by S. Ann Cole
“Eh. I don’t pay attention to that stuff.” His gaze shifts to the men up front, then back to me. “So, is it your dad who pissed these men off or you?”
I suck in my bottom lip. “I have no idea.”
I don’t tell him that this is the second time I’m being kidnapped.
At age nine, I was taken by my own driver and two of his friends and held for ransom. I don’t remember much of it, as I was drugged throughout the entire ordeal. I remember being picked up from school by my driver, as usual, and the next thing I knew it was two days later and I was in the hospital.
My father had paid the five-million-dollar ransom to get me back, but it wasn’t long before the men were caught by the Feds.
I’m twenty-five this time around, and this kidnapping seems to be more than a ransom grab. These men are terrifying and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to conceal my fear when I have no idea what plans they have in store for me.
Rape? Abuse? Human trafficking? Death? I’m scared shitless, but how do I let Playboy see that?
“Hey.” His calm voice slices through my running thoughts.
I don’t look at him. I’m afraid he’ll see what a coward I am.
“Hey,” he tries again. “Look at me.”
Inhaling a deep breath, I swallow my pride and turn my face to him, unable to hide the fear anymore.
His eyes roam over my face appreciatively, as if he’s seeing me for the first time. “I won’t let them hurt you,” he promises. “Do you believe me?”
I stare at him, because I don’t. What can he do against three big, burly men with guns and tasers and muscles much, much bigger than his? He tried to stop them from abducting me and ended up getting himself abducted. So, no, I don’t believe him.
His eyes don’t leave me. “You have to tell me you believe me, Red.”
I’m shaking my head, shaking my head, shaking my head…until I stop. Something in his expression shifts and I see it. I see his determination. I see his confidence. I see his promise. He will do it. He will.
The sad part is, he most likely won’t survive doing it. But he will try. For me. And he doesn’t even know me. Doesn’t even like me.
“I believe you.”
He grins. And I have no idea what it means.
It’s not fifteen minutes later when the van stops moving.
So does my heart.
Kholton wrestles himself up almost into a sitting position, his focus on the masked heads behind the cargo barrier.
Two of the men mumble among themselves in a language I can’t place. Turkish, maybe?
The driver jumps out of the van.
A phone rings.
More aggressive foreign rumbling or what sounds like a dispute.
“Does…Does their accent sound off to you?” I whisper.
Kholton slides his gaze to me. “I’m not an accent analyzer. I teach numbers.”
Smart ass, much? “Do you speak any other languages?”
He glances at me as if to say, ‘Is this relevant right now? But replies anyway, “Can pick up a few things in Spanish and French but that’s about it.”
“I’m fluent in French, Spanish, and Latin,” I tell him.
Though he’s watching me with eyes that scream I don’t care!’, I keep talking, because it distracts me from whatever doom awaits us. I want him to know all the things I’ve achieved in my short lifetime. I want someone, other than my father and Alaric, to know me before I meet my maker. I want someone to see that I’m not some stuck-up rich brat. That I’m aloof only because I’m distrustful. That I believe in love but am terrified of it.
“My first kiss was in sixth grade,” I blurt. “With a girl named Natalie. She liked girls. I didn’t like girls or boys. But when she asked me to be her girlfriend I said yes because she was my only friend. Until she decided she liked boys and dumped me.”
Kholton is amused.
I keep talking. “At nineteen, I lost my virginity to someone eleven years older than me. I graduated Columbia with a 3.5 GPA, and now I’m CMO of Maeve LLC—my father’s company, which was renamed after me. Maeve is my middle name. Most people who work in family business tend to be miserable, but not me. I love my job.
“My favorite color is green. I’m a Gemini, June 7th. I’m sort of OCD about doors, they need to be closed, always. My lucky number is 10. I like the idea of love but I don’t believe it’s everlasting. Or marriage. Still, I cry—in private—each time someone gets a divorce, and I rage each time someone gets cheated on. My favorite book is On Dublin Street by Samantha Young, and my favorite movie is Not Another Teen Movie. I like to run in the mornings, do yoga in my office, and watch porn when I’m bored. I—”
My verbal diarrhea is disrupted when the engine switches off and the other two men jump out of the van.
As their feet crunch on gravel outside, I begin to speak faster, because this is it, and I’m not done telling this beautiful stranger all the things about me. “At work, I’m a bitch and people hate me for it—that and nepotism. But the truth is, I have serious trust issues, and being a bitch is the best way to weed out the fakes, you know? Only the real ones with genuine intentions ever see through the facade.”
I can hear them at the back door now, the latch pulling. “The only thing I ever truly wanted was to find my own Braden Carmichael. I wanted someone to see through my bullshit and fight for my love like he did with Joss. I want—”
The doors burst open and I press my face into the linoleum-covered floor, squeeze my eyes shut, and prepare for the worse.
Man Number One climbs up into the back and growls, “It’s play time, Princess,” before he roughly grabs one of my ankles.
“Take. Your hands. Off. Her.” This is from Kholton, who sounds oddly calm and unafraid.
Man Number Two ignores him with a humored grunt.
“Please, I’ll give you money,” I try to bargain. “Five million? Ten million? I can give—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Man Number One growls.
As he grabs my other ankle and attempts to drag me out of the van, Kholton warns, “I’m giving you three seconds to get your hands off her.”
“Oh yeah?” asks Man Number Two. “Or what”
“One.”
Faster than I want to believe, Kholton moves and rams his fist straight to Man Number One’s temple. With that one hit, the man slumps to the side.
Silent.
Unconscious.
Although my ankles are now free of his grip, I’m too stunned to move.
Wha—How?—It happened so…fast.
Eyes wide with both shock and rage, Man Number Two moves to pull his weapon from his waist, but Kholton is quicker as he leaps forward and head-butts him.
While the man is momentarily stunned, Kholton moves around him as gracefully as a panther and locks him into a sleeper hold.
“Easy, boy,” he whispers in a soothing voice as the man struggles.
Seconds later, Man Number Two joins his colleague in the world of unconsciousness.
Smoothly, quietly, Kholton lowers him to the ground. He then searches both men’s pockets, I assume for the keys to the cuffs.
A few seconds later, he’s back in the van, crouched over me, making quick work of removing the cuffs.
I can see nothing but tall trees and the glow of the moonlight. Shaken to the core, I ask, “Where are we?”
“In the middle of nowhere, obviously.” He lifts me out of the van and sets me on my wobbly feet. All his movements are so quiet, careful, gentle, calm. “There’s a third guy,” he reminds me. “Don’t know where he went and we don’t have time. Get in the van and drive.”
“And leave you?” I ask, incredulous. “I’m not leaving you.”
He opens his mouth to respond, only to be thwarted by a loud pop.
I shriek.
Did someone just shoot at us? It’s so freaking dark I can’t even tell where it’s coming from!
“Get in the van and drive, Serena!” he barks a
t me. “Now!”
I cover my ringing ears and crouch down. “I can’t.”
Another explosive pop goes off and he drops down beside me. “What do you mean you can’t?”
“I…I don’t…I don’t know how to drive, okay?”
“Shit,” he curses.
“What?” I ask. “Why can’t you drive?”
He lets out a sharp breath. “Because I’m shot.”
“WHAT?!” I screech. “Oh my G—eef!”
Air knocks out of me in a rush as Kholton locks his arm around my neck and tucks me in front of him like a kangaroo does its young. He curves over me like a question mark as he shuffles around the van as quickly as is possible with the dead-weight of another quivering human being.
Gravel crunches under our feet as we hurry along the side of the van to the open driver’s door. We get there unscathed, and Kholton throws me in without grace.
Head down, I scramble across to the passenger side. But just as Kholton is about to get in, a tattooed arm appears out of nowhere and jams a gun to his temple.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Man Number Three grits out.
“Look, man, all I wanted to do on this boring Wednesday night was eat and get laid,” Kholton replies conversationally. “I’ve got kids to teach tomorrow, I don’t have time for this.”
Man Number Three rumbles a menacing chuckle. “Well, too ba—ahhh! Motherfu—arggh!”
It’s all a blur. One minute the gun was at Kholton’s temple, and the next minute it’s on the ground as the man doubles over in pain.
He kneed him in the balls!
While Man Number Three is distracted by his pain, Kholton kicks the gun out of his reach, hops into the vehicle, and start up the ignition. Dust and gravel flare up as he one-handedly guides the van through the maze of trees.
“How bad is it?” I ask, hanging on to the door handle for dear life.
“Don’t know,” he grunts out. “Just know it hurts like a mother.”
With one hand, I reach above to flip on the ceiling light and gasp, horrified by the amount of blood. Spilling from a wound on his right bicep, the sleeve of his shirt is soaked and so is the right leg of his denim.
He takes a quick glance down at his body. “Oh. This is good.”
Huh? “Good? How is any of this good??”
Street lights suddenly come into view—thank God—and he accelerates. “The blood is dark, which means no arteries were hit. Most likely just a flesh wound.”
Oh. I never knew that. “So, bright red blood means critical?”
He swings the van out of the forest and onto the street. It’s messy and wobbly, but he is driving with one working arm, so that’s a given. “Yeah. Take off your shirt.”
“What?”
“I need to stop the bleeding,” he explains. “Take off your shirt.”
“I can’t—”
“Serena,” he stresses without patience, “I’m losing a lot of blood, I’m starting to feel dizzy, and you can’t drive. Unless you want us to die, take off your goddamn shirt and tie it around this goddamn wound.”
I know he’s right, and he shouldn’t have even had to ask, but…
With a sigh, I pull my brand-new top up and off.
“We can’t stop, so you’ll have to do it while I drive,” he says, focused on the road.
Great. No pressure or anything.
His wounded hand is the one out of reach, closer to the door, so in order to bandage the wound with my twelve-hundred-dollar garment, I have to dip under his good hand on the steering wheel until my bare torso is resting in his lap.
Once I’m done, I carefully retract from his lap, from under his arm, and flop back in my seat.
Feeling awkward as all get out, I stare straight ahead.
“Uh, thanks,” he murmurs, eyes fixed on the road ahead.
I don’t speak. I’m crimson.
He clears his throat.
Then both of us fall silent.
There’s nothing but trees and streetlights on either side of us, and not a single vehicle has passed us either up or down this never-ending road.
“So…” He clears his throat again. “You always go bra-less or only on blind dates?”
I groan. I should have known he wouldn’t not say anything. After all, my tits were just in his lap.
That’s why I hesitated to take my top off earlier. I have no bra on. In fact, I have no bra on ninety-nine percent of the time. I have perky breasts. Not too big, not too small. Just the right size that I don’t need a bra. Ever. However, I do have large nipples, so I invest in nude-colored pasties to subdue them.
At the moment, I’m wearing heart-shaped ones.
So here I am, topless, my girls out in the open, bouncing with every wobbly left-handed turn of the steering wheel. But hey, the guy saved my life and took a bullet for me. Exposing my girls to the chilling night breeze is the least I could do.
That said, I’m not about to discuss them with him, so I ignore his question and ask, “How did you get out of your cuffs? And where did you learn to fight like that?”
He exhales a slow breath through his mouth, as if quenching whatever pain he’s in. “Cuffs, I picked them with a paperclip from my pocket. Fighting, I used to be bullied in junior high, so I joined an underground street-fighting club and trained until I was able to KO all my bullies. In college, I did taekwondo and a bit of wrestling. Later, I learned Krav Maga. Now, I teach Krav Maga on Saturdays and give free self-defense lessons on Tuesdays.”
Wow. The intrigue just keeps on growing. Who is this guy? “When you asked me if I believed you would protect me, did you already have the cuffs off?”
“Yep.”
Of course he did. That explains the wicked grin.
“You saved my life.” I inhale a disbelieving breath. “I’m forever indebted to you.”
He doesn’t respond. I glance over at him and notice his lids are low, beads of sweat crowding on his forehead. Reaching over, I touch my hand to his cheek. “Hey, are you okay?”
He blinks and breathes through his mouth. “Just a bit…woozy.” He squints. “I think I know where we are.”
I look ahead and spy the glistening bridge in the distance. Far, far away, but enough to tip us off on our location. Philadelphia. “Look! There’s a gas station coming up. We can get someone to call the cops.”
“Cops?” he asks, his speech slow.
I eye him. “Yes. We have to get you an ambulance.”
He gives me a disagreeing shake of the head. “You were abducted by these men because of something your father did, I’m guessing. You call the cops and they’re gonna be poking around in places I’m sure your father doesn’t want them to be poking. No cops. Call your dad first. Let him come get you. Then he can decide what to do next.”
This makes a lot of sense, but at the same time, I’m finding it hard to believe my father would get himself caught up in anything that would put me in this kind of danger. There’s more to this. There has to be.
Still, Kholton is right. I should call my father first. “What about the eye-witnesses who saw us get taken in New York?”
He gives me a weak side-glance. “You’re rich. I’m sure you people have your secret ways of making shit disappear.”
I don’t glare, as I suppose that would make me ungrateful and mean after all he just did.
Right before we get to the gas station, we spot a phone-booth and choose to stop there instead.
With his uninjured hand, he lethargically digs into his back pocket. “Lost my phone during the scuffle, but still have my wallet.” He throws it at me. “Get some coins. Call your dad. But first, I need you to call someone for me. Tell them I need help.”
Inhaling short, audible breaths through the mouth, he gives me the person’s name and number.
As he leans back into the seat, face pale, eyes closed, chest heaving up and down, I watch him with sad eyes. This happened to him because of me. And all I can think about is how I was a
bitch to him at the restaurant. How hard I’d judged him.
Without thinking, I lean across to him, touch my hand to the side of his cold, sweat-drenched face, and press a soft kiss to the side of his mouth. “Penny Walters was a fool.”
I don’t wait for a reaction. I’m out of the van in the next second, bare tits bouncing in the cold as I rush into the booth.
I drop in coins and dial the number he gave me first.
“Hullo?”
I pause. I wasn’t expecting a female voice. Nor a British accent. Who is she? And, more importantly, how can I possibly be jealous at a time like this? “Is this…Teddy?”
“There’s only one bloke calls me that,” she replies, accent strong.
“Kholton?” I ask.
“Right.” A short pause. “Who is this? If this is another one of his twats calling to threaten me to stay away from him, I’m hanging u—”
“No, no!” I hurriedly interrupt. “I’m Serena. Serena Bentley. And Kholton…he’s been shot.”
Four - Serena
“Stay away from that guy.”
Four Months Later
Location:
Long Island
My father takes one look at the table laden with all the food he’s not allowed to eat, and sighs. “Give it another month, Serena,” he tells me.
Arrggh! Of course, he sees right through my ploy.
After all, he’s Aaron Bentley. Pull the wool over his eyes and his percipience will burn right through it. So suspicious and distrustful that there’s just no hoodwinking or manipulating him.
The man is as sharp as a blade but as paranoid as a junkie. Consider it a huge compliment if he shows even a modicum of trust in you, because Aaron Bentley trusts no one.
I have no idea what’s made him this way, but as his sole offspring, his paranoia has made him unbearably overprotective of me. To the nth degree. Which, as a result, has made me distrustful of people and their intentions—though not as terribly as him.
I love him eighty percent of the time. The other twenty percent I spend resenting him for keeping me secluded for much of my formative years. I’m messed up in the head because he’s messed up in the head. It’s sad. Pitiful.