by Danica Avet
“What’s that got to do with us?” I ask without turning around.
I sense him shrugging. Must be nice to go through life without caring about anyone or anything.
“He’s already gunning for Pellegrin. And he knows where he’s gonna be in a few hours. Daddy Dearest won’t even get to see her before he’s grabbed.” He sounds so smug, so satisfied with his plan.
Except… “Wait, how does he know where Nathan’s going to be?” I ask.
Something of my thoughts must’ve leached through, because Terrible’s smile fades. He tensed, flicking a look at Savage and Rien. Took a step back, toward the back door.
“Terrible.”
He stopped, a defiant, devil-may-care gleam in his dark eyes. “I called his loan…officer first. You were my second stop.”
He’s lucky he isn’t dead, but looking at him now, I don’t think he’d care either way. Terrible has to be the most apathetic son of a bitch I’ve ever met and if I didn’t need him, Rien would be helping me bury a body.
“So what exactly are we waiting for?” Savage asks, arms folded across his chest.
“I want to make damn sure this isn’t a set up,” Rien growls, his gaze on Terrible, who ignores all of us. Rien leans closer to me, muttering under his breath. “The hacker could really be working with that waste of a pulse, wanting to get you out in the open to take you out.”
We all watch Terrible, who has his phone to his ear. His expression is bland, but as he continues listening to what’s happening on the other end, the air seems to electrify, causing me to tense. The only thing to betray his emotions was the slow tightening of his mouth and a tic that forms beneath his left eye. His gaze cuts to me, the dark irises seeming to grow black with his impending rage.
Emotion from someone like him wasn’t good. From the little interaction I’ve had with him, I know apathy and a complete disconnect from others is his modus operandi. Yet now…
His nostrils flare and he quickly hangs up the phone, starting for me. “We need to go. Now,” he says tightly, his face beginning to show lines of strain. Or fury.
But none of us need to hear anything else. No explanations are needed. Not with urgency riding us so hard. Rien has the door open before I even reach it, his gun still out, body tense and ready for action.
“Call one of the girls,” I order Savage, who’s on my heels. “Find out where Lena is. Make sure they all stay somewhere public.”
We pile into my Bronco. Well, not all of us. Rien cut across the lawn, heading for the woods where his bike’s parked. If he gets there before us, I trust him to protect my girl. He might not approve of her completely, but he knows how important she is to me. And that’s all that fucking matters.
Terrible throws himself in the backseat while Savage takes shotgun, his cell phone in his hand. I don’t even wait for him to close the door before I have the engine started and the truck thrown into gear. Gravel spins as I tear away from the cottage, getting to Lena my only focus.
The long drive only takes a couple of minutes with the pedal to the metal, which is about when I remember the guard at the entrance of the property. Savage’s on the phone, talking to one of the girls and I try not to listen to his conversation because if I hear anything I don’t like… I’m not sure what I’ll do. But that doesn’t stop me from hearing the stress and anger in his voice, the way his volume increases, as does his swearing.
My hands are sweating on the steering wheel, my knuckles white as the gate comes into view. I’m not slowing though. I can’t. Lena needs me. I don’t know how much damage I’ll do to it, or it’ll do to my truck, and I don’t care as long as my engine still runs.
We’re no more than fifty feet away, engine roaring, dust flying, when the guard steps out. He waves his arm, warning me to slow down, but fuck that. The transmission strains as I try to crank more speed out of it.
Twenty-five feet. The guard’s face goes slack with shock and he freezes as though he doesn’t know what to do. But the one thing he doesn’t do is lift the gate.
Fifteen feet and I growl, “Brace yourselves.”
I hear Savage’s hand slap the dashboard, a muttered curse escaping his lips. But just as we hit full speed, the truck shuddering, the gate suddenly lifts.
“What the fuck?” Savage asks, voice throbbing with something. Probably adrenaline, tension, and a heavy dose of anxiety. None of us had put seatbelts on, which means if we had hit the gate and it held, we’d all have been ejected. My brain supplies those details, which I dismiss as unimportant. “The guard didn’t activate it.”
I barely listen, flying through the checkpoint, slowing only enough to turn onto the highway, the backend fishtailing, tires squealing as they grab asphalt. We start to list right, the top-heavy vehicle not meant to take turns like this, before gravity works in our favor, putting all four tires back on the ground.
Punching the accelerator again, I gun the engine. It’s a straight shot from here to town, no lights until we hit the city limits. Current speed, I should arrive at The Medallion in roughly twenty minutes. Still feels too long, but I can’t travel at warp fucking speed either.
“I opened the gate,” Terrible says absently. A quick glance in the rearview mirror shows he’s studying his phone. “The GPS on Pellegrin’s phone shows he’s near the restaurant.”
“I spoke with Becca,” Savage reports. “Lena’s in the kitchen. She’ll wait for her to go back to the restaurant before telling her what’s going on.”
Not good enough. “Call her back. Tell her to get Lena somewhere safe. Now.”
But then I hear Terrible’s voice. “Red? Yeah, it’s me. Where’s Blondie? Get her around a lot of people no— What?” His voice is tight and hard. Our gazes meet in the rearview mirror and my heart pounds. “Get to her right fucking now, babe. Her stepdad’s gonna grab her.”
He ends the call and immediately dials the phone again.
“It’s Limbo. Pellegrin’s moved up the timetable to now. Yeah. We’re on our way. The girl’s best friends with your niece. Yeah, I know I should’ve said something— Yes,” he says through gritted teeth. “Fine. Just get there or you’ll lose Pellegrin.”
“You’re a fucking asshole,” Savage mutters to Terrible under his breath. “Swear to god, if she gets hurt… We’re gonna take our time killing you, man.”
“You can’t kill a dead man,” came Terrible’s cool reply.
Lena
I feel completely detached from my body, my brain in such shock, it’s as though I’m watching everything from afar. Except, weirdly enough, my senses feel enhanced. For such a small, deadly weapon, it’s as though I can see the bullet loaded in the gun through the barrel, despite at least twenty feet separating me from Nathan who also looks as though he was on the wrong side of a beating. I hear Mom right behind me, sniveling and crying, blubbering about her drugs. The scent of the dumpster several yards away mingles with the smell of motor oil and cooking food from the restaurant.
All of that’s crystal clear, but still nothing makes sense. “What… What are you doing?” I ask Nathan because, despite being so terrified I feel as though my bladder’s about to burst, that detachment won’t release me from its stranglehold.
My voice sounds strangely calm too, which seems to freak my stepfather out, making him tense until he’s practically vibrating with rage. “What am I doing?” he spits at me. “I’m getting back the fucking money I lost because you and your fucking friends messed with things that don’t concern you.”
I lick my lips, something telling me I need to keep him talking, buy some time. For what, I don’t know. Then I remember I told Patti to get my friends. Oh God. Now that weird detachment is gone, shredded to pieces by fear for the others. My heart thunders and a fine tremor travels up my legs, but whether that’s from my crouching position or fear, I don’t know. And it doesn’t matter. All I can see is Becca, Nessie, and Jolene racing headfirst into danger. I can’t get them killed or hurt. Not because of me. This is why I need
Nathan calm.
Wishing I’d been able to hold onto my own composure, which is rapidly fading, I say, “You were blackmailing us.”
Okay, that was the wrong thing to bring up. The muscles in his arm tighten, his knuckles go white around the grip of the gun. “You lost me the bet,” he growls, a manic light in his eyes. “Four hundred thousand dollars, you stupid bitch! All your boyfriend had to do was lose the fucking game. What would it have cost him? Nothing! A loss to a team that isn’t even in the rankings.” He takes a step forward. “Because of y’all, I owe thirty-five thousand to a very dangerous man.” Another step, coming closer to me. “But I’m gonna pay him off. You’ll finally be of some fucking use to me.”
Movement out the corner of my eye tries to draw my gaze that way, but I can’t take my attention off of the gun, and the man holding it, as it edges ever closer. “W-What do you mean?”
Mom’s still sniffling, moaning about needing a hit, but Nathan and I ignore her, engaged in a showdown that I’m scared is going to end with me dead.
His smile is ugly, his eyes glittering with wild glee. “You’re gonna be takin’ a trip soon, Lena. Where will you end up, I wonder? In South America? Working in a whorehouse? Maybe in some bumfuck Russian state with a fat fucker who’ll teach you manners?” He laughs harshly when my eyes widen. “You and that pussy of yours’ll get me even with Johnny T and even leave a little left over to live on for a while. If I had known how valuable bitches like you were, I might’ve sold you before that football player could pop your cherry.”
I’m going to throw up. What he’s talking about with so much sick excitement is beyond my realm of experience, what I thought could ever happen to someone like me. No, I’m not special by any means, but then again, maybe that’s what human traffickers wanted? Someone who wouldn’t be missed? Someone whose own mother didn’t care about them? But that isn’t me anymore. I have friends, a family I’ve formed without the aid of shared DNA.
“My friends will know,” I say with conviction, not that words will help me now.
“With the money I’ll get from you, it won’t fucking matter who knows what. There’s lots of places you can hide if you know the right people and have enough money,” he says confidently.
“Nathan, baby,” Mom suddenly cuts in, shuffling closer to me. “I need it. Please? You said I could have it if I came here.”
This time there’s no way I can hold back the bile rising in my throat as her words pierced through my tattered armor. Leaning over, I empty my stomach. She… My own mother had come here to lure me outside, to get me where Nathan could grab me, then sell me. I’ve never felt such betrayal before, the sensation like a dagger ripping right through my chest to leave an open wound that bled all over the cracked asphalt.
I start to sob, trying to understand why she’d do this.
Nathan lets out an impatient sigh, drawing my attention again. I watch through tears as he digs something out of his pocket. It’s a little bag.
“Here,” he mutters, tossing it at Mom, who catches it with more dexterity than I would’ve expected. “Fucking greedy bitch.” But she isn’t listening, isn’t even in this world anymore as she opens the bag and immediately starts digging through the purse slung over her chest. “I should get rid of you too, but those bastards wouldn’t want you,” he says in disgust.
“Anyway,” he continues, taking another step forward. “It’s time for us to go, Lena. If you’re a good girl and just get up, get in the car and do what I say, you won’t get hurt. Much.” He smiles. “But if you fight me, I’ll shoot you. They won’t like it, they might even give me less for you, but I’ll still do what I fucking want.” He gestures to me with the gun, the barrel no less than ten feet from me. “Now get up.”
Numb with terror, with residual betrayal, I push upright. I stumble, pins and needles pricking my legs from the knees down from my crouched position. I put my hand on the fender of my car to keep from falling. Mom doesn’t even look up, her focus on the things she’d pulled from her purse. A glance shows me, it’s stuff I really don’t want to see.
“Now, you’re gonna get in the trunk of the car,” he says with an incline of his head. “And we’re going to meet your new owners.”
Looking past him, I see Mom’s old Buick parked next to the building. So he’d driven her here. It really had been a plan they cooked up together. I want to scream at her, hurt her the way she’s hurting me now, but she has no care for anything but the drugs she’s preparing to shoot into her veins. Right here in the parking lot. Her desperation for a high greater than any maternal instinct, or sense of self-preservation.
Nathan growls impatiently. “Opal, get your ass up and help me get her to the car. You can shoot up on the way to the meet. Then we’ll have so much cash you can bathe in that shit if you want.”
Her shoulders slump and she goes still. For a moment, I think she’s about to protest what’s happening. I’m actually hopeful she will, but she quietly repacks the paraphernalia in her purse, securing the baggie of drugs in a compartment she caresses. Then she stands, her face hard in a way I’ve never seen before, and I know she isn’t going to help me.
I’m on my own.
“Now c’mon, let’s go,” he says to me.
Movement again next to the building. But this time, since Nathan wants me to look that way, I easily recognize Becca’s dark hair popping around the corner before disappearing again. My eyes widen in horror. I’m not alone, but I suddenly wish I was.
No. No, no, no.
They’re going to get themselves killed. I’m going to get them killed. Becca has no fear. Nessie and Jolene are feisty and protective. They’ll do something crazy like jump him even though he has a gun. My heart pounds, hard and fast, my brain racing, millions of thoughts per second, but I can’t think of any way to keep them from getting hurt.
“Move,” Nathan orders, directing me the way he wants me to go with the gun. My heart jumps in my throat. “Start walking. Now.”
I can’t do it. If I go to the car, they’ll do something stupid crazy and they’ll get hurt. I shake my head, unable to make my mouth work, to deny his order, to shout at my friends not to do something stupid. I can’t speak. I’m not even sure I could move despite the gun trained on me. Terror holds me immobile.
Nathan’s lips tighten. The gun dips from my face to my legs. “I’ll shoot your fucking kneecap and drag you there,” he says in a voice humming with menace.
I open my mouth, not sure what I plan to say, but I know getting in that trunk with my friends nearby is going to get one, if not all of us, killed. Nathan isn’t thinking about anything except money and revenge. I see it in his eyes. He’d love to shoot me dead for losing him a fortune. And I know he wouldn’t think twice about shooting the others either. Whoever stands in his way is his enemy and we’d screwed things up for him.
“Fine,” he snarls.
Several things happen at once, so quickly that I’m not sure what happens first, second, or third. All I know is I hear pounding footsteps and a roar. Someone screams. And the gun goes off. Anders appears out of nowhere, tackling Nathan from the side like one of those tackling dummies I’ve seen on the Spartans’ practice field. Mom is somehow in front of me and then she’s falling into me, knocking me back several steps. I automatically catch her under her arms just as something hot scores my skin, causing pain to flare.
Then there’s absolute chaos, people everywhere. My friends, including Savage and Rien are there, as well as Ivan. There are also people I don’t recognize, men with grim, cold expressions, each of them wearing nice, casual clothes and carrying guns they hold on the tangled bodies of Nathan and Anders.
Mom slumps in my hold. Looking down, I see blood. Lots of blood and I scream.
“Put her down,” Jolene orders, coming to stand next to me, her face pale, her blue eyes wide and scared. But her voice is calm. She gives me a small, tight smile. “Put her down, Lena. We need to put pressure on the wound.”
Wound? Yes, Mom’s hurt. I nod and gently ease her to the ground, my attention darting between her and Anders, who’s pummeling Nathan into the asphalt. My stepfather isn’t putting up a fight, he isn’t even making a sound as Anders seems determined to kill him.
Becca tackles me, nearly knocking me on my butt as Jolene starts tearing off pieces of Mom’s shirt to make a bandage. Looking around Becca’s profusion of dark hair, I see a hole in Mom’s hip before Jolene covers it. Blood immediately begins seeping through the material as she pushes hard on it.
“We need an ambulance,” she shouts to no one in particular.
Savage is with us, his phone already in his hand.
“You crazy bitch,” Becca’s babbling in my ear, tears of worry and fear soaking my neck. “You should’ve got us before you went to see her!”
“Becca, let her breathe,” Nessie says softly, her arms coming around both of us in a gentle hug. “She’s hurt. We need to check her out.”
I am? Now that she mentions it, my leg kind of does hurt.
I blink and Anders is in front of me, somehow traveling the distance between us faster than I can see. Or maybe my brain is having a hard time making all the pieces fit. Or, you know, maybe it’s because when I look down at my leg, I see blood trailing down my calf. My blood. Mom’s blood.
A weird buzzing fills my head as I tear my gaze from my leg to Anders, whose mouth is moving, but no sound is coming out. I blink again and tell him, “I don’t feel so well.”
Anders
I manage to catch Lena before she bangs her head on ground, easing her down gently. I hear Jolene barking out orders next to us as she keeps pressure on Lena’s mom’s gunshot wound, hear the distant wail of sirens as the ambulance and police head our way, but all I see is Lena. Becca and Nessie are following Jolene’s directions to put pressure on Lena’s wound.
She’s out cold, her face pale and her features completely slack. Tears burn my eyes. I’d come so fucking close to losing her, in more ways than one. I’d wanted to tear into the parking lot, run right over Nathan as soon as Nessie called Terrible to let him know what was going on. But I couldn’t risk him shooting her and killing her.