by T M Kelly
“I have no idea what you mean.”
Brooks splayed his hand over my abdomen and inched it down below the waistband of my shorts. “This trip has you wanting to be in the nude all the time.”
“Not all the time,” I said and rolled my eyes. “Just around you.” I tried to wiggle away from him, but he held me in place. “I mean, I could wear clothes all day long if that’s what you prefer?”
“Hush,” he said and bent down to capture my lips.
I pushed my head away. “Did you just hush me?”
“Yup, and I will do it again if you don’t stop talking soon.” Then he surprised me by sliding his hand farther down to the juncture in between my thighs. I could feel one finger had finally found the pleasure spot.
“Brooks,” I breathed.
“That I like.” He chuckled and pushed another finger deep inside me. My body bucked up. “Do you like this, Charlie?”
I knew he was enjoying this a little too much the moment he started inching down my body. Then his mouth landed on the one spot that was sure to take me over the edge. I ground out, “Yes.” I didn’t have the ability to say anything more at the moment.
I sighed and rested my head on his chest. “You know what else is happening on this trip?”
Brooks pulled me closer to his body and wrapped his arms around me. “What’s that?”
“A lot of sex.”
“Well, we are on vacation.” I kissed his chest and lightly sucked on his nipple to tease him. “Charlie don’t start something you can’t finish.”
I lifted my head up to face him. “Who said I couldn’t finish?”
We were snuggled together so tightly I felt like I was being swaddled. I’m not sure if he dozed off, but I must’ve at some point. Then later in the night, I woke to the sound of our door handle jiggling. I immediately sat up in bed and noticed Brooks was gone. Then his large frame was tip-toeing through the door. It was official; I did watch too many murder mystery shows.
“Where were you?”
He held up a plate with crackers, cheese, and grapes. “I was hungry.” The plate was over flowing, so he carefully set it down on the small nightstand by our bed. “Why? You okay?” He moved closer to my side and brushed his hand down my face. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I woke up to the sound of the door handle moving around.” I moved my body onto his lap. “You basically scared the living shit out of me.”
“You have nothing to be scared of, C. I will always protect you.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” I knew that sounded harsh, but what if there was a time when he couldn’t save me.
“This one I can keep.”
I leaned over and grabbed a piece of cheese. “Now onto happier stories.” I pretended to give Brooks the cheese and then popped it into my mouth at the last second.
“Hey, how is that fair?”
“All is fair in love and war.”
“Love?” His eyebrows inched up.
“It’s a saying.”
I wasn’t ready to tell him, but this trip was helping me to see love was involved.
He was definitely the one.
16
Brooks threw the last of our bags into the back of the car. “We’re only going for the day, right?” He leaned against the side of the car, waiting for me.
I was sitting on the porch, typing a message to Lily. “Who knows? We’re on vacation; anything can happen.” After I hit send on the text message, I hopped up and headed to the car. “Heck, maybe there will be an opportunity to sleep outside under the stars.”
He pushed off the car and opened his door. “Not a chance.”
“We’ll see.” I winked at him before sliding into the passenger seat.
Durdle Door was only about thirty minutes from our hotel. On the map, I found a good portion of our drive was along the coast. I was excited for our day trip.
“What did Lily have to say?” Brooks turned to look behind him before backing the car out.
“They’re home. She said Julian is making her enjoy some time off for a few days.”
“Good. She deserves it.”
“She does.” I reached back and grabbed a small book off the seat. “I forgot to log our day yesterday.” As I clasped the seatbelt, I turned to the next blank page in my journal. “Do you remember what the weather was yesterday?”
“Mid-eighties I think.”
I loved adding the weather, what we did, and who we encountered on the trip. It created a clearer picture in my mind when I would look back in the older journals. My mom had bought me my first journal when I was nine. Ever since then, I loved entering everything and even added a few poems. There were so many boxes stored away packed full of my journals back in San Francisco.
Right as I was about to write about the fan that came up to me on the beach, I noticed a van fast approaching in the rearview mirror. “What the hell?”
“He’s been on my ass for about a mile now.” Brooks shifted and pushed his foot down on the gas.
“Can you pull off the road and let him go by?” Right as I said that, we felt our car jolt forward. “What the fuck?” I turned to see the van rearing up on us again. “Brooks, he’s about to hit us again.”
The car we rented was small. I was worried the impact would jar something and make things worse. The GPS in the car showed we were about twenty minutes from our destination. I grabbed the paper map to look for any detours on the way. It showed green in every direction because there wasn’t much there. I pulled my phone out and noticed we had no service.
“Any bars?” Brooks had his eyes glued to the road.
“Nope.” I turned in my seat and watched as the fucker barreled into us again. When he hit our car this time, there was a sputter and several unusual sounds. “Um, Brooks?”
“Hang on, baby.” He had to turn the wheel hard to the right to make it veer off to the side of the road. “Any service yet on your phone?”
We had a backup phone I stored in the glove compartment. I looked down, expecting to see no service flashing by the little battery icon. “Wait, holy shit, there’s one bar.” With my eyes still on the van, I quickly dialed nine-nine-nine. I had checked before leaving the states what the emergency number was in the United Kingdom. “It’s ringing.” Suddenly the van sped off in the opposite direction. “Yes, we were just in a hit and run,” I said and spent the next few minutes reporting the accident. “Okay.” I hung up the phone. “They’re sending someone now. It could take about ten to fifteen minutes. My eyes were moving in all directions looking for the van. A part of me had a feeling it would pop out at any moment. As I looked in the rearview mirror for the millionth time my instincts were correct. “Brooks—” He was turning the key trying to start the car but it just stayed silent.
The van stopped behind us and didn’t do anything for several minutes. Then two figures that looked to be men, by their large frames, hopped out and quickly walked up to our doors. They were wearing masks, so we couldn’t see their faces. Without hesitation, both men smashed in the windows and quickly punched us.
I tried to stay awake after the hit, but my brain was shutting down. As everything started to fade to black, I felt the mystery man place something over my head.
“Rise and shine,” a male voice said from beside my ear. I lifted my head a little too quickly and felt a sharp pain run down my neck and through my spine. There was something covering my head. Whatever the fabric was, it smelled awful. I tried to think about something else to take my mind away from the stench swirling around me. “Not ready to join the party?” the guy with a deep voice said while laughing.
“I’m up,” I whispered. Even though my face was covered with the awful fabric, I closed my eyes. My mind wondered back to when I was first learning about mixed martial arts. It wasn’t about what you could see around you; it was about letting your senses tell you everything.
I could remember when Lily’s father had us both sit down on the fl
oor with our legs crossed in front of us. He then encouraged Lily and I to close our eyes and think about what we could smell and what sounds were around us.
As I tried to do that very thing while mentally pushing away the strong scent coming from the fabric. I got secretly excited when I could hear a train off in the distance. It had to be a hundred yards away at least because the sound was very quiet. Then there was a sudden smell of tobacco and beer.
“Think I can trust you to keep quiet if I remove this thing?” the guy with awful smelling breath said and then tugged on the bag covering my head.
I didn’t show my emotions when I heard tires moving over gravel to the right of me. The sound made me scared because I knew I had to be in the middle of nowhere. “Yeah, you can.” Before the guy removed the bag, I quickly opened my eyes. “Where’s my boyfriend?” I knew Brooks was not in the room with me.
“He’s fine.” The guy laughed and took a few steps backward toward the door.
I glanced around and had no idea where I was. The room I was locked in was dark, so I couldn’t see the size of the space. “Why are you doing this to us?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” Then the asshole closed and locked the door.
I stood up on shaky legs and walked over to where the man was just standing. It was a thick wooden structure, and it appeared that the locks were all on the outside. Slowly I made my way around the darkened room, trying to use my senses to see what was on the walls. It felt like brick all around me, and the space had to be only about six by eight feet.
There was a sound coming from the other side of the wall in the area where I was standing. I fell to my knees and placed my ear closer to the brick, trying to hear. It was a male voice. “Brooks,” I said in a loud whisper.
“Yeah. Are you okay?” I could barely hear him.
“I think so. Have you figured out where we’re at?”
“Not yet.”
There was a loud sound on the door, like someone was banging their fists. “Shut the fuck up in there.”
I let my body fall back against the wall and folded myself into the fetal position, trying to visualize myself closer to Brooks. Placing my hand on the cold brick, I closed my eyes. Before I fell asleep from weakness and exhaustion, I thought about how I needed to use my fighting skills to get us out of this mess.
17
I woke to footsteps. Then the door swung open, and the same man from earlier was standing in the doorway. “Good morning, sunshine.” The guy used my nickname. Either he knew my nickname or just wanted to make me feel welcome in his hell hole.
I was still in the same position I went to sleep in several hours ago. It took me a moment to stand up. “Are we not allowed to eat?”
“Well, funny you asked. That’s where we’re heading if you can walk on your own.” I noticed my leg was locked up, causing me to limp. Ignoring the pain, I headed toward him. “I had a feeling you would want to join us.”
Did he say us? Would Brooks be there, too? I wasn’t in the mood to ask the guy, so I followed behind him in silence. The moment I stepped out of the room, there were bright lights shining in my eyes. We were in a basement of some kind with LED-type lights shining in every direction. I started to take mental notes of my surroundings. The walls were brick, just like my room. I noticed water dripping down around mold and mildew. We had to be just below ground with the presence of water.
As we rounded a corner, I looked at the gun holstered on the asshole’s side. I thought about all the ways I could easily grab the gun and take him down. There had to be a reason why my hands weren’t tied up. Did they think they were tougher than me?
“Wait here,” he said and raised his fist for me to stop.
I noticed movement from the corner of my eye and turned to see Brooks walking my way. He looked like shit. When I tried to step forward and reach for his hand, the man next to him stepped in between us.
“Are you okay?” I said, already knowing the answer. He had cuts all over his face. Blood in every direction, and he was holding his arm close to his chest. “Your arm.” I reached forward, wanting to console him.
“I’m okay. I promise,” he said, without smiling.
The asshole looking after me walked back out in the hallway. “Oh, the two love birds are back together. How sweet.” He reached out and grabbed hold of my bicep. “Let’s chat in here.” Then he shoved my body through the doorway. “Sit,” he said and pointed to two empty chairs in the center of the room.
I sat down and looked back, waiting for Brooks to join me. He lowered his body very slowly onto the chair. As he adjusted in his seat, I noticed the deep gashes all over his back. It was hard to hold in my anger, but I needed to save it for when the time was right. The fuckers were not going to keep us here for much longer. I was going to make sure of that.
The guy who brought Brooks into the room pulled my arms back and placed rope around each wrist. They didn’t do the same to Brooks, probably because of the status of his arm at the moment. I knew I could still lift up from the chair and fight without my arms if I was given the chance.
The moment the room went silent, I turned to Brooks. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Charlie, have they said anything to you yet?” He turned to me with a pained expression.
“No, they dumped me in the room and left.” I could tell he was holding back something important. “What is it? Who did this, Brooks?”
“I think it’s your father, C.”
“What?” My father did all this? That seemed impossible when the thought flashed through my mind the first time. Then I let my brain register who we were talking about. My dad owned Hill Enterprise and was known to be dirty when it came to business deals. Loved control. Hated being ignored. “Fuck,” I said under my breath. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. My father wanted to get what he had warned me about: my money. Since I’d brushed him off, he took matters into his own hands. “Have you seen my dad yet?”
“No, but the guy who used me as a punching bag said some odd things earlier.”
“Like what?”
“This place is so much better than San Francisco. Charlie should listen next time.”
“Fuck me.” I dropped my head. “I knew my father was dirty but not like this.”
“Charlie,” he said and paused. When I looked directly in Brooks’s eyes, he continued. “That doesn’t mean you stop fighting to get the fuck out of here.”
“Who said that would stop me?”
“That’s the Charlie I fell in lo—”
My head whipped up so fast. “What did you say?”
“That’s the Charlie I fell for several months ago.”
“You were going to say something else.”
“Nope, that was it.”
I scowled at him and made myself smile. Hell, we had to find that light in the dark, right. “They’re watching and listening to us.” I nodded my head toward a camera in the corner of the room by the ceiling. “Escaping is out of the question.”
“Plus the rope on your wrists and my shit arm are not going to get us very far,” Brooks said and glanced up at the camera.
“What did they do to your arm?” I said, feeling a little nervous to hear the answer.
“Let’s hold those stories until after we’re out of this mess.” He leaned over slightly so our shoulders were touching. “Charlie, you know you could kick ass even when tied to a chair.”
“It’s possible. This will be the first time I have had to test that theory out.”
“Just wait and see what they have up their sleeves.”
“It won’t be good.”
“No, I have a feeling this is only the beginning.”
I watched Brooks for several long minutes. How the hell did this even happen? If it was my father, he would pay for laying a finger on my man.
My stomach made a loud noise, begging for food. Just as my mind became a traitor and thought about tacos and donuts, the door clicked open from behind me.
“Okay, who’s hungry?” a man said, and I realized his voice sounded familiar.
The moment my oldest brother stepped around to face us, my heart sank. “Mason? Why are you doing this?”
“I’m not.” Mason placed his hand over his heart.
“Obviously you are if you’re here.”
He stepped closer. “I’m helping Dad with his project. I love helping him. You know that, Charlotte.”
I had no idea how crazy my family was until this very moment. It all made no sense. “If you care about me, then you would let me go.”
Mason nodded. “I do care, but I can’t let you go.”
“What does Dad want?”
“You know what he wants.”
“It’s not his to take.” I had just made a significant earning with the Liverpool fight. It was my money. My father didn’t deserve to get a dime.
“You know Dad. When he wants something, he gets it.”
“Greedy, fucker.”
Mason reached forward and punched me, causing my head to fall back from the extreme blow. My head was still bent back when he reached forward and placed his hand on my head to pull me up. “Sorry about that. I hate when people speak so poorly about Dad.”
I spit out blood and started to laugh. “I’m not people. I’m his fucking daughter.”
18
Mason and my favorite asshole were teaming up to untie my arms. “What, you can’t remove the rope yourself, big brother?” I teased and waited patiently for them to finish.
“You think I’m going to suddenly start trusting you,” Mason said and stepped back in focus.
“Trust is a hard thing to come by these days.”
“Especially when it involves family.”
I shook my head. “Interesting choice of words. What did I do to cause you to not trust me?”
Mason was ten years older, so we didn’t do much together with the age gap between us. When he would come around for family gatherings or holidays, he seemed fine. I definitely didn’t share as much with him because he was always so close to Dad.