Twisted Wings

by Tina Saxon

  I shoot up out of bed. “Fucking cat!”

  The TV in the living room is back on. The glow casting shadows in the other room. That’s it, you’re going in the bathroom. I jerk to a stop when I notice her lying at the end of my bed. Narrowing my eyes at the heathen, she’s not laying like she’s been asleep and her tail is moving side to side. I shake my head, giving too much credit to my cat. There is no way she could keep turning on the TV out of spite. Once could be an accident. Twice, it wasn’t the cat.

  Spikes of fear pebbled my body as my eyes jump from her to the living room. Hmm. Could it be the TV is just having a short? I bite my lip, hesitant to go into the living room. Who would come into a house and keep turning a TV on? Trying to talk myself down from the TV watching boogie man, I glance at the nightstand where my phone sits. He wouldn’t care if I called.

  No. This is silly. I’m not calling him. He’d have Stone up here in two seconds for no reason. To prove to myself that I don’t need to call, I rush into the living room and turn the TV off again, sprint back into my room, fly onto my bed in a ball so my feet aren’t touching the floor. Just in case there’s something under my bed.

  I crane my neck to listen to the silence. Nothing. See, I’m being silly. I’ll call a TV repair place tomorrow to make sure they fix this because I’m not doing this again tomorrow night. Laying back down, I groan, slamming my arms to my side. I have to pee. Max will get a kick out of this story when I tell him tomorrow.

  Why is it when you’re trying to pee fast, it feels like it’s Niagara Falls and never ends? My sense of hearing is on overdrive as I listen for any noises. Of course, Moxi meows in the other room right as I’m wiping, making me flinch and my hand ends up skimming the pee filled toilet water. Gross.

  I’m starting to hate that cat.

  After washing my hands twice, I make it to bed. I mutter a few choice words at the damn cat. Not even settled in, I jump when the TV comes back on. Goddammit! The tingles come back, working their way down my spine as I stare at the door. What if Max is messing with me? He’s broke in here before unnoticed. I’ll kill him for giving me a nervous breakdown. I lean over to grab my phone to call him but freeze when I don’t see it. All my senses rev up to full throttle. I peek over the bed to the floor and close my eyes when I don’t see it. It probably fell under my bed, but I really don’t want to search there.

  The TV turns off.

  I gasp, holding my breath.

  The TV turns on.

  The breath I release shakes. Someone is out there and it’s not Max.

  Max would not play this trick on me.

  I frantically glance around the room, looking for anything I can grab to defend myself.

  There’s nothing. Why don’t I have something? A bat. A heavy flashlight. Something.

  Instead, I jump off the bed and slam my door shut, locking it with shaky fingers.

  I should scream. Damn, why did I demand a corner unit? People will still hear below me though. Step by step, I back away from the door.

  Click.

  I scream when I hear the sound of the door being unlocked. The door swings open and a large figure throws his body on me, his hand covering my mouth.

  “Get her legs so she stops kicking me,” he demands.

  My heart stops.

  There is more than one of them.

  Chapter Thirty

  Max

  “Everything good on your end?”

  “Yep. All quiet here,” Stone replies. “A neighbor kid brought over a crate earlier. Syd didn’t seem too happy.”

  I chuckle into the phone. “Must be her cat. They have a love-hate relationship.” I thought the cat was cool as hell.

  “That was her only visitor. She’s tried to watch TV a couple times, but other than that, her lights have been off.”

  “She’s exhausted. Hell, so am I.”

  “Then why the fuck you calling me?” he jokes.

  I grumble, running my hand over my jaw. Why am I calling? I trust Stone with my life, so it’s not that I’m worried. I just wish it was me there with her and not Stone parked outside her apartment. I was hoping she would call me after she got my text, but if she fell asleep, I wouldn’t blame her. We had a long night, and I made sure she’d be feeling me for the days I couldn’t be there.

  “Did you find him?”

  I stare at the large two-story Spanish colonial-style home up the hill, surrounded by desert, cactus and pine trees. “Not sure yet. Kase is getting ready to run surveillance.” The house belongs to the head of a drug cartel’s daughter which made this trip that much more complicated.

  “Good luck and stop worrying about her,” he mutters.

  I haven’t stopped worrying about her in two years. I sure the hell won’t stop now. When I hang up, I glance at Kase. “Anything?” I ask as he stares through binoculars. Glancing out the dirty window of our hotel, darkness settles on the impoverished town.

  “Nope. I haven’t seen anyone come or go.” We’ve been here for three hours, watching.

  Plans formulate in my head, but not knowing why he’s in there makes it hard to nail one down. The intel we got confirmed he’s there. If only I knew why. “It’s time to take a closer look,” Kase says, handing me the binoculars. Slipping out the door, dressed in all black, Kase makes his way up the hill. I try to keep him in my sights through the binoculars, after he parks the car, hidden from the road, but I can’t see anything in the darkness. Instead, I focus on the house. It’s illuminated by the landscape lights, making it appear to be floating in the surrounding darkness.

  “Almost there,” Kase confirms into my earpiece a half hour later. I try to find him again with no luck. This is why I hired him. They trained him to be a ghost. “In place. Red Robin’s in the air.”

  I open the drone camera app on my phone. It’s designed to search for heat signatures. I count four. “It looks like they’re all in one room. I’m gonna get closer and try to see into a window.”

  “Copy that.”

  Scenarios run through my mind. Typically they separate imprisoned people. So either he’s dead, or he’s one of the four. Which begs the question, what the fuck is he doing?

  I open another app that shows the camera feed from Kase’s earpiece. The screen lights as he approaches a window.

  “You seeing this,” he whispers.

  My jaw clicks. “Yes,” I sigh. Four people sitting around a table, playing cards. Rex is one of them. I rub my temple, imagining every way I can bring pain down on him. He’s caused our mom so much grief. And for what? “I don’t know what to fucking think.”

  The woman stands and wraps her arm around Rex. The other two men at the table continue playing, ignoring them. Rex’s body hardens and his hands fist, but he stands up with her with a forced smile. “Something’s off,” I say, narrowing in on his body language. “You rarely tense when a beautiful woman wraps herself around you.”

  “Look at his ankle.”

  My eyes move down his body and the glow of a tiny blinking light around his ankle catches my attention. Well, son of a bitch, he’s not here on his own terms. I shouldn’t be relieved that he’s being held prisoner. And I know I shouldn’t laugh, but the bastard finally got himself into something he can’t get out of. Seducing a woman to gain access to whatever he’s after is his modus operandi. Seems he seduced the wrong woman.

  Kase heads back to the hotel so we can figure out our next move. I stare at the phone in my hand and pull up Sydney’s number. It’s one in the morning, her time. I let out a long sigh, knowing I can’t call her right now. How the hell is our relationship going to work if we live on two different coasts and I can’t stand being away from her for one fucking night?

  Half an hour later, Kase and I sit at the old wooden table, studying the house and the surrounding area. “How are we going to work this?”

  I sit back and the unsteady chair creaks under my weight. This isn’t the shittiest place I’ve stayed, but it’s damn near close. “If I didn’t h
ave something to get back to, I’d let the fucker suffer a little longer.” He chuckles and nods. “It’s his lucky day. But I want this to be clean. In and out. Let’s keep watch tomorrow and hope a window of opportunity opens up.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Sydney

  I bite down on the fabric shoved in my mouth that wraps around my head, preventing me from screaming. I swallow back the saliva pooling in my mouth. My hands and feet have ropes around them and are tied to a dining room chair. They immediately blindfolded me so I wasn’t able to make out who they are, but I know one of them is a woman. She whimpered when my foot connected to her stomach as I was fighting them off. A lot of good that did.

  They’ve been quiet or not here because the longer I sat in silence, the harder it was to stay awake. When I hear voices, it pulls me out of the light sleep state I’m in. They rip the blindfold off my head and I wince as a few strands of hair go with it.

  I meet my captor’s eyes in utter surprise.

  Shanna and Brett?

  I wrack my brain at how these two ended up together. I haven’t seen Shanna since the night I passed out on stage and it was obvious she didn’t care for me, but this is a whole new level of hate. Why would she do this? Has it been them all along? The texts? The chocolate? And why is Brett involved? He’s always been one of the nicest guys that work for Jude. None of this makes sense.

  A couple streaks of light shine on the carpet between the gaps of the heavy curtains. Glancing at the clock on the wall, I see it’s eight in the morning. If only I could somehow signal to Stone or Hudson that something is wrong. I know they’re right outside.

  “Should we wait for him to show up?” Brett asks. I nod my head without thinking. I assume they’re talking about Max and I smile inwardly knowing how much pain he’s going to cause them. Brett lets out a wicked laugh. “Oh, you think he’s Superman?” His tone is sharp, so different from his normal laid back voice. “Wait and see what happens when we have his kryptonite.” He points at me and picks up a syringe from the coffee table that separates us, filled with a white liquid.

  I blink back the tears forming, regret that I wished Max was here stings my heart. One man I loved died, I won’t survive if something happens to Max because of me. Brett puts the liquid back on the table and stands up, skirting around the table. Towering over me, he grips my hair, jerking my head back so I’m looking up at him. “Maybe I’ll have a little fun with you first.” I shake my head, jerking out of his grip.

  “Excuse me,” Shanna snaps, shooting up off the couch. “What the hell are you talking about? Fun?” She slaps him on the arm and then glares at me for a moment before whipping her glacier stare back at him. “Why would you even say that?”

  He holds his hands up and smiles. “I was just kidding, babe. You’re the only girl I want to have fun with.” He pulls her into a hug but glances over her shoulder, flashing a twisted smile. My stomach rolls in disgust.

  She pushes out of his hug and stands between him and I. “Well, get back to work. Make sure the tracker on his car is still working.” The irritation in her voice is a relief. She’s still pissed and right now, she might be the only thing preventing something bad from happening to me. She spins around. “Don’t think I’m on your side,” she sneers as if reading my thoughts, getting close to my face. I breathe in a blast of strawberry scent from her gum. “He’s my man. You might have stolen my career, but I’ll be damned if you’ll steal my man.”

  Stole her career?

  Is that what this is about? Revenge for her not getting a record deal? Moxi decides now is a good time to hop in my lap. She stares at Shanna.

  “Isn’t your cat cute? It’s like a little leopard.” She reaches down to pet her and before she can touch the orange-spotted cat, Moxi hisses and attacks Shanna’s hand. Shanna screams and Moxi sprints out of the room. My eyes widen as I notice blood dripping down her slender white arm. “Go shoot that bastard,” she screeches as she darts to the kitchen.

  “Would you shut up? Do you want to get caught?”

  “Her cat probably gave me rabies,” she whines.

  I wish. I glance in my bedroom and spot Moxi’s eyes glowing at me from under the bed. I try to smile. Good girl. When I get out of this, you get tuna every day.

  Brett and Shanna come and go, disappearing into my guest bedroom for the next couple hours. “Why hasn’t his car moved?” Shanna says to Brett, looking over his shoulder as they walk into the living room again. “You said he couldn’t stay away from her.”

  “I don’t know, woman. Get off my back,” he snaps. Her fists draw up and she shifts her angry glare to meet the back of his head. “He’ll be here,” he spins around, meeting her glare, then walks to the kitchen.

  They argue in the kitchen. I lean my head, attempting to catch their heated argument, something I could use later against them. What the hell am I doing? Focus on getting out of here, Sydney. I twist my hands, hoping to free at least one. The ropes dig into my wrists. Between watching them out of the corner of my eyes and twisting my wrists and legs, I don’t notice that I’m moving the chair until one of its legs get stuck on the carpet.

  Oh, shit. Shit. Shit.

  My cheek slams against the floor from the chair tipping over. I grunt through my gag as the pain radiates from my shoulder to my head. Shit, that freaking hurt. Black Nike’s step an inch from my nose and I glance up to a shit-eating grin on Shanna’s face.

  She squats down. “Going somewhere?” I used to like her voice. She’s an incredible singer. Now, I’d rather hear a five-year-old attempt to play the violin. “You’re better on the floor anyway like the rat you are. You should have crawled back in the hole you came out of.” When she flips her hair, I notice her chewed fingernails and I wonder if planning my demise has been eating at her. Could she be feeling trapped because Brett is making her do this?

  I rest my aching head against the rough beige carpet. She paces in front of the couch where Brett is sitting. Tears run down the side of my face. “I’m sorry, babe,” Brett murmurs, stopping her and pulling her into his lap. She leans into his body, her eyelids close as his hands massage her arms. I glance up and meet Brett’s glare. “I only want you.” He whispers into her ear, but his eyes stay pinned on me. She hums as his hands rub her neck. “You need to relax, we’ll be here awhile.” His hands move down over her shoulders and end up squeezing her breasts. They sit in the only line of sight I have so I squeeze my eyes shut. My being here doesn’t deter him, he has no intention of stopping. I think about something else to drown out the sound of her tiny whimpers, but instead of fading away, they intensify in my head.

  The sound of a zipper surprises me, so I open my eyes. She’s not going to have sex in front of me, is she? Can’t she see he’s playing her? He bites down on his lip when he has my attention. His hand moves inside her pants and she moans out one time.

  I mutter through my gag for them to stop, but it comes out a strangled sound. Maybe it’ll pull her out of the trance he has her under. “That’s it,” he rasps, moving his fingers in and out of her. “You know you want this.” He winks at me. His words aren’t meant for her. They’re for me. “That’s it, babe, ride my fingers. Show her what it’s like to be with me. Make her beg for me like you do.”

  His arrogant words halt her hip movement. Her eyes fly open, and the icy glare sends shivers down my back. Typical narcissist that he is, he doesn’t pick up on her demeanor change, rather continues to watch my reactions while he thinks he’s getting her off. She tilts her head back to look up at him, catching his attention on me. Her face twists as she yanks his hand out of her pants and she whips around, slapping him across the face and standing.

  He retaliates by getting in her face. His fingers squeeze her cheeks in a vice grip, pushing her down on the coffee table. “What the fuck was that for? I’m so tired of your bullshit tantrums,” he seethes, his face beet red in the shape of a handprint.

  Darkness crosses her face as her hand darts up with the syr
inge and stabs him in the neck. “I don’t beg for anyone, you bastard.” Sheer terror sweeps through me as he stumbles back, yanking the needle out of his neck. Panic shoots from his eyes and she meets it with a dark glare.

  “That’s it, babe,” she says, mockingly. “Show her what it feels like to die.” Her voice doesn’t hold one ounce of remorse as she watches him crawl toward the kitchen with an air of desperation. I can only see his feet when his body stops moving, collapsing to the ground. Tears burn my eyes. This has to be a trick. She couldn’t have just killed a man and be okay with it. I flinch as she steps in front of me. “See what you made me do,” she mutters, kicking me in the stomach. I writhe with pain as it shoots through my body. I pull a few deep breaths through my nose, working through the pain, hoping another kick isn’t coming. Instead, she walks around me, lifts me off the floor and sets me upright.

  “He was a means to an end, anyway.” She waves her hand in the air, plopping down on the couch and zipping her pants back up. “He was my way to get to you. It’s too bad he ended up being an asshole. We had something good going, or so I thought.” She shrugs. “He was great in bed though, which makes this suck. How’s Max in bed? I bet he’s a wild horse.”

  She smiles, tucking her legs underneath her, an excitement in her voice like we’re two best friends having a sleepover and talking about our guys. I’m sure Addison and I have had this exact conversation. Except she hadn’t just killed a man.

  “Speaking of Max, where is he?” She looks at her phone and frowns. “Why hasn’t he moved? His car is still at the hotel.” She doesn’t know he’s out of the country. She groans, pushing up off the couch and pacing. “Nothing is going as planned.” She glances at Brett laying on the floor. “I need him to be on his way to start.” My eyes widen. Start what?