by Linda Verji
Melanie swiveled her head in an attempt to see him but pain crashed through her head. Closing her eyes, she hissed in agony. “Sssssss.”
She felt rather than heard Vance move from behind her until he was standing in front of her. He suddenly yanked her by the chin into sitting position, his actions forcing her to open her eyes. When she did it was to meet his blank, lethal amber gaze.
He said, “You thought I wouldn’t find you, didn’t you?”
She didn’t answer. Though her heart was beating at what seemed like three hundred beats a minute, she offered him a steely gaze that she hoped didn’t show her fear.
Vance sneered, “You think you’re b-”
“Vance?” Lewis interrupted him. Vance’s eyes snapped towards the back of the couch, the irritation visible in them. Melanie followed his gaze to find Lewis standing behind her next to Joe the cop, his hands deep in his pocket. Her ex-husband avoided her gaze and directing his question towards Vance, he asked, “We cool?”
“We cool,” Vance agreed, then with the speed of a practiced executioner he pulled a gun from the back of his pants and leveled it at Lewis.
“Yo, m-” Lewis started, but it was too late. Three rapid shots cracked in the room as the successive bullets lodged into his torso.
“Lewis,” Melanie cried out. She tried to stand up but the pain in her head sent her crashing back down to the couch. “Lewis.”
Lewis looked down to the blood spitting from the holes in his checkered shirt. When he lifted his head, his eyes met Melanie’s. His lips parted as if he wanted to say something but no sound came. His eyes went blank and he collapsed and disappeared behind the couch with a dull thud.
“Lewis,” Melanie kept screaming until Vance backhanded her, almost snapping her neck with the force of his hit. The scream died on her lips replaced by a whimper as she fell head first on to the couch.
“Trigger, Joe, get that mutherfucker out of here,” Vance ordered. Then he turned back to Melanie. “Now you.” His mouth widened into a smile that frightened her even more than the expressionless eyes.
Too much time had passed. It’d been half an hour since Lewis and the cop had kidnapped Melanie and still they hadn’t found them. And Nic’s frustration was almost at boiling point.
“Christ!” He peered out the window into incoming traffic. “Can’t you go any faster?”
“Not unless this van has wings I don’t know about,” Diego answered as they stopped at a forked road. “Jan, left or right?”
“Right,” the techie said into the intercom. Diego took a sharp right into Shattuck Avenue almost driving into another car. The other car hooted loudly in protest but Diego barely even blinked.
Nic envied the other man’s calm. But then again, Diego wasn’t the one about to lose the woman he loved. If this was a race and Nic’s pulse and the van were competing, his pulse would win.
“Damn it!” Jan suddenly cussed. “Lost them.”
Tapping down on his instinctual panic, Nic coolly asked, “Where did you lose them?”
“Traffic cams on Hearst.”
“Okay.” Nic dialed a number on his phone. The phone was picked up on its first ring and he asked, “How are we doing on Joe’s GPS?”
Park said, “OPD just authorized a check. Give me second.”
Nic appreciated that the older man hadn’t railed at them for not informing him of their mission, and for dragging him out of bed in the middle of the night to help. But then again he was the one who’d said that Joe and Duncan were clean enough to guard Cece. Nic figured they were square.
Two minutes later Park called. “All right. They seem to have ducked into an alleyway off of Hearst. Joe’s squad car is parked there. You’re about a hundred feet from them.”
“Suit up,” Nic ordered the other operatives in the van.
I’m going to die.
Melanie had never been so certain of anything in her life as of that fact. She was going to die. She could smell her death in the air, smell it in the lingering stench of Lewis’s blood. Despite their having cleared the room of his body, the large space still of reeked of death and violence. And from the sadistic glee in Vance’s eyes and smile, it was obvious it wasn’t over.
She was next.
Vance smiled as he dragged the coffee table closer to the couch.. His knees brushed hers when he sat down on the edge of the table and she quickly snapped her legs shut to avoid contact. Vance’s grin widened as he bracketed both her legs in between his sizeable thighs.
For a while he just stared at her with that eerie smile plastered on his face The charged silence was as nerve-wracking as his stare and the smile. A cold shiver of fear raced down Melanie’s spine and her shoulders trembled, but she kept her face impassive and her gaze steely. She was not going show Vance how scared he made her.
He smiled as he turned his eyes from her to a cigar box on the table’s glass top. He flicked its top upwards, but instead of Cubans, revealed slim brown perfectly rolled joints laid out neatly in its wooden interiors.
“I don’t blame you.” Vance picked up a joint from the box. His tone was almost bored as he added, “This is my fault.”
The moment he placed the joint in lips, his man, the one he’d called Trigger, rushed forward with a lighter. A flame flared from the silver lighter to scorch the end of the joint, and released a potent skunk-like smell.
“I should’a known your trifling ass was gon’ try some slick shit like this.” Vance took a lengthy pull of the joint then released a cloud of smoke into Melanie’s face.
Melanie coughed several times as the smoke seared a painful path straight to her lungs. Vance watched her with a vacant expression. When she was done, he said, “While I’m walking around blind you out there snitching and making deals with the Feds?”
What? Melanie’s eyes widened in shock. What Feds?
Misinterpreting her shock, Vance laughed. “Yeah, you thought I didn’t know didn’t you? See y’all thought I was stupid, but I ain’t.” He tapped the two fingers that held the smoking joint against his temple. “I’m a smart man. I knew something wasn’t right when your brother ran and there was nothing on the evening news. Nobody out there looking for him. Why d’you have to do me dirty like that, Melaaanie? I thought we was family?”
He took another slow drag of his joint as his glittered darkly at her. He puffed the smoke into her face then took another slow drag in. The silence like the smoke was cloying. Maybe he was waiting for her to answer his questions. But was there to say? That she hadn’t gone to the Feds? The only thing that would accomplish was bring Nic into this. And she wasn’t doing that.
If she was going out, she was doing it alone. She lowered her eyes to her closed fists on her lap.
“You couldn’t just shut up and take your licks like all these other smart folks. You had to be a dumb bitch and run your mouth.” Vance shook his head as if disappointed. “What’d I tell you about fucking with me, Melaaanie?”
She stared at him in silence.
It wasn’t for long. Vance suddenly leaned forward and pressed the butt of his joint to her forehead. Melanie hissed in pain as she reared backwards. Vance grabbed her chin and pulled her back toward him.
His fingers clawing into her jaw and his rancid breath burning her face, he said, “What’d I tell you about fucking with me?”
Her voice was surprisingly steady when she snapped, “If you’re going to kill me, kill me.”
Vance stared at her with eyes that bespoke hatred, his fingers squeezing and squeezing… his hold suddenly eased up and he laughed. “I should’a recruited you instead of your bitch ass brother. You’re strong, Melaaanie. You loyal. You and I, we could’ve run the world. It’s a shame I gotta take you out.”
Was that an opening? Quickly thinking on her feet, Melanie smiled at him. Her voice seductively husky, she said, “We can still run the world together.”
This time Vance’s laughter was even more raucous. The irritating sound vibrated all around the
room, a startling contrast to the serious expressions of everyone else in the room.
Then just like that, the laughter ended and Vance’s face hardened. “Nice try but too late. You only got two choices now.” He turned away from her and towards Iona. “Phone.”
Iona reached into her bag, extracted a phone and lifted slightly for her seat to hand it to Vance. Vance set the phone on Melanie’s lap then reached behind him to get his gun.
“You gon’ die anyway but I’ma let you choose how fast you want it to happen.” His finger on the trigger, he tapped the gun on his thigh. “Quick or real, real slow.”
Melanie’s heart began to hammer at his words.
“If you want quick, it’s really easy.” He smiled and gestured toward the phone. “Call your brother and tell him to come get his bullet too.”
Melanie shouted, “No.” She repeated, “No, I won’t let you get Marcus.”
Ignoring her burst of temper, Vance continued, “You do that and I’ll put you to sleep quick. It will be over so fast, you not even gon’ feel the pain and you’ll be with your mama like this.” He snapped his finger. “But if you choose not to call him…” His grin widened. “Then I’ma really enjoy that shit; cut your fingers off one by one…”
He moved his gun to her fingers. She wanted to move them away but fear had frozen her. Vance traced the barrel of the gun over each finger lovingly then traced it up her arms. “I might skin you alive just to see if you still black underneath it.”
Melanie’s mind whirred with the imagery in his words and her nerves screamed with fear but she stared at Vance wordlessly.
His gun traced a path around her neck. “I might slit your pretty little throat to see if your blood is red underneath. Not too deep though.” His gun moved suddenly down her body and he pressed it to her groin. His teeth glittered with his wide cruel smile. “I don’t want to kill you before I’ve split your shit up real good. Do it all so slow you’ll be screaming for your daddy to come save you, but you know me. Screaming only makes me harder. When I’m done with you, I’ll look for your brother.”
Melanie started at that statement.
“Oh, you think the Feds got his back?” Vance chuckled. “I already got people in the local PD.” He gestured towards Joe. “I bet I can make me some friends with the Feds too. I’ll find your brother and I’ma give him the same slow, nice Vance treatment. So what you say, Melaaanie?”
He pressed the barrel of his gun to her temple. “You want this quick pop…” Melanie jerked at the sudden movement of his gun. “… or you want the Vance treatment?”
Though his question was delivered in a mellow tone, everything about him said he wasn’t bluffing. He would do everything he’d described. Melanie tightened painfully as her body protested her impending torture, begging her to choose fast.
Nic wouldn’t let Marcus come here anyway, and even if Marcus came he might still get away. So why not call him and make her death easier? But the other part of her, the one that always protected Marcus calculated the risk and decided it wasn’t worth it.
She straightened her shoulders and looked Vance dead in the eye. “Slow.”
Her pronouncement floated softly in the space between them. His eyes flashed with anger. But it quickly flickered out replaced with that vacant stare that was even more scary.
“Bad choice, Melaaanie. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Bad choice.” Vance clucked as he stood up. He pushed the coffee table with his heel sending it skidding backwards with a loud screech. “All right, it’s your funeral.”
She didn’t even see the hit coming.
One moment she was seated on the couch staring up at him the next his gun was smashing into mouth. The force of the gun knocked a tooth loose and sent her careening sideways onto the couch.
Pain. Excruciating pain!
It journeyed from her face through all her nerve endings and to the rest of her body. Vance didn’t wait for Melanie to recover. He lifted her up by the throat and slammed her to the floor. His foot connected with her body. Melanie curled up in fetal position to minimize the impact but the pain was just as agonizing. It pricked her body relentlessly with each of Vance’s punishing kicks.
She began to wish she was already dead.
Except for the squad car still flashing its red and blue lights, the alleyway was deserted and silent. The van cruised silently to stop in front of its mouth preventing any exits. With quick, efficient and soundless movements, Nic directed his team into the alleyway. Crouched low and guns leveled, they crept towards Joe’s car.
Nic’s senses were on high alert, attuned to catch even the slightest movement from the car, as he crept closer. But there was no movement. Not even when they drew so close anyone in there would’ve seen them in the side mirror.
He soon realized why.
The car was empty.
“Fuck,” he cussed as he rounded the trunk of the car and yanked open the back door. There was no one in there too.
“They’re not here,” Brett summarized the obvious which only made Nic want to throw something at a wall.
Where was Melanie? Think, he urged his emotion from anger and fear into cold, military-like strategy as he stared at the empty backseat. How do I find her?
“They must’ve changed cars,” Diego said. His eyes on Nic, he asked, “What are you thinking?”
Nic didn’t answer. Though his face remained expressionless, his mind was sifting through data at the speed of light. He narrowed his eyes as a sudden thought struck him. His actions slow, calm and detached, he dialed Park. “They have phones.”
“Sure,” Park responded. “Who doesn’t? But if you’re thinking we can track the burner phones they’re using to talk to Vance with then it’s going to take time. And they might’ve dumped them already.”
“Not the burner phones, their personal phones.” Nic gestured for his team to follow him out of the alleyway as he clarified, “One of them might’ve forgotten to turn his personal phone off. We can trace its signal to his current location. Can we get their personal numbers?”
Park started, “Give me a few min-”
“Got Lewis’s number and it’s active,” Jan interrupted.
“Good work,” Nic complimented. “Location?”
Nic and his team filed back into the van as Jan rattled out their new destination. Nic prayed that this time, it wouldn’t be a decoy.
And that they weren’t too late.
CHAPTER 23
It was as if Melanie was outside her body, watching herself being beaten from afar. But every time Vance’s foot connected with her body, the pain roughly yanked her back into her body in time to meet the next agonizing strike.
“Aah,” she whimpered and clutched her stomach when his flying foot caught her there. The copper tang of her own blood filled her mouth.
“You fucked with the wrong nigga,” he growled as he yanked her to her feet by both arms. His burly fingers were like claws digging painfully into her already sore limbs. His hot, foul breath washed over her face as he said, “Don’t nobody fuck me over and get away with it.”
He abruptly released her. With a small whimper, Melanie doubled over and folded an arm over her stomach. She reached for the couch’s arm to keep from falling to her face. A drop of blood dribbled from her mouth to the floor forming a tiny puddle on the wood.
“My face is up here,” Vance taunted. She drew her gaze upwards to give him the most venomous glare she could summon. He laughed. “So you mean mugging me now. What? You think you bad?”
He took a step forward. She limped backwards. He laughed and took another step. For every step she limped back, he took another forward. In the corner of her eye she could see the other occupants in the room watching their dance with amusement. Iona even giggled. But Melanie was more concerned with the predator stalking her. She stumbled backwards, he followed. Another, he mimicked her until finally her back touched the wall. There was nowhere else to go.
Amusement glittering in his eyes, Vance observed he
r broken body then the stubborn set of her mouth and the determined glint in her eyes. He chuckled. “Okay, I’ma give you a chance to prove you bad. Let’s play a little game a friend of mine taught me.”
He stepped backwards and spread out his arms. “Anywhere. You can try to hit me anywhere. If you get a hit in, I’ma let you go. You can walk out that door. No one’s gon’ stop you. Not Trigga. Not Joe. Not Iona.” He pointed to each one of the other people who in the room. “Not me. But if you can’t…” He shrugged. “Night, night.”
Suspicious of his sudden generosity, Melanie just glared at him.
He took a step back. “What you waiting for?” he taunted. “Hit me.”
She knew he was toying with her, prolonging her agony. But if there was even a smidgeon of a chance that his offer was genuine and hitting him would give her a second lease at life, then she was taking it. Ignoring the pain in her body, she straightened to her full height, cocked her arm and threw a punch.
He blocked the hit easily, as he did with her next and her next and her next. Her efforts were useless against his but she refused to give up. If she was going to die, she preferred to go down swinging. She kept trying,
He caught the next punch too and twisted her arm behind her back. When she swung with her other arm, he pushed her back so hard, the back of her head slammed hard against the walls, shooting blinding white pain through her skull.
“You need to try harder, Melaanie,” Vance taunted. “Trust me you don’t wanna die. Because when you’re dead, I’ma pay a little visit to your brother and body him good along with that son of his. Better yet, I might raise the little fucker as mine so when it grows up, it can be a Runner too. How you like the sound of that? What you think? You think-”
Mad anger coursing in her blood, she threw another punch all her force being it. This time it caught him.
Right in the jaw.
Its force reverberated through her arm sending shards of pain through her body. But despite the resultant pain, it was irrefutable – she’d hit him. She was free. Vance looked surprised that she’d connected. He touched his palm to his jaw, worked his jaw to and fro as he glared at her. Victory and euphoria bloomed in her and despite herself, Melanie smiled. She was free.