Black Dog Security- Complete 5-Part Series

by Camilla Blake

“You move and it gets worse for you, bitch.” The voice was a strange one, but I knew it was one of Frank’s men.

  I stopped moving and tried to figure out my own plan. Vince’s plan had sucked. Vince sucked. I gritted my teeth and vowed to live because I wanted nothing more than to beat the shit out of him.

  “Good, bitch.” The man patted my head like I was a dog and laughed. “It’s too bad Porter just wants you dead. It’d be fun to keep you around for a while.”

  I cringed. I hadn’t even thought far enough ahead to consider what Frank was going to do to me. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to be tortured, either. I wanted to go back to my life. Before Porter and before Vince. The fact that I was still thinking about him when I was tied up in a mobster’s car told me a lot. I’d gotten too close and I’d gotten burned.

  When I’d read romance books when I was younger, ones I’d borrowed from the library and never taken back because it’d taken me longer to read them than they allowed, the love interest would never use the main character as bait. He cared too much about her safety; he loved her; yada yada yada. The fact that Vince had been so willing to throw me out to the monsters proved to me that he didn’t give two flying fucks about me.

  He cared about his business and his friends. He cared about Lauren. He cared about everything but me. I’d just been stupid enough to think for a minute that he did care. He’d just seemed so sincere…

  “What are you crying for? Death is inevitable. Yours is just coming a little faster than most.” The man laughed again and I got the distinct feeling that I was dealing with a lunatic.

  I focused on trying to breathe and remain calm. I could figure a way out of the situation. I just had to stay levelheaded.

  “I wonder how Porter will end your pathetic little life. Will he gut you like a fish and let you watch as your insides spill out? Will he tie you to his car and drag you through the streets like the trash that you are? Or maybe he’ll let me do it, slowly and painfully. I’d start by cutting off your eyelids.”

  Oh, fuck. Remaining calm was out of the picture. I worked my wrists against the ropes I was in and did my best to get free. I could worry about the asshole sitting next to me after I was loose.

  “Don’t bother. Not unlike your navy friend, I know many knots. Knots that you could never get out of.”

  “Shut the fuck up, would you?” I screamed at him like I’d lost my mind—because, maybe, I had.

  He slapped me hard across the side of my face and spit in my hair. “You disrespectful cunt. Your death will be a pleasure to watch.”

  I decided to stay quiet. My face throbbed and I was starting to shake from the fear. The knowledge that I was on my own against Frank and his stupid henchmen bad guys was horrifying. I was no match for them. He was going to kill me.

  When the car finally came to a stop, the window rolled down and the smell of dingy water filled my nose. “Where do you want her?”

  “Down at the dock.” It was Frank’s voice and the anger in it told me that I didn’t have a lot of hope of making it out alive.

  The car moved a little bit farther, and when it stopped, I was dragged out and hoisted up against the side of the car by the man who’d been keeping me company in the back. He sneered at me and patted my cheeks, hard.

  “This is going to be fun.”

  Frank got out of another car and slowly made his way to me. Stopping in front of me, he punched me hard in the stomach. I gasped and tried to coil in on myself, but the guy beside me dragged me back up.

  “You killed my son.” He grabbed my neck and squeezed. “You shot him in the head like a rabid dog, you stupid whore.”

  Like a fish out of water, I writhed against his grip, trying to free myself from his punishing grasp. I wasn’t getting enough air and I could already feel my throat bruising.

  “Do you know how much money we threw at you, bitch? I probably paid all of your bills. You took my fucking money and then killed my son? What kind of whore are you?” He let go of my throat and punched me hard.

  I felt the bone in my nose shift and blood started pouring over my mouth. Gagging at the pain, I felt time slow down. He showered me in punches. His fingers were covered in rings that I felt bite into my skin and tear it.

  I should’ve been panicking more. I should’ve tried anything to fight harder. I knew that I was a goner, though. With time moving that slow, it gave me time to look around and see that I was surrounded by his men. There were at least ten of them. They weren’t going to let me go. Another fist to the face sent my head spinning and I saw nothing in the distance.

  We were surrounded by forest and lake. There was no one there but us. Me and all of Frank’s men, all with the intention of killing me.

  He hit me one last time and his man let me fall to the ground. Dirt kicked up and stuck to the blood on my hands. There was blood everywhere. I felt like there was too much. You couldn’t lose that much blood and be okay, surely.

  The pain had started to fade and I realized that I was probably in shock. Or already dying. Maybe I was already dead and my mind just hadn’t caught on yet.

  “Get her up and to the end of the dock.”

  I was yanked up and dragged over rickety wooden boards. I felt my legs catch and I couldn’t figure out why until I saw an especially long splinter break off of one of the boards, into my leg.

  At the end of the dock, another man started tying a thick rope around my waist. Over and over again he tied it, and then the man who’d been in the car with me worked at it, forming some fancy knot. I watched in silent horror as the other end of the rope was tied to a brick in the same intricate way.

  “That’s right, Cookie. You’ve seen your end. I’m going to take personal joy in throwing that brick off this dock. This lake doesn’t look deep, does it? It is, though. It was an old rock quarry that they filled in. There are plenty of bodies down there, waiting for you.”

  I told myself to scream. I needed to fight. I had to do something. Nothing happened, though. I just stood there, screaming inside of my body, frozen.

  “You don’t get to live in a world where my son is dead. You should’ve known. You should’ve let him do what he wanted to you. You’re a whore, aren’t you? You should’ve just let him fuck you and then it would’ve been over. You were too stupid to get it.”

  He grabbed my face and squeezed it. “Now, you have to fucking suffer. I’ve heard that drowning is painful. You can feel your lungs filling with water and your body shutting down before you go out. You’re going to feel this. You’re going to suffer. And you’re never going to be a problem for me ever again.”

  SCREAM! I shouted in my head. Scream and let someone know what’s happening to you!

  Frank picked up the brick, with some effort, and smiled at me. “I hope you see my son in hell, bitch.”

  My lips parted and I watched as he dropped the brick over the dock. A second passed and I screamed just as the rope pulled taut and then jerked me into the water.

  Water instantly filled my mouth and I felt myself being pulled down faster than I could make sense of up or down. I tried to twist my body around, but nothing worked. I was sinking. The lake was so murky that I couldn’t see anything as I sank. I tried to get my hands free, but they were stuck. I was going to drown.

  It felt like hours before I stopped sinking. I bobbed where I was, panic eating away at me. I tried to see anything around me that I could use to cut the ropes, but there was nothing. Not that I could see, anyway.

  Nothing but more dark water. Until I twisted around. I could just barely make out the shape of something floating next to me. I fought to get closer. Then, I did all I could to scramble away. Floating there was the outline of a skeleton.

  The panic won and I opened my mouth to scream, water filling it again and my lungs tightening painfully. I kept trying to scream, even though I knew it was going to kill me. I was already dead, anyway. I’d been dead from the moment I shot Donnie Porter.

  Like some kind of cruel p
unishment, the last thing I saw before blacking out was an image of my mom, the last time I’d seen her. In the back of the van we’d traveled the country in, she was being held back by the guy she’d been sleeping with that week. He was nicer than the rest. He held her back as the cops dragged me away from her. They’d found me playing outside, waiting for her to finish up inside.

  Her bloodshot eyes should’ve been dead from all the drugs she’d taken, but they were alive, burning with fury at the men dragging me away. Her red hair was flying everywhere, her breasts exposed as she fought.

  She’d wanted me. She hadn’t been good at it, but she wanted me. I was hers and she needed me. Not as much as she needed the drugs, or the men who gave her the drugs, but it had to be close.

  I’d seen that she loved me. In that final moment, I saw that she would’ve killed for me if she had to. She just couldn’t get free. She wanted to save me and run away again. She needed me.

  She was the last person who’d love me. I was going to die at the bottom of a dirty lake, knowing that the only person who’d ever loved me hadn’t been able to put me above her drugs. I was nothing. I would fade away to just a skeleton, like the person beside me, and no one would care. There would be no butterfly effect. I would just disappear and the world would keep spinning.

  Just like my mom.

  I’d been easy to throw away, after Mom. Time and again. Why had I thought it would be any different in the end? Even crueler was having expected Vince to care and knowing that I’d fade away to him, too.

  The pain faded.

  Chapter 22

  Vince

  I’d dragged everyone into the office to find Carolina. I could see on their faces that they thought I’d fucked up, but I already knew I had. It didn’t stop them from helping though, because Carolina deserved it, even if I didn’t. Lauren found a listing of places that had Porter’s name attached and we went through the ones that were obviously out and tossed them before moving on. When there were just a couple left, I closed my eyes and made the decision that we split up.

  There was a lake and a factory, both long ago abandoned and rumored to be tied to a lot of deaths. Tucker and I went to the lake. Cooper and Branson went to the factory. We were linked to each other through our phones and earpieces.

  I knew we were at the right place when we spotted the fresh tire treads. Tucker and I got out and raced through the night, trying to get to Carolina before something bad happened. It hadn’t taken very long to get there. Surely she’d still be alive.

  I had to believe she’d still be alive.

  We were just closing in on the lake, slipping through the forest, when I heard her scream. My blood ran cold and chills took over my body as it was abruptly cut off. I rushed ahead, following the ghost of that scream forward. I heard Tucker on the phone, but I couldn’t stop.

  At the forest line, I saw Porter walking back up from a dock, a dark look on his face. The water rippled from under the dock and I knew that Carolina was down there. She wouldn’t last long.

  I counted at least ten men. I didn’t care.

  “Branson and Cooper are coming.”

  “She can’t wait that long. She’s in the water.”

  Tucker cocked his gun. “Go. I’ll hold them off of you when you come up.”

  I slipped into the water at the edge of the lake, out of view from Porter or his men, and went under. The water was so dark that I couldn’t see anything, but I knew I just had to get to the dock and then dive under. She had to be close.

  I edged the side of my face out of the water and saw that I was about twenty feet from the dock. Going back under, I swam until the tips of my fingers touched the wet wood. Moving under it to hide, I came up for air and looked up through the planks. There was no one left close enough to see or hear me.

  Going back under, I dove down. Farther and farther I went, until I felt disoriented. How deep was this fucking lake? Just when I thought I was going to have to go up to make sure I was in the right place, I touched something smooth. Getting closer, I saw it was a skull.

  I felt around, knowing I was close to the bottom. She had to be there. The moment I saw the red of her hair, I wanted to cry. I dragged her to me and ignored the blank look on her face, the open-eyed stare. She wasn’t dead. Yet. I could still save her.

  When I tried to grab her waist, to drag her up, I felt the thick ropes tying her down. Pulling out my knife, I sliced through them. Her arms floated free first, just pale and loose things swaying out in front of her. When I got her body free, she just floated there, ready to become part of the scenery.

  It wasn’t happening on my watch. I held her to me and kicked us towards the surface. The closer I got, the more I could hear there was gunfire filling the night. It sounded like it was coming from every direction.

  We broke the surface under the dock and I immediately shoved Carolina against one of the pillars and pried open her mouth. Pressing my mouth over hers, I blew in a big breath and used my free hand to press over her lungs, trying to make her start breathing. It wasn’t easy under the dock, but I kept trying.

  Again and again, I blew into her mouth and did compressions over her chest. Gunfire still sounded, the air smelled like burnt gunpowder; the night was lit up by it all. Everything felt like it was on us, but still too far away for me to care. Until she started breathing, I couldn’t care.

  I didn’t know how long it’d been, but it felt like a million years and a few seconds all at once. Everything hung in the balance, dependent on whether or not she started breathing.

  Shouting in the distance and revving of engines sounded out, telling of the night almost being over. I held Carolina’s limp body in my arms and came up to the surface to look around. There was no one near us. Most of Porter’s men were gone or dead.

  I pushed her body onto the dock and jumped up after her. With her body on the solid surface, I could do the compressions more effectively. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure we were still safe before continuing.

  “Come on, Carolina. Breathe!”

  Time stretched on and on until she jerked under my hands and water bubbled out of her mouth. I turned her to the side so it would be easier on her, and she coughed up more of it.

  “Thank God. Oh, fuck, Carolina.” Pulling her into my arms, I held her tightly.

  I waited for her to say anything, but when I looked down at her, she was breathing, but unresponsive. Her eyes were staring at nothing and her breathing was shallow. I knew enough to know that she needed a hospital right away.

  I lifted her in my arms and carried her down the dock. I could see Tucker, Cooper, and Branson coming towards me. I ran at them and looked around desperately. We needed a car that was close.

  “I have to get her to a doctor. She’s breathing, but it’s still not good.”

  Tucker shoved his gun in his shoulder holster and went to the nearest body. Searching for keys, I realized. By the third body, he found a set. He held it in the air and pressed the button, and by chance, it was the closest car to us.

  “I’ll drive.” He opened the door for me and raced off as soon as we were all in.

  I rocked Carolina in my arms and held my lips against her forehead. She had to be okay.

  “Porter got away. Him and a couple of the men with him. We did what we could, Vince.”

  I didn’t give a fuck about Porter in that moment. If Carolina didn’t make it, it meant nothing anyway.

  Tucker got us to the hospital in record time and then there were nurses and doctors taking Carolina away from me. She was strapped onto a gurney and led away. When asked if I was family, I lied. They weren’t going to keep me away from her.

  But they did.

  I paced back and forth in my wet clothes until they were dry and hours had passed. I couldn’t stop pacing. The guys had to leave to go take care of Lauren and make sure things weren’t crashing down on us after the shootout, but I didn’t care. I only wanted to see one person and I didn’t have a clue what was happening
with her.

  My brain kept replaying her last scream. It was like on a loop, sounding out over and over again until it bled into one long scream that wouldn’t stop.

  “Are you waiting for Ms. Milton?”

  I jerked around and came face to face with a man who looked like he was twelve. “Yes. Is she okay?”

  “She’s still in shock. We’re doing all we can for her. We’ve got her under a warming blanket and her blood pressure is coming back up to where it should be. She should wake up just fine, but there’s no way of knowing when. The body is a weird thing, that way.”

  “When can I see her?”

  He gestured down the hallway. “I’ll show you to her room now. Talk to her. Maybe it’ll help.”

  I was going to talk to her, all right. I was going to spend the foreseeable future begging her to forgive me for getting her hurt.

  “I’ll warn you; she isn’t going to look good right now. She’s still a little pale and it seems that some of her other injuries are just starting to show.”

  “Other injuries?”

  “You saw the cuts on her face when you brought her in?”

  I shook my head. “I… I didn’t. I…”

  “It’s okay. You were probably in the middle of freaking out. It happens when you see a loved one hurt.” He patted my shoulder. “She has cuts and bruises on her face that are just darkening as the minutes pass. She also has a very clearly broken nose and she’ll probably need some dental work done. I saw that at least one of her teeth was chipped.”

  I felt like throwing up. She’d had the shit beat out of her. It was my fault.

  I must’ve spoken out loud because the doctor patted my shoulder again. “Everyone I see feels that way for some reason or another. I can see that your knuckles are in perfectly fine shape. You didn’t hit her. Someone else did. That someone else is the one at fault.”

  He didn’t get it. It was my fault. I’d handed her to Porter.

  “Anyway. Come on. She’s just through here.”

  His warning hadn’t done it justice. Carolina’s face looked like it’d been put through a wood chipper. She was black and blue, with swatches of red. Her nose was slanted and swollen. Her eyes had even swollen almost shut. Even if she did wake up right then, she wouldn’t be able to see anything.