Dirty Bet

by Melinda Minx

  He nods, and we get in the car.

  I knock louder.

  Shit, she must have left already. Where did she go then?

  I need to get my phone.

  I run down the stairs and head back to the car. I tear open the bag and ruffle through my jacket’s pockets for the phone.

  I grab hold of my wallet, pull it out. I keep searching, but don’t find the phone.

  “Hans,” I say. “Can you call me?”

  He nods and dials my number. There’s no ring.

  “Incompetent police,” I say, fuming. “Let’s go back to the station.”

  I nearly kick the doors down, and the woman who gave me my clothes already looks nervous.

  “The phone wasn’t in the jacket,” I snap.

  “Uh,” she mumbles. “We can check the lockers--”

  “Why didn’t you check before?” I ask.

  She locks eyes with me, but doesn’t say it. She could ask me the exact same question. I should have checked myself.

  “I’ll go find it,” she says.

  She pulls out a basket and sets it on the counter. I hear keys jangling.

  I look in and see my keys and phone.

  “I guess whoever booked you didn’t know the new procedure. Keys and phones aren’t supposed to get separated anymore,” she says. “Sorry about that.”

  She slides the tray toward me, and the phone’s screen lights up.

  Suddenly, a picture of Amber, naked and tied to a chair lights up. The text is from Amber’s phone.

  The woman’s eyes dart to the phone and widen, and I snatch it up and out of the tray.

  I open the text. “You know who this is. Don’t tell the police anything or she’s gone.”

  I see the woman at the desk reaching for a phone, and I grab her gently by the arm and force my most reassuring grin.

  It feels like hundreds of knives are stabbing me from inside, but I have to hold together a calm exterior long enough to convince this woman that everything is okay.

  “Nothing to worry about,” I say.

  “She’s tied up, held--”

  “No,” I say. “Look, I tied her up…”

  She looks at me in horror.

  I lean in closer to her. “I have...complicated tastes. Do you understand?”

  Her mouth drops open, and she looks up at me with a new mix of fear and fascination. She can believe that a guy with all the money that I have would be into something like this. I’m sure she’s read Fifty Shades of Gray.

  “Specific tastes,” I elaborate.

  “It’s consensual?” she asks, her voice cracking.

  “She begs me for it,” I say.

  There’s a flash of something in her eyes. Maybe it’s jealousy, but I don’t care. All I want to do is get out of here and tear Cynthia’s head off.

  “Well,” the woman says, letting go of the phone. “Go home and enjoy then. I ain’t judging.”

  I smile. “Thanks. And sorry I was so angry about the phone. You’re right, I should have checked myself.”

  “Uh-huh,” she says, still looking at me as if I had whipped my dick out and thrown it onto the counter.

  I get outside, and I still remain calm. The moment I’m in the car and slam the door shut, I yell. It’s a rage-filled shout, and Hans nearly jumps out of the driver’s seat.

  “Sir?” he asks.

  He’s loyal, but I can’t risk telling him. He might think he needs to tell the police.

  “I know this is out of the ordinary,” I say, grabbing my wallet.

  I hand him a stack of hundred dollar bills. “I’ll need to drive myself today. Use this money to get home…”

  “That’s more than--”

  “Take it!” I bark, shoving it into his hands.

  He grabs it, opens the door, and jumps out.

  I’m alone in the car now, and I check the photo again.

  There’s a blindfold around Amber’s neck; Cynthia had it removed from her eyes just for this photo, I assume. Amber’s eyes are wide and glassy. They are full of terror and dread, and tears are streaming down her face. She’s tied to the chair with thick ropes. They are so tight that there are red marks on her skin where the ropes touch.

  I nearly crush the phone in my hand re-reading the message.

  I completely misread Cynthia. I knew she’d go to great lengths. I knew she’d proven herself capable of taking insane measures to get what she wanted. I thought she wanted my fortune, but all along, she just wanted me.

  She must have realized that I actually did care for--no, love--Amber, and that set her off. I had arranged all my pieces to defend the king--my fortune--and Cynthia took my queen. My Amber.

  Rage fills my body. It dissipates into my blood, and adrenaline pumps through me. I’ll use it to get through this. It will stay at a simmer, always on the edge of boiling over, but I won’t lose control again. Not until Amber is safe in my arms.

  What is my next move?

  Cynthia knows me. She knows my temper. She expects a response, and soon.

  “I’ll kill you.” I type. “I’ve never harmed a hair on a woman’s head, but you’re not a woman. You’re a fucking monster. Let her go, or I swear to God I will do it.”

  I hit send.

  She needs to think I’m having an irrational fit of rage.

  Cynthia is irrational in her own way. While I always fly off the handle and lose my cool, Cynthia was always cold as ice. She got just as angry as I did, but she always channeled it into cool and calculated cruelty.

  Faking her own death, and now this? If she’s completely lost it, she might think she has a shot at getting me back. She might think that--somehow--I’ll agree to marry her if she lets Amber go. It makes no sense, but if she’s completely lost her sanity, she might have convinced herself to believe it.

  The alternative, and the more likely scenario, is that she knows full well she has lost me. She knows I love Amber in a way that I could never love her, and all she can do now is hurt the one thing I love. She can hurt me as much as possible as payback for not being able to love her.

  I have to assume the worst-case scenario. It’s unlikely Cynthia is at all considering letting Amber go. The only thing she probably wants to bait me into doing is getting close enough that she can take me, too. That she can make me watch.

  She’ll have hired help.

  I could hire some mercenaries of my own, but I’d still need to track her down. The real risk is that Cynthia would just kill Amber the moment she knew my team was on her.

  I’ll have to surrender myself to her. It’s the only way I can get near Amber without Cynthia killing her. Getting near Cynthia might also give me a chance to “work” her, if that’s even possible at this point.

  Yeah, I’ll surrender myself to her, or at least convince her that I have.

  32

  Anton

  I wake up to the smell of deli meat and mustard.

  I look up, hoping that I’m in a Subway or a Jimmy John’s. Instead, I see a big bald guy shoving a sandwich into his face. I realize at once that it’s not from Subway or Jimmy John’s.

  “Is that homemade?” I ask.

  I try to point, but then I realize my arms are tied up. My legs, too. I’m hogtied on the floor.

  The bald guy eyes me, but he keeps chewing. He finally swallows and says, “Yeah. Now shut up.”

  My stomach rumbles. “Living alone,” I say, “I could never justify making my own. You buy the lettuce, tomatoes, onions...bread...you get a few really good sandwiches out of it, but after a few days, at least one thing starts going bad. The bread gets stale, or the lettuce gets soggy...then you’ve gotta decide if you want to eat a substandard sandwich, or if you want to replace the one ingredient that went bad.”

  “Shut up,” he grunts.

  “If you replace the ingredient,” I say, “then you risk that another ingredient goes bad the next day. Then you’re playing whack-a-mole, and you realize that you might as well just go to Jimmy John’s and
get a quality sandwich for five to eight dollars, depending on which one you order--”

  “My wife makes them,” the guy says. “I don’t gotta deal with any of that shit.”

  “Nice,” I say. “Maybe I should marry a girl that works at a sandwich shop.”

  “Pretty sure you’re not making it out of this place alive,” he says, taking another big bite. “Sandwiches are the least of your worries.”

  My chest tightens up. I struggle to loosen my bindings, but they seem to just get tighter the more I fight.

  “Cynthia’s a black widow,” I say.

  “She’s something, alright,” he says.

  “You know about black widows?”

  “Those the spiders that kill the male after they mate?” He wipes mayonnaise off his mouth with a napkin.

  I nod. “She mated with me, and now she’s going to have you kill me for her.”

  He narrows his eyes at me. “You fucked her?”

  “Well,” I say. “It wasn’t PIV, but we did have sex.”

  “PIV?” he says. “Is that like AIDS?”

  “That’s H-IV,” I say. This guy is an idiot. “PIV is penis-in-vagina sex. Cynthia gave me a blowjob, which is called oral sex, so we still had sex--”

  The bald guy laughs so hard he has to put his sandwich down. He gasps for breath after the laughter dies down, and then he looks at me. “Man, you’re going to die a virgin. That’s sad.”

  “You think oral doesn’t count as having sex?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “Nah, man, not really. I got my first blowjob when I was twelve. It didn’t make me a man.”

  I feel my eyes watering, and I bite my lip to hold back the tears. I really don’t want to die a virgin. Even male spiders who get their heads bitten off at least get to score first. PIV score, that is. Do spiders have penises?

  “If she’s a black widow,” the guy says, “then I’m her fangs, and you’re the thing on her ass that makes the web. She doesn’t do anything herself, just gets other people to do everything for her.”

  “Did she…” I find myself asking, but I trail off.

  He narrows his eyes at me.

  I figure I might as well ask. “Did she make you hurt Amber?”

  He shakes his head. “Not yet, but she didn’t do any ransom or anything. You only kidnap someone if you want to ransom them, or if you want to hurt them.”

  I really shouldn’t care about Amber at this point. Maybe it’s just the guilt I feel for putting her into this situation--for luring her into Cynthia’s web--but I feel horrible pain in my heart for the hurt I’m causing her.

  “She’s not...torturing her?” I croak out.

  “Nah,” the bald guy says. “Not yet. I think she wants to get Liam here first; make him watch.”

  Liam. I feel a shred of hope now. That guy will go ballistic. Hell, he might even be strong enough to take out this bald guy. He could rescue Amber...and he’d have to rescue me, too, right?

  “Liam can pay you more,” I say. “You know that, right? He’d pay you--”

  The bald guy shakes his head. He points to his sandwich. “I told you my wife makes these. Cynthia got another guy like me to take my wife hostage. If I don’t do exactly what she wants, my wife is gone. No amount of money in the world would get me to turn on her, you got it?”

  Shit. Liam really is my only hope. I just have to pray that he’ll rescue me instead of beating the shit out of me and leaving me for dead.

  33

  Liam

  The drill whirs, and I feel my jawbone grind. Then I smell my tooth being ground into dust.

  I never liked the dentist, but I’d rather be awake and know it’s being done right than getting put under.

  And this isn’t the dentist.

  “I’m inserting the device now,” Alexander says. “Remember, do not bite down on this tooth. If you have a habit of grinding your teeth or clenching your jaw when you are stressed or nervous, it’s time to drop that habit. I recommend you take up smoking.”

  Definitely not a dentist.

  I smell latex as his gloved hands go into my mouth, and then I feel pressure on the exposed tooth.

  He brings a hot iron thing in, and I smell a weird, burning chemical residue hit my nostrils.

  “I’m sealing it in now. Almost done.”

  When he finally finishes, I let go of the seat. I realize I was digging my nails into the chair. Better than clenching my jaw.

  “Seriously,” Alexander says. “Do not clench down.”

  “Can I eat?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t recommend it. You can risk it, but--”

  “I won’t then,” I say.

  The device is on my back-left molar. One strong bite and it will go off.

  Alexander pulls out a syringe, and he plunges it into my arm. “This will make you immune to the gas.”

  I nod.

  He pulls out a scalpel and swabs it with disinfectant.

  “What’s that for?” I ask.

  “Implanting a tracker beneath your skin,” he says.

  “I thought there’s one in the tooth,” I say.

  “There is,” he says. “But if they scan you for trackers, they need to find one that is well hidden. If they find and remove this one, they’ll think you’re clean.”

  I nod, and he cuts into my forearm.

  I watch as he cuts a quarter inch or so down, and he pulls up a flap of skin. It hurts like hell, but I don’t flinch.

  He picks up the tracker with a pair of tweezers--it’s small--and he pushes it into my forearm. I feel a cool numbing sensation when he applies a cream to the wound.

  “This stops the bleeding and prevents scarring. They won’t be able to see it without a scanner.”

  When he’s finally done, I pay him and leave.

  I’ve hired a team of five mercenaries to go in once I release the gas. I don’t know how many guys Cynthia hired, but five ex-SWAT members with machine guns should be able to handle any number of hired muscle that I knock out with sleep gas.

  Cynthia still hasn’t contacted me, but I’m ready to go in now. I don’t expect she’ll give me a lot of time once she contacts me.

  I go home and try to sleep, resting as much as I can before it’s on.

  My phone wakes me up in the middle of the night. I grab it and answer, my adrenaline jolting me instantly awake and alert.

  “Where is she?” I ask.

  There is no response, but I can hear her breathing. Cynthia, not Amber.

  “I swear to God--” I start, but she cuts me off.

  “You have no leverage,” Cynthia says. “None. I’ll bring you to her, but you have to surrender. Fully.”

  This is what I expected, but I pretend to think it over.

  Finally I answer. “Agreed. What do I do?”

  “Go to where you dumped me,” she says. “And wait there. Alone. If anyone follows you, I will know.”

  I broke up with her at the Waterfront Park. I still remember the way she screamed and wailed. The way it echoed across the water.

  “Now?” I ask.

  “Now,” she says, and hangs up.

  I walk from my car to the park. It’s cold and raining, and the park is empty. It’s well past 3 a.m., and it feels like I’m the only person awake in the city.

  I stand on the boardwalk, looking at the ferris wheel, the guardrails pressing cold against my back. This is the exact spot I broke up with Cynthia over ten years ago.

  I don’t have to wait long. I see him approaching me out of the shadows. A big guy with wide shoulders. He’s wearing a beanie on his head, and his hand is jammed down in his jacket pocket. He’s clutching a gun, I’m sure of it.

  “I’m unarmed,” I say.

  “Kill me and you’ll never see her again,” he says.

  He steps into the light, and it’s no one I recognize. He looks tired and worn down, but there’s an intensity in his eyes. He’s not going to back down or give Cynthia up, I can already tell.
/>
  That doesn’t mean I won’t try.

  “I can double her price--”

  “Save it,” he says, drawing the gun. “I can’t be bought.”

  “What is she paying you?” I ask.

  He pulls back the gun, and it clicks, chambering a bullet.

  “Here’s what we are going to do,” he says. “I have a van out back. You’re going to get in, and I’m going to knock you out. You’ll wake up with Amber.”

  “Do you think she’ll let Amber go?” I ask. “If I give myself over?”

  He raises the gun all the way, pointing it right at me. “Get in the van, or walk away. Your call.”

  “The van,” I say.

  He gestures me forward with the gun, and I lead the way back toward the shadows in the direction from which he came. I can feel the gun on me as I walk forward, even though I never look back.

  I see the van parked on the street, and he shouts for me to turn around.

  He throws me the keys. “Open it.”

  I unlock the back doors and open them up wide.

  “Get in,” he says, and I feel the gun jab into my back.

  If I really wanted to, I could risk disarming him right now. But a man who can’t be bought for any amount of money likely isn’t going to squeal. I have the gas in my tooth, and it’s my best bet at this point. I get into the van without fighting back.

  “Time to sleep,” he says, and I feel the syringe jab into my arm.

  I wake up with a gag in my mouth. Everything is dark, and I feel something over my face. I try to move, but my legs and hands are tied down. I’m tied to a chair.

  I struggle more, looking for a weakness in the knots, but my forearm burns with pain as the ropes rub raw against an open wound.

  “We cut it out of you,” Cynthia’s voice says. “Well, Winston did, back in the van. Nice try. I’ll have to punish you for it, though.”

  I smell her suddenly, that same sickly sweet perfume she’s always worn.

  “We really could have been happy together,” she says. “You only have yourself to blame for this, Liam.”

  I stay still. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing me squirm.