, I told Killian and Magnolia what had happened. They sat quietly and listened to every word. And when I finished, Magnolia asked, “You left the scene without anyone checking you out? You’ve been shot, Roscoe.”
“And Sienna is missing,” I countered. “She’s nearly thirty-five weeks pregnant and someone took her.”
“Who would do this?” Killian asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. My initial thought was some obsessed fan, but I don’t think that’s what this is. I can’t help but believe this is going to be someone looking for a ransom. Fuck!”
Killian offered a sympathetic look. “Let’s hope that’s all it is. You pay the money, and you get her back. And you know that Royce and the guys will find her.”
Nodding, I croaked, “I hope you’re right.”
Some time passed before the police showed up. They weren’t as mad as I had anticipated them being considering I’d left the scene. Then again, considering I’d come here, I shouldn’t have been surprised.
The Steel Ridge Police Department worked closely with Harper Security Ops on many investigations. Royce, Nixon, and nearly all the rest of the guys who worked here were ex-military members. None of them had any desire to enter the normal workforce when they got out, and Royce decided to put the skills that he and so many of the guys had developed during their years in the military to good use.
As I shared everything that had happened to Sienna with the police, Magnolia had taken it upon herself to find some towels and apply pressure to the bullet wound on my shoulder. I’d been told that an ambulance was on the way.
If anyone thought I was going to the hospital without being absolutely certain that Sienna had been found safe, they were crazy. Without her, without our baby, it wouldn’t matter that they patched up my shoulder. The pain I felt in my shoulder didn’t even touch what I felt inside my heart.
Blood may have been pouring down my arm and soaking the towels Magnolia was holding there, but it was my heart that was the problem. My heart felt like it was bleeding, and the only way it would stop would be to have Sienna safe and back in my arms.
Just as I finished with answering all their questions, Royce, Nixon, and another member of their team, Banks, walked back into the room. They’d asked the officers a few questions of their own before we all stopped speaking and listened.
Over their radio, we all heard it.
A call out to a location where two women were being held hostage, one of them who was pregnant.
The officers looked at me, and one asked, “Was someone else with her?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“We’re coming with you,” Nixon declared to another officer.
“Right. Yeah. It might be good to have extra hands,” the officer replied. I got up to move, but the officer said, “We need you to stay here.”
“I can’t.”
“You need to. Let us do our job.”
No way. No way could I sit here and wait.
“Roscoe?” Nixon called.
“Yeah?”
“I promise you that if this is her, I’ll bring her back here safely to you. This is what Banks and I do. We’ll get her,” he assured me.
Paramedics walked in just as he got those words out. “Stay. Get patched up. I’ll bring her back.”
Before I could respond, he was gone.
And it took both Royce and Killian to hold me back.
Twenty-four
Sienna
“That hurts.”
“Well, even pregnant, you’re a feisty one, so we’re going to play this safe,” the driver of the van, who I now knew was named Dorian, said as he tightened the zip tie on my wrist.
Adrian, the man who shot Roscoe, tightened zip ties on my ankles.
I was being fastened to a chair in what looked like an abandoned warehouse. I hadn’t been knocked out when I was in the van, but I’d been so distraught about what happened to Roscoe that I didn’t pay attention to where they were taking me. If, by some miracle, I managed to escape, I prayed that I’d be able to find my way to safety.
The only thing I was relatively certain of was that we were still in Steel Ridge or just outside of it. We hadn’t been in the van driving for nearly long enough to get too far away. That was the only thing that gave me hope about this whole situation.
With one final yank against my ankle, Adrian said, “There. That should do it.”
“What do you want? Why are you doing this?” I asked.
I figured if I was in this predicament, I should try to get as much information as I could.
“We don’t want you,” Dorian said. “We just do what we’re told.”
“So, someone hired you? What does your boss want?” I pressed.
“We don’t ask questions,” Adrian informed me.
Great. Just perfect.
“Maybe you should,” I mumbled my suggestion. “So, now what? What are you going to do to me?”
Before they could answer, I heard. “Step away from her.”
The order came from a female, but I couldn’t see who it was. Adrian and Dorian both turned their bodies to the side, and that’s when I saw Maria standing there, holding a gun. She had it pointed at them, and when neither of them made a move to step away from me, she demanded, “Move away now.”
I didn’t know how she was here, and I never thought it would be possible, but I was beyond relieved to see her standing there.
“Don’t make me repeat myself,” she shouted, growing more and more agitated with them.
Dorian and Adrian exchanged glances. They nodded at each other and moved away from me. The problem was that in doing that, they moved closer to Maria.
One of them lunged forward and grabbed the barrel of the gun as the other tackled Maria to the ground. It was hard to see from the angle I was at, but she must have hit her head on th
e concrete floor because the next thing I knew the men were standing over her and putting zip ties around her ankles as they did the same with her wrists behind her back. Then, leaving her there on the floor, they took the gun and walked out.
“Maria,” I called her name.
She didn’t move. I could see her chest expanding, so I knew she was still breathing.
“Maria,” I called again.
Nothing.
This felt utterly hopeless.
And now that I was alone in this warehouse with a woman who’d been knocked out just waiting for the next thing that was going to happen, my emotions started to get the better of me.
At first, I’d tried to struggle against the restraints, but it didn’t take long for me to realize just how much more work I needed to do in therapy because my wrist fatigued rather quickly.
I attempted to shift the chair closer to Maria, but it took a lot of effort to move a matter of inches. I had to take breaks frequently.
And during my breaks, I allowed my thoughts to wander to Roscoe. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I replayed the scene in my mind. The sound of the gunfire. Roscoe’s body jerking back slightly against mine before he dropped to the ground. The blood.
I was terrified for him. Was he okay? Was he still alive?
God, if something happened to him and I managed to get out of here, I didn’t think I’d ever recover from losing him. It all felt so incredibly tragic.
And names.
The names we’d discussed over the last few weeks. We were both so convinced we were having a girl, and we’d come up with a list of names we liked that was about a mile long. Because we wanted to be prepared, we did have a handful of boy names picked out, but it didn’t come close to touching the girl names.
Ultimately, we decided we wouldn’t officially pick one until we met him or her. Then we’d choose one together.
What if… what if I had to do it on my own?
I couldn’t bear the thought of it.
A moan filled the room, and my eyes shot to Maria.