It was Alec who caught up with her. He emerged from a side alley and cut her off. She almost lost control of the bike she had stolen, but managed not to crash. They stood still for a few moments, staring at each other—Alec fierce and confident on his ride, and Eve a little bit shakier.
“That’s enough, sweetheart,” he said. “Get off the bike.”
Reluctantly, she did. What other choice did she have? She threw a few darting looks around, looking for escapes. Perhaps she could outrun him.
“Don’t even think about it,” he said, reading her intentions. “Now hop on.” He nodded to the back of his bike.
Eve dug her heels into the asphalt as if that move alone could anchor her to her spot. “I’m not going back there,” she said. “I’m going home.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Alec said. “Merchant will find you in a heartbeat.”
“I don’t care,” Eve insisted, even if she actually did care.
“Look,” Alec began after a moment. He was visibly choosing his words. Clearly, he was out of his element. “I realize things may be a bit tense—”
Eve laughed bitterly. “Now there’s an understatement.”
“Nevertheless,” Alec said through gritted teeth, “it beats some guy putting a bullet in your brain.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Eve said. “He doesn’t want me there. I don’t want me there, either. I’ll take care of myself.”
Alec shook his head. “It’s your funeral.”
As if on cue, there was a single explosion of sound. Eve watched incredulous as Alec toppled over, his bike crashing to the ground. She knew what she was seeing, and yet her brain refused to register it for the longest time. Something finally snapped within her and she sprung to action. She left her bike and rushed over to Alec, kneeling down next to him. A red stain was blossoming on his right side, blood pooling on the ground. Eve fumbled for the bandana she had tied her hair with and pressed down on the wound.
He grunted and opened his eyes to stare at her. “Fuck,” he hissed through the pain.
“You’d best not talk,” she said, pressing down harder. “I’ll call 911.”
“You’ll do no such thing.”
Eve looked up. From an alley to Alec’s left, five figures emerged. Eve recognized them instantly; Gary’s men. She had seen them time and time again at the nightclub, back when she danced the nights away. It felt like a lifetime ago, and perhaps it was, in a way.
“You didn’t have to shoot him, Vincent,” she accused, glaring at the leader.
He was a bulky man, distant and ruthless. He shrugged. “I’m taking it as an added bonus.”
Eve’s eyes flashed in anger. “Let me call an ambulance, then I’ll go with you.”
Alec moaned in protest, but he couldn’t form any words. Eve could feel him getting weaker underneath her hands.
Vincent looked at her in surprise. “I didn’t think it would be this easy. I’ve got to say, I’m almost disappointed.”
“Then again, Gary wants her alive and unharmed,” one of the other men spoke up.
Vincent thought about it for a moment, and then he finally nodded. “OK then,” he said. “Call 911.”
Eve took out her phone and did just that. Before she could speak to the operator, however, Vincent kicked the phone out of her hand. She cried out in pain and surprise.
“Don’t worry, sweetie,” he said, grabbing her and hauling her to her feet. “They’ll trace the call.”
All of her instincts told her to struggle, but Eve didn’t dare to. She didn’t dare to breathe, let alone move. She was terrified that if she made the wrong movement, Vincent would finish the job and kill Alec on the spot. So, she let herself be dragged away. She kept her eyes trained on Alec all the way, and she didn’t like what she saw; his eyes were already dulled, his skin white.
They shoved her unceremoniously in the trunk of Vincent’s car. It was dark in there, and stuffy. She had to think of something else in order not to panic. They said Gary wanted her alive, so she could only hope they wouldn’t let her suffocate in there. Despite all that happened between them, Eve found herself thinking of Lind. She almost didn’t dare to picture his reaction if Alec were to die; she had the feeling it could be even uglier than the state Lind was in now.
She wondered if Lind would come for her, like he had in the past. As much as she hated to admit it, she wasn’t too hopeful. The Lind she had seen back at the Diamondbacks’ headquarters had nothing in common with the Lind she had fallen in love with. She wasn’t sure this Lind would come for anyone, especially her.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
There were very few sounds that Lind Addams hated more than the beeping of machines in a hospital. One of them, ironically, was the sound of gunshots. He kept imagining it over and over, as he sat by his best friend’s bedside. The fog of alcohol-induced stupor had lifted the minute he had walked into this room and seen Alec in this bed. The sight had filled him with an anger so strong that it had cleared up his mind for the first time in four months, three weeks, and five days.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Gary Merchant was responsible for this. Alec was hurt, and Eve was nowhere to be found; no one else could be behind it. Lind wanted nothing more than to upturn the whole city until he found Eve, but he knew he had an obligation to his friend first. He had managed to send Linda home after she took a twenty-four hour shift by her husband’s bedside, and now it was just Alec and Lind in the room. As much as he wanted to spring into action, Lind couldn’t bring himself to leave just yet.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly to the still form on the bed. “I fucked it all up, and you paid the price. I’m so sorry.”
There was a soft knock at the door, and Lind looked up to find Lucas framed in the doorway. He nodded and the kid walked in.
“I just spoke to his doctor,” he said in a quiet voice. “He said he’s going to make a full recovery.”
Lind stared at him. “Really?” It seemed unlikely. Alec was looking so fragile and weak; Lind didn’t think it was possible to receive any good news.
But Lucas nodded. He carried the chair by the door over to where Lind was sitting and took a seat himself. “He said the first twenty-four hours were the most critical. He said that now that he has gotten through them, he expects his condition to improve very soon.”
Lind blew out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. The relief was so strong that he felt dizzy with it. “Did you tell Linda?”
Lucas nodded again. “She’s on her way now.”
Silence settled over them. Lind only broke it when the weight of what he had swirling within his chest was too much to bear.
“This is my fault,” he said, his eyes trained on Alec.
Lucas frowned. “How is it your fault?”
“If only I had been sober, it would never have come to this. Eve wouldn’t have left and Alec wouldn’t have had to go after her.”
Lucas hesitated. “I don’t think it was your fault.”
Lind whirled around to face him. “How can you say that?”
“Revenge is a powerful thing,” Lucas said, carefully choosing his words. “If Merchant wanted your girl bad enough, he would have found a way whether you were there to try to stop him or not.”
Lind was silent for a moment, mulling Lucas’ words over in his head. When the whole thing registered, he hurried to clarify, “She’s not my girl.”
Lucas grinned. “Isn’t she?”
Lind glared at him.
Lucas stood and clasped a hand around Lind’s shoulder. “Come on, big guy. We have things to do.”
Lind nodded and stood, too. “Where should we start looking, do you think?” he wondered aloud.
“That’ll come later.”
Lind looked at him in confusion.
“First,” Lucas said, grinning from ear to ear in anticipation, “we have to get you clean.”
Lind followed him outside. The prospect of cleaning himself up terrified him. H
e had never allowed himself to become addicted to anything before. No matter how many vices he had, he had never allowed them to control him. He wanted to be lucid, no matter what. But that was before. It was different now. He could already feel the pull.
Yet, he knew he had no choice. The thought of Eve being in Merchant’s hands filled him with rage and dread. He had the feeling he would use her for leverage, but that didn’t necessarily mean that he would leave her unharmed. He couldn’t bring himself to even begin to contemplate the possibilities of what he might be doing to her right now. Time was of the essence, but he also knew that getting clean wouldn’t happen overnight. He would do his best to speed up the process, but he wasn’t sure he could do it in time.
As he rode his bike back to the headquarters, Lind let the air and the road contribute to clear his mind. Thoughts were chasing each other in his head—thoughts of Eve and of Alec and of remorse. How had he let things get so out of hand? How did this happen?
He tried to cling to the good news that Lucas had brought him, but it did nothing to ease the knots in his stomach. He had let down the people he loved the most, in the most spectacular, disastrous of ways. He tried to think back on the past four months, three weeks, and five days, and he found that it was all a blur. How many women had he had sex with? What kind of drugs had he taken, and how often? How many beers had he drunk? How many bottle of Jack?
How many fights had he had with Alec? How many helping hands had he knocked away?
How much of himself had he lost in his strive to not be?
The more he thought about it, the more Lind convinced himself that he was beyond salvation. There may be some part of his old self that could be salvaged somehow, but he just didn’t think it was worth it. He just didn’t think he was worth it.
One thing was certain, however. He may be beyond salvation, but he would make damn sure that Eve would be saved.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Gary loved to taunt her. He would entertain her with tales of everything that he would do to Lind once he came. Eve would always let him know that Lind would not come, and that sent Gary into a rage. He would slap her then, hard across her face. By the third day (because Gary also made sure to always let her know exactly how long she had been his captive), the only taste Eve knew was that of her own blood that ran down to her lips from her nose. The hours dragged by, meaningless.
Eve had long lost hope that anyone would come to save her. Her knight in shining armor had long since abandoned his metal mount in favor of a bottle, becoming the most pitiful of peasants. She had no hope that Lind would miraculously come back to his old self now that she was in danger.
She spent the time drifting in and out of consciousness, her confused mind filled with dreams and nightmares. Circulation in her wrists and ankles came and went in waves because she was tied to Gary’s spare wheelchair. There was something sinister and poetic about it.
Whenever consciousness came, Eve would often wonder about Alec. She wondered if the ambulance had found him, if they had made it in time. She wondered if he was alive, and if he had awoken and told Lind what happened. She wondered if Lind even cared.
She looked up, as the door to the room in the back of the nightclub where she was held opened and Gary wheeled himself in. He stopped right in front of her as usual, as if he were just an old friend settling down for a chat, but she thought there was something different about him today. His eyes were meaner, sparkling with a dark light that chilled her to the bone.
“How is my beautiful captive today?” He addressed her with a cheerfulness that froze the blood in her veins.
Eve stared at him but said nothing.
“Not very talkative, are we?” he teased her. “I think you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve had one of my men check in with the hospital. Alec Moore is going to make a full recovery.”
Eve watched him carefully, trying to decide whether he was feeding her a lie.
“It’s the truth,” he said, guessing her doubts. “I was never after him. After all, people shooting at him is what got me into this mess to begin with.”
“Exactly,” Eve said, unable—and unwilling—to remain silent any longer. “And I had nothing to do with that.”
“No,” Gary admitted. “But you could have saved me.”
“I didn’t know they would come after you.”
“Didn’t know, or didn’t care?” he said in a raised voice, his eyes wide.
Revenge and having his life destroyed had driven Gary pretty much insane.
Eve sighed. “Just let me go. Can’t you see? No one is coming for me.”
“Perhaps,” Gary conceded. “But I’m not letting you go. You’re not walking out of this unscathed.” He rolled a little closer to her still. “I’m going to make sure you know what this means.” He gestured to his wheelchair.
Dread filled Eve so quickly that she thought she would throw up with the sheer force of it alone. “What…” She swallowed hard and tried again. “What do you mean?”
“I’m going to cripple you, my darling. Then, you’ll know what I’ve been through. What I’m still going through. What I’ll go through every day and every night for the rest of my very miserable life.”
Eve’s overwhelmed brain kicked into motion. She thought frantically about something, anything, she could say that would make him see reason, but she couldn’t find anything. This wasn’t a man capable of reason. This was a crazed man, and for all of the surreal experiences she had been having of late, she didn’t know how to deal with a crazed person.
“You’re a psychopath,” was all she could come up with, and she regretted it as soon as the words left her lips. That’s right, Eve, she commiserated. Insult him. Piss him off.
But Gary appeared unfazed. “You’ve made me one, my dear,” he said.
He made a quick call on his cell phone, and a few minutes later the door opened and two men stepped in. One of them was Vincent. He was holding a baseball bat in his hands.
Panicked, Eve began to struggle against her bonds. “LET ME GO!” she cried in a shrill voice that she hardly recognized as her own. “YOU CAN’T DO THIS! LET ME GO!”
“Oh, but I can,” Gary said, grinning sickeningly. “I can do this and I will.”
Eve was just about to vomit from the terror when familiar, explosive sounds came to her ears. Everyone in the room froze.
“What the fuck is that?” the man who had come in with Vincent said, looking around as if the answer might be written on the walls.
“Go check it out,” Vincent barked at him, and the man hurried from the room.
Vincent went to the window and peered outside. When he turned back, there was a grimace on his face. “It’s the Diamondbacks.”
Relief hit Eve like a brick wall. Her head began to swim as the tension and adrenaline slowly ebbed away from her body.
The next happenings were a blur. Shots were fired in the distance. There was a cracking sound as the word exploded and collapsed within himself. Shapes filled the room, storming in. Voices, cries, shouts. Her name, somewhere in there. Was Lind with them? She couldn’t tell. No one had a face; they were dark, blurry shadows and disembodied voices. She thought she heard gurgling, at some point.
Only later would she learn that it was the sound of Gary Merchant choking on his own blood after Lind had shot him in the throat.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Eve woke a few times, but she would always fall back into a deep, healing slumber. She finally came to one morning in a bedroom filled with early morning sunlight streaming in from the window. She stretched and yawned hugely. She felt sore all over, but otherwise all right. Most of all, she realized as full awareness fully came back to her, she was famished.
She sat up on the bed and looked around. After a few moment’s confusion, she finally recognized the room as the bedroom in Lind’s house. That alone was enough to have her heart start beating a mile a minute. Gingerly, she got out of bed. She was wearing a t-shirt twice her size that fell
just above her knees. It smelled like Lind—the Lind she had known. She imagined he would find him in the house if she left the bedroom, and she wondered who it was that she would find—the Lind she had known and fallen in love with, or the unpleasant jerk she had encountered at the Diamondbacks’ headquarters.
There was only a way to find out. It was time to get out of that room. Besides, she could smell bacon.
She padded with bare feet out of the bedroom and then into the kitchen. Lind was sitting at the table nursing a cup of coffee, with a plate filled with scrambled eggs and a few strips of crispy bacon in front of him. In spite of all of her worries, Eve’s stomach grumbled.
Untouchable: A Dark Bad Boy Romance Page 37