“My nineties jacket is stopping you from getting hypothermia. Minnie, the planet is heating up, at least one rogue state has nuclear weaponry and there are about four places in the world that could explode into bloody confrontation any minute, but you’re worried about a bad photograph?” He shook his head.
“Graham was right. You are La Bete,” Minnie said. She took careful aim with her hot chocolate.
His eyes widened. He held his arms out. “Minnie, don’t you dare-“
“Beast!” she yelled as she threw her hot chocolate at him. In daylight, a camera flash is barely noticeable. For one second, the day brightened. Minnie registered she had scored a bullseye at the same moment she turned to hunt for the source of that sudden brightening. Graham Fother was about thirty feet away, lowering his camera from his face.
Minnie turned back to Big Mike. His t-shirt was brown and sodden, clinging to his muscled torso like Saran Wrap. A large blob of cream paused on one pec and then slowly slid down his chest, over the ridged muscles of his abdomen to come to rest, gently, on his belt buckle.
There was another flash.
“Big Mike, stop him!” Minnie said. “Go get his camera!”
“Like hell I will,” Big Mike said, pulling his wet t-shirt away from his skin. It made a faint sucking sound.
He loomed over her, six-foot-six of fuming muscle. Run! she instructed her feet. But before they could obey, his hand shackled her wrist. She had more chance of gnawing her way out of a steel handcuff than escaping that iron grip. Big Mike dragged her away. There was another flash from behind her. Minnie suppressed the urge to struggle or to look back, knowing that that would only make the photographs look worse.
Chapter Thirteen
Big Mike towed her all the way to her apartment. Minnie contemplated going limp but she knew he’d either drag her along the ground or pick her up and carry her the rest of the way. Neither option was desirable.
Outside her apartment, Big Mike found her spare key in seconds. It was stashed in a fake rock. She had cunningly concealed the fake rock amongst similarly shaped rocks, in one of the two potted plants that framed her front door, but he picked it out unerringly. “A simpleton could find this key,” he said, using it to open her front door.
“One did,” she said.
“Get inside,” he said, pushing her door wide open.
“I should fetch my cat, Boots. My neighbor-“
“Later,” he said curtly and pushed her gently ahead of him. No matter how much she irked him, she noticed his touch was always careful. The air inside her apartment was stale — it had been sealed for a week. He locked the door behind them.
Minnie walked into her sitting-room. “No TDR kidnappers on the couch,” she pointed out.
Everything was as she had left it, from the pile of books stacked next to her couch, to the plants cascading from the top of the cupboard. A patina of dust had settled over her TV. Big Mike walked through her apartment, checking each room, disappearing momentarily to check her bedroom.
Her eye fell on the small, plush lavender cushion beside the couch. It had ‘Boots’ embroidered on it in an ornate, girly scroll. So pretty, just like her darling cat, Bootsie.
Big Mike returned and stood in front of the heavy sideboard that dominated the entrance hall. It was a solid piece of furniture, abandoned by the previous tenant, probably because it weighed too much to move.
She spoke, “I’ll just go next door and pick up Boots while you wash your-“
Big Mike pulled the sideboard away from the wall and pushed it in front of the door, effectively cutting off her means of escape.
She wanted to throw something at his large, bald-
He stripped off his t-shirt. His blocked abdomen — an eight-pack — was briefly visible. Minnie found herself holding his balled t-shirt. He must have thrust it at her and she had taken it, dumbly. Beautiful, ornate tattoos covered his chest. A rose, a winged angel, scrolls-
He put a finger under her chin and exerted gentle, upward pressure to close her slack mouth. “Launder that. And pack. I’ll be in the shower.”
She watched him leave the room. He had linebacker shoulders tapering to lean hips. No tattoos on his back. Just tanned, touchable skin over muscle. The TDR biker’s gun was stuck down the back of Big Mike’s jeans. Lordy. He pulled his belt off, making his jeans dip lower on his hips revealing the white band of his underwear. Minnie realized she was following this peepshow into her bedroom and made her feet stop and reverse course. She swallowed to unglue her tongue from the roof of her mouth. The image was burned on her retinas. With that gun stuck in the back of his jeans, he looked like some kind of recruitment ad for the NRA. There would be a stampede of gay men and straight women, in response to that ad campaign!
Moments later, she heard the soft thud of discarded boots and the rustle of clothing being stripped off. Then the shower taps turned on. She looked down at the balled t-shirt in her hands. She raised it to her nose. It smelled of Big Mike and hot chocolate. Yum. She lifted her nose from the damp bundle. Now what would a good li’l woman do with her man’s dirty clothes?
Moments later, Minnie was humming as she added washing powder to her washing machine and spun the dials. It was a single cycle machine that would wash and then immediately dry clothing in as little as ten minutes. It was a marvel of modern technology. It apparently got hot enough to sterilize surgical equipment. She carefully set the washing and drying functions to the highest temperature possible. She was going to shrink Big Mike’s t-shirt to postage stamp size.
She itemized the rest of her to-do list: eat something low-calorie, think of a way to escape, get money and a cellphone, find a way to mitigate Graham Fother’s damning photos, change into warmer clothing, escape.
The food part of her to-do list was easy. Minnie headed for the kitchen. She could still hear the shower running. She squashed the mental image of big, masculine hands soaping that hard chest and more… She added a couple of spoons of protein powder to a bottle of iced water, shook it vigorously, and then chugged it down, leaning against the kitchen counter. Did her hip feel a little too thickly padded? She hoped not. She had cheated on her diet, during the last week. Daddy worried if she didn’t eat properly. Bless his over-protective, dark-stained, manipulative soul. Her father was behind all of this craziness.
Maybe she should just climb into bed and pull the covers over her head, let her career fall apart when Graham released his spiteful pictures and let Big Mike hand her over to her brother. Crash had accepted her move east. Her brother visited her every few months, checking her apartment, inventorying her fridge, and questioning her closely over her love life. She always lied. Minnie wiped her mouth and tossed the empty bottle into the garbage can. Daddy had never intended to let her live away from home. He had expected her to fail, admit defeat and return home. The war with TDR was a convenient excuse to retrieve her and lock her up. If Big Mike and Crash managed to bundle her back to the west coast, Daddy would ensure she never left it again. So she had to stop this pity-party for one, and get her almost-a-supermodel butt and brain in gear.
Thanks to Big Mike, the front door was completely blocked. She could set fire to the place and escape during the confusion. No, she couldn’t risk other people being hurt. She was tapping her fingers on the kitchen counter, conscious of one shorter nail on her right hand, when inspiration struck. Whoa! There was another way out of the apartment… the balcony.
Chapter Fourteen
Minnie tiptoed into her bedroom. Her bed was in its usual chaotic state with blue-and-white throw pillows and at least three discarded outfits piled on top of her blue-and-white toile patterned duvet. She hadn’t been able to decide what to take with her for a vacation in California with her family. In contrast, Big Mike’s discarded jeans were neatly folded on a corner of her bed.
The shower was still running. Steam billowed out of the adjacent bathroom. He had left the door slightly ajar. She peeked inside. Big Mike’s nude body was silhouette
d through the frosted glass. He had his arms braced against the wall of the shower, the water sluicing over his broad back. Nice view. Better than the one from her balcony.
Five minutes later, Minnie was standing on that balcony, contemplating the service alley and dumpsters three stories below. She had swapped her clothes for serviceable jeans, a sweater and boots. In her pocket, she had Crash’s credit card, her cellphone, all of the cash in Big Mike’s wallet and his credit card.
The balcony was six feet long, edged with terracotta pots filled with dry soil and dead stalks. The sun shone but the weak rays didn’t warm the wintry day. Even this high up, she could smell the city — car exhaust mixed with the sweet scent of decay from always-full dumpsters. The faint sound of traffic floated up. Minnie clutched the railing, trying to will herself to climb over it. Her neighbor’s balcony was only feet away. It was an easy hop, but if she missed her footing, the only photo shoots in her future would be pictures in the city morgue. Her only admirers would be medical students dissecting her corpse. Minnie peered down at the alley, her mind filled with a vision of her crumpled body splayed across the concrete. She hated heights, but if she didn’t do this, her budding career would be as dead as the contents of her terracotta pots and she’d spend her life married to one of Daddy’s lieutenants, sitting on an ever-expanding butt, looking back through a yellowing portfolio of her modeling shots.
Minnie clambered over the balustrade. Balanced on the wrong side of the railing, she kept her eyes level and wedged her toes in between the rails. Her hands were locked on the railing in a death grip. She was still alive. As long as she didn’t look down, she’d be fine. She measured the distance to Mr Maynard’s balcony.
She jumped, her arms reaching… for an endless moment, she was suspended in the sky and then she landed. Hard. She folded herself over the balcony railing, grasping the metal struts, banging her knees. Ouch. She fell over the railing, landing in a heap on the ground. She had done it!
Minnie scrambled to her feet. Mr Maynard’s balcony put hers to shame. It was lined with red-glazed, sun-burnished flowerpots, packed with dense greenery. Mr Maynard had created a ‘cat garden’ for his prized Abyssinian cat, Garbo. Garbo would patrol the perimeter and rub herself up against the greenery before stretching out in the sun. It was a good life for a cat. Her kind owner always kept the patio door ajar for her. Minnie nipped inside. Mr Maynard’s bedroom was modestly decorated with a navy coverlet on the bed and square, mahogany furniture. The theme tune from “Days of our Lives” blared out of the adjoining room. He was retired from something important to do with economics, but he spent his retirement penning a non-fiction guide to soap operas. When he wasn’t flirting with Minnie’s other neighbor and cat-sitter, Mrs Previn, he watched daytime soaps. A yellow legal pad, containing copious notes in his thready hand, always sat beside his armchair. Minnie had noticed that if the plot line became particularly tangled and desperate, Mr Maynard forgot to make notes.
Minnie crept through the sitting-room. There wasn’t time to explain her plight to Mr Maynard so it was simplest if she escaped his apartment unseen. He was ensconced in his cracked, brown leather armchair, his craggy face rapt on the screen, his yellow legal pad forgotten at his side. Must be a good one. Garbo was curled up in his lap. Her eyes pierced Minnie with a basilisk stare but she didn’t make a sound. Minnie tiptoed past them to the front door and quietly let herself out. She was going to beg Mrs Previn to hide her until Big Mike had left the building.
Minnie scampered past her own front door to the apartment on the other side of it — Mrs Previn’s. She tapped quietly but urgently on Mrs Previn’s front door. The door swung inward, strong fingers grabbed her wrist and yanked her inside.
Chapter Fifteen
Minnie was pulled deep into the hallway, and flung hard against the wall. She grunted in pain and staggered but managed to stay upright. A big man, wearing a TDR patch, stood between her and the door. He was a grizzled mid-forties and going to fat. Minnie opened her mouth to scream but he held up a towel-wrapped bundle in his arms.
“I’ll kill it,” he said softly. She shut her mouth. ‘It’ was her cat, her beloved Boots. Boots’ charcoal face peeped out of the mauve towel. He had Boots wrapped up like a papoose else Boots’d claw him to death. In other circumstances, that little face peering over the edge of the towel would be comical but Minnie realized with a sick feeling that he could kill her darling with one twist of those big hands.
“Use your head. If you hurt me or my cat, you know what my father and brother will do to you. Do you really want to piss Hell’s Crew off?” she said, her words tumbling over each other.
He laughed. “We’re going to leave quietly, together, or…” He squeezed his hands around Boots, his biceps bulging. Boots wailed, thrashing frantically beneath the confining towel.
Minnie held up her hand as if that would halt him, “Fine. You’re the boss.” The sick fuck was enjoying himself. He was a TDR biker so he carried a gun but he’d chosen to torture her cat to compel her obedience instead of threatening her with a firearm. “You sick prick, I swear I’ll peel you like a grape if you hurt Boots again.” She could kick him in the crotch if she moved quickly enough, but if she missed, he’d maim Boots. But she knew he was going to injure Boots, regardless of what she said or did. His face was giddy with pleasure. TDR recruited pond scum. She inched closer.
“Where’s James? He was waiting for you at the airport. He isn’t answering his phone.”
James? She would never have guessed that was her kidnapper’s name. “I don’t know who that is.” Minnie shrugged her shoulders.
“Who’s the big guy with you? Protection?”
He must have spied on her and Big Mike as they entered her apartment. She said nothing.
He pinched Boots’ ear. Boots mewled.
She hated him. A few inches closer and he’d be within reach. “Stop. I’m not hiding anything from you. I don’t know where James is.” This man knew Big Mike was in her apartment. How had he known to target Mrs Previn and wait for her to knock? Minnie moved closer. “There was nobody at the airport. Staff recognized me and showed me through a VIP entrance. It happens all the time. Your friend, James, must have missed me.”
“Wrong answer,” his hands tightened on her cat.
She screamed, “Noooooo-“
The front door crashed in — Big Mike — but she didn’t take her eyes off the TDR biker. Big Mike moved toward them, a low blur, in jeans and a too-tight t-shirt, gun in hand. The TDR biker flung Boots up at Big Mike. Minnie watched in horror as her darling cat separated from the towel and twisted in mid-air, landing square on Big Mike’s chest, her paws splayed. Boots claws dug in deep anchoring her to Big Mike’s chest. Big Mike yelped with pain as he instinctively tried to peel Boots off.
The TDR biker reached behind him — he was going for his gun. Minnie leapt forward and swept her foot up into his crotch delivering a solid blow. He made a strange sound, an eerie high-pitched exhalation. He dropped forward onto his knees. Instincts she didn’t know she had, kicked in and Minnie snapped her leg up high and around in a perfect mawashi geri, a roundhouse kick, her foot aiming for his nose. Years of Tae Bo training gave you more than buns of steel. This thug was going to learn you did not mess with her beloved pet. But his face turned towards Big Mike at the last moment, so Minnie’s kick caught him on the temple instead of the jaw. He fell back against the wall, his head snapping back, connecting with a dull thud.
“Don’t hurt Bootsie,” Minnie yelled at Big Mike, lunging for her cat. She tried to lift Boots away from Big Mike but it panicked her cat even worse. Boots climbed Big Mike like a tree, up his chest, over his face, launching herself off the top of his head. Minnie saw thin slashes open up on Big Mike’s t-shirt. Bloody red gashes, on his inked arms and chest, marked Boots frantic passage. Boots landed with a thump on the floor and disappeared out of the front door in a charcoal blur.
Big Mike cursed, his hand touching his torso and coming away
wet with blood.
Minnie wanted to chase after her cat but she was worried about Mrs Previn. Boots had been moving far too quickly to be permanently injured. She would come home once she had calmed down.
She turned to look for Mrs Previn but Big Mike grabbed her and pushed her into the hall powder room. “Get in there and lock the door. Don’t come out until I tell you, Minnie. If you move, I swear I’ll…” He didn’t finish his threat.
Minnie let herself be bundled into the white-tiled room. “Mrs Previn is somewhere in the apartment. She’s old. Frail.”
Big Mike nodded and pulled the door shut. The next few minutes were the longest of her life. Mrs Previn liked to use scent plugs and for the first time, Minnie was aware of the artificial scent of jasmine. It was overpowering but in her focus on the TDR biker, she hadn’t noticed it before. She put the lid down on the toilet and slumped on it. Mrs Previn had put a frilled covered on the toilet lid. Everything was covered. If you stood still too long in the apartment, Mrs Previn would put a frilly cover on you. She blinked away the tears that suddenly filled her eyes. The morons didn’t have the right to frighten the old woman. She wasn’t part of this mess.
Minnie had chosen to stand up for herself. Maybe that made her fair game in a territory battle. But she was smart and could look after herself. Her anxiety climbed. No shots sounded from inside the apartment. No sounds of a struggle. Big Mike was fine. He would find Mrs Previn and she would be fine too.
“Minnie, get out here,” accompanied a loud thump on the bathroom door. It wasn’t a courteous summons but she leapt to open the door. Big Mike stood there. He would have looked impassive to most people, but she noticed his jaw was set and his mouth was a hard line. He was pissed. At her.
On the Run (Big Mike and Minnie Book 1) Page 5