by Reina Torres
Key in.
Door open.
Fuck the seatbelt.
Turn the car on and go. It was a good half a block before she realized she had her parking brake still on and stomped on the pedal, releasing it.
The car shot forward and the race was on.
Cage looked down at his phone and considered calling Maggie, but a quick look at the clock told him that it was still at the tail end of breakfast. Frances had probably left for school by now and Maggie was handling things on her own.
Blowing out a breath he looked at the rush of people around him. This was foreign territory for him. He was used to having his fingers on the pulse of every event and this one… well, it was running just fine without him. The promoter, Gordon Glasden, certainly knew his stuff.
The posters were huge, with something Maggie called, ‘splashy colors’ and bold fonts. And no matter what he’d thought when they’d first met, and Gordon had told him they’d have everything done in such a short time, Cage had been ready to tear the man a new one if things had gone badly.
But the ticket sales for the event had started at ten o’clock one evening, and some thirty-two hours later, they were sold out with a waiting list.
A rather harried looking assistant with a clipboard, a headset, and bloodshot eyes that said he probably hadn’t slept in the last day or so, stepped up beside Cage. “Excuse me, sir? Mr. Gamble, is it?”
Cage nodded slowly, concerned that if he made a movement that was too sudden the many would faint or run off screaming. “Yes?”
“Mr. Glasden would like to see you in the Green Room.”
“Sure.” The two stood there for a long moment until Cage followed up with. “And where is the Green Room?”
The assistant’s eyes widened like saucers. “Oh, yes,” he grinned and took a step back, “if you’ll follow me.”
Cage followed him through the corridor and beyond a pair of heavy doors and into the cold chill of super conditioned air.
The assistant heard Cage’s hiss at the sudden change in temperature and held up his free hand to ward Cage off. “Sorry about that. They have to start now with the air so that when all of the ticketholders come in,” he waved his hand in the air, “all of this chill will warm up and it will keep it manageable. You know?”
Cage just raised an eyebrow at him.
“Ooohkay, then,” turning back around, the assistant gestured over his shoulder, “if you’ll continue following me I’ll show you to-”
“I’ll take him from here, Oswald.”
Cage took a moment to scent the air. He knew there was some kind of shifter in this man. Not an animal actually, but blood from somewhere in his family tree. It would be interesting-
Not at all.
Cage shoved his jaguar back. Shut it.
“Mr. Gamble,” Gordon pushed open a door and gestured for Cage to precede him inside, “I can’t tell you how pleased I am that we were able to make this happen. I appreciate the trust you’ve extended to me.”
Cage shrugged. “You have a good reputation, Gordon. I’m hoping you’ll hold up your end of the bargain. These fighters,” Cage jerked a thumb over his shoulder, “are like family to me. So you keep your end of the bargain and we can do this again sometime.” A muscle ticked in Cage’s jaw. “I’ve got a family to protect. A daughter-” he stopped himself for a moment, the reality of the word crashing down around his shoulders, “a daughter to raise. I will do what I need to do to protect them and make them happy.”
The narrowed gaze that settled on his face was keen and curious but wasn’t rude.
“That’s what I like about you, Gamble.” Nodding his head in appreciation, Glasden walked toward the door and tossed one last comment over his shoulder. “If we’d met any other way, I would have done business with you. You’re good. I’ve seen a lot of fighters in my life. And you… you’re really good.”
Maggie dialed Cage’s number and it started to ring. She cursed herself silently for not putting him on speed dial. Frances had offered to show her how to do it, but it seemed like something extra instead of something necessary. And now… she heard the phone ring through to voice mail. “No! Pick up!”
The car ahead of her pulled forward. She slammed her foot on the gas and managed to gain some ground.
His phone reached the message part of the answer – BING!
“Cage, this is Maggie, someone took Frances! Call me back!”
Up ahead there was an intersection, teeming with cars. It was a simple four-way intersection, and even as the car ahead showed no signs of slowing the light just turned yellow so there was hope, right?
They would stop at the light and she’d…. she would…
“Ah shit!” Maggie had no idea what she’d do, but she was going to figure something out. No one was going to take Frances. Not if she could help it.
The light ahead turned red and the car stopped short.
Cheering inside her head she pushed her gas foot down even harder, but the pedal was already floored and all she could do was slam on the brakes at the last second, thinking to cage them in between her and the cross traffic.
Hitting redial, she set the brake but left the car on and flung open her door. With one ear on the phone in her hand she started to get out -
… leave a message at the sound of the-
And then the world exploded around her in fire and flying metal.
Chapter Fourteen
Cage looked down at his phone and watched it fail time after time. Truck stepped up beside him, ready for his warm up. “What’s wrong with you, Boss?”
Holding out his phone, he swore. “I can’t get a call through.”
Truck nodded. “Yeah, I asked that little guy… the assistant-”
“Oswald?”
Snapping his fingers, Truck smiled. “Yeah, him. He told me that he put this crazy… signal dampener. It keeps the audience from posting video online since this is a pay-per-view deal.”
Cage sighed. “I feel like this is crazy fast.”
“Crazy awesome,” Truck’s belly laugh startled a few passing staffers. “If you ask me it’s like some kind of… fairy tale.”
“Fairy tale?” Cage narrowed his gaze up at the giant shifter. “You know a lot of fairy tales we’re the characters trying to rip each other to shreds?”
It took Truck a minute to think about it. “I’m guessing the bad guy doesn’t count?”
“Yeah, if the bad guy kicks the hero’s ass, I’m not sure that’s a fairy tale.”
Truck shrugged. “But the guys we’re fighting with aren’t the heroes.” He flexed a muscle and winked at his boss. “We are.”
Cage fiddled with his phone and finally dropped it in the back of his jeans.
“Hey,” Truck lifted his chin, “you worried or something?”
His instinct was to nod, but he wasn’t sure. The second thought in his head was Maggie laughing and telling him to calm down and stop overreacting.
Truck leaned in as Oswald appeared waving him forward. “That guy needs a good stiff drink. Or a massage.” He sighed. “After warm up, you want me to go and check on them?”
“Frances would be at school by now.”
Both men heard the hesitant tone at the end of Cage’s comment, but Truck was the one who added the next comment. “So how do you think Maggie would feel if I just stopped by? You know… to check on her for you?”
Cage didn’t answer him and could only watch as Truck jogged off to take his turn examining the ring that they’d set up for that evening. Stuck alone with his thoughts he found his jaguar sitting in the dark, staring right back at him.
What do you want?
You’re distracted.
I’m worried.
Your fault. With a swish of his tail he showed Cage what he was complaining about. An image of Cage, eyes dark as night, sinking his fangs into Maggie’s shoulder as she shattered around him, clawing at his shoulders through her orgasm.
Yeah, okay. We’ll get
there.
You’d feel better.
Cage looked at the ceiling to get away from the dark eyes of his soul, but the eyes just went with him.
You could feel her.
He knew what his jaguar meant, but he also knew he could already feel her in his heart and that alone was confusing as fuck. And yet… he knew he couldn’t wait much longer to make her his mate.
Maggie came awake with a gasp and then a low keening moan. She hadn’t felt like this since… since she woke up in the hospital coming down off a three-day bender… at sixteen. The only words in her head that time were ‘never again.’
And she’d meant it, so she forced her eyes open and her whole stomach dropped to the floor, which wasn’t hard, since she was apparently on the floor. The cold concrete under her cheek was just as cold all along her body.
She tried to move her hand and felt something tug at her wrist. “Shit.”
Flexing it she realized her hands were bound together.
Memories flooded back into her head in rapid fire.
Frances. The car. The chase. The world exploding around her.
“Someone hit me.”
The room was silent around her, she barely even heard an echo.
Moving her wrist again she felt it bound to something else. More skin. “Frances?” She narrowed her eyes to try to see in the darkness, but when she turned her head all she ended up doing was smashing her cheek and nose into the floor. She was disoriented to say the least, but she was only beginning to realize how off she was. Her wrist wasn’t tied to someone else… her wrists were tied together, but she couldn’t feel her other arm. “Frances?”
No answer.
Tears burned the backs of her eyes. “Frances? Are you here?”
Maggie tried to turn over and couldn’t move. Without her left arm she could only move her legs. Flopping onto her back was the first move. At least then she could use her right arm to push herself up, so she could look around.
And then she remembered, she was in the dark. “Just great.”
The empty silence mocked her.
“And just exactly what am I going to do now?”
A soft metallic click turned her head.
Somewhere in the dark she heard the squeak of a hinge.
Door.
It was down toward her feet and she could only crane her neck, but she saw a sliver of vertical light spread into an open doorway. Two men were visible, but she didn’t think they were there to help her.
Not if those bulges at their hips were any indication. Guns. She knew the shape well enough from her dad, but all she could think of right at that moment was staying alive.
She had to find out what happened to Frances.
The first man walked inside and stopped somewhere in front of her face, he blocked out most of the light behind him. A moment later, a bright light flashed in her face. Round. Piercing. She knew she’d be near blind when it turned off, but she still tried to stare around it and see who had her.
“Who are you?” She didn’t wait for an answer, running into the next question like a steamroller. “Where’s Frances?”
Laughter. “I’m the one in charge here. You’re the one tied up on the floor.”
“You want answers from me? You give me answers… Quid Pro Quo.”
“What the fuck is that? You speakin’ French or something?”
“Latin.” You dumb fuck. “Answer for an answer.”
“Look, lady. I don’t need your shit.” He lowered the flashlight and she blinked a few times trying to focus her eyes and see his face.
“Can I help it if you haven’t seen ‘Silence of the Lambs’?”
“Don’t you even have the smarts to be scared?”
Oh, she was plenty scared, she was just hoping to bide her time and get a good look at this ass, so when Cage found them, she could point him out and watch him gut the ass, spill his entrails all over the floor. Yeah… she was pissed.
“Hey, Gamble! Gamble!”
Cage looked up at the uniformed officer pushing through the crowd in the backstage area. He winced when he saw it was Officer Boyd from the Police Station. “Hey.”
Boyd skidded to a halt in front of him. “There’s trouble.”
Air pulled into his lungs, but his heart was cold in his chest. “Frances?”
Boyd’s eyes narrowed. “I got a call from the school.” He cleared his throat. “If it was anyone else, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve been following her progress. She’s been doing great thanks to you and your girlfriend, but something’s wrong.”
Cage’s jaguar roared to life, tearing at his insides. He felt it too.
“Maybe she stayed back… at the diner.”
The policeman’s eyes narrowed. “I called.” He swallowed hard. “No one picked up the phone. Maybe she was busy. I sent a man over to check, but I knew you were down here, so I decided to stop by.”
Cage nodded and looked over at the officer. “Thanks. I need to get my keys and I’ll go look for her myself.”
They pulled her out of the room, staggering on her bare feet. Apparently, once they’d crashed into her car and pulled her out, they’d left her shoes behind. Looking around the room as they emerged from the dark, she blinked to adjust to the light. Her purse was on a table, her cell phone lying beside it. The screen was like a spiderweb and from what she could see there wasn’t even a fraction of an inch that wasn’t covered in cracks. Her jailer jerked on her arm and pulled her forward. She turned to glare at him and realized he didn’t have a mask on.
He was showing her his face.
He didn’t think she was getting out of this.
Okay. Her head was surprisingly clear. Okay, she told herself again. First things first. “Frances. Where’s Frances?”
“She’s asleep. And she’s going to stay that way until we get rid of her.”
“What are you talking about?” Maggie jerked at her arm, trying to loosen his hold.
“You think I’m going to hurt the Golden Goose?” He shook his head. “I’m just waiting for my payday.”
“Cage doesn’t have much beyond his business,” she told them. “What do you think you’re going to get from him?”
He pushed her away and she ended up with a few splinters in her backside from the old crate she landed on. “I’m not going anywhere near that monster.” He leaned closer and she saw his bloodshot eyes and smelled the fetid stench of his breath. “We’re sending the kitty back to her natural habitat.”
“England?”
“You pick up quick, lady.”
“Why? What changed with her family?”
He grabbed a hold of the front of her shirt and twisted, tightening her collar around her neck. “I’m not a counselor. I’m hired muscle. I get the job done. And you,” he grinned at her, “aren’t necessary for the job.” He reached behind him and pulled a gun out, leveling it straight at her sternum.
Maggie leaned back and felt one of her feet slip on the floor. It wasn’t just cement beneath her foot. It was plastic. A quick look down at her feet said she was standing in the middle of a wall-sized piece of plastic sheeting.
“Hey!” A door banged open. “Hey, get in here!”
The gun stayed level on her chest as he turned toward the sound. “What?”
“She’s awake and pissed. You’ve gotta inject her again!”
Maggie started to get up and the guy pointed the gun at her again. “You better keep your ass on that crate. If you get up or try to leave… when I get back, I’ll put a bullet in your ear.” And then he ran into the back room.
And Maggie sat there because she wasn’t about to leave Frances. No, they were going to stick together until they could find a way out of this mess.
Before Cage could get to his car, he saw Gordon in the doorway. “Just where do you think you’re going?”
“My daughter is missing. She never got to school.”
“Your daughter? I didn’t k
now you had-”
“She’s my friend’s… he’s dead. But none of that matters. She’s mine,” he saw Gordon step back and knew his eyes must have bled black, he could feel his jaguar rising under his skin, “and if you stand in my way you’re going to regret it.”
“You’re going to run out on this event because she’s playing hooky?”
Brass ran up. “I called Caber, but he’s not answering his phone.”
Cold chills ran through Cage’s body. “Take one of the others, trace his route this morning.”
“Will do.” Brass slapped his hand down on Cage’s shoulder. “I’ll find him.”
Sirens from the street told him that back up had arrived.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Gordon cross his arms. “This is crazy. Do you know how much money you’re wasting on a juvenile delinquent? I should have known this was going to be a mess.”
“Ask me if I care about the money,” Cage leaned closer and his jaguar surged up until he felt as if he was stretched thin over the jaguar’s form, barely in control.
“You walk out now, Gamble, and you’re ruined. You’ll never have this kind of opportunity again. I never should have let Wently talk me into this.”
In a flash, the man wrested control from the beast. “Wently?”
Cage saw the slightest wince on Gordon’s face. Leaning closer he saw a bead of sweat make a slow and laborious trip from the man’s temple and down the side of his face.
Gordon made a helpless gesture with his hands. “If you have to go, we’ll figure something out.”
Two men stepped out of the sunlight and up to the gathering group. Cage recognized Devlin Kerr. The first shifter to reveal his second nature in front of cameras and the tiger shifter who now headed a special branch of police for the Sylvan City PD. Beside him was a man Cage didn’t recognize by sight or scent.
“Cage, I got the call from Boyd. We pulled up some footage from security cameras. The car that pulled up in front of the diner has fake plates. We saw Frances get in the car-”
Cage felt his stomach twist into a knot. She was so used to just getting in a car and going.