I stood there in the hallway, shivering, the phone gripped tightly in my fingers as I stared at the dried blood across the floor.
Tears spilled from my eyes.
I would have given them every penny of what they asked for, every penny I owned if it would guarantee Sylvia back to me, alive and well.
But I wasn't nearly as rich as they thought I was. I'd spent through my fortunes, working off the debts from my years of excess, and I didn't think I could get anywhere close to that much money in three days' time, even if I liquefied every single asset I possessed to get her back.
They wouldn't settle for less.
But then again, neither would I.
I saw those dark brown eyes, staring at me from an unfathomable distance. Afraid. Confused. Alone.
I swore on my life in that moment that I would make this right. I would rescue her before they could lay another finger on her, even if I had to die trying.
Although if I did die trying, I thought grimly, that didn't mean they wouldn't still lay their hands on her anyway.
I knew from experience that that had never been the way the Red Death Syndicate operated...
7
Sylvia
“That isn't her.”
“What?! What do you mean it isn't her?”
“Use your fucking eyeballs! It isn't the right girl!”
“It looks like her to me...”
“Yeah, because you spend so much time around women!”
“Hey, fuck off!”
“Look, I'm telling you it ain't her. We fucked up, and Montana ain't gonna be happy about it...”
“We fucked up? You're the one who grabbed her! Besides, the bitch broke my fucking nose! It better be her or I am going to be seriously pissed off...”
“Oh, boo hoo... You can't get any worse than you were already.”
“Hey, fuck you!”
I was slowly coming out of it. My body felt like it had that night at the Richards' house, cracked open like an egg, yolk oozing slowly down along the front of my body in drippy yellow rivulets. The room was spinning around me, and I could vaguely make out the shape of men. How many I couldn't tell, because their numbers seemed to double and triple every other second. One of them, or six, was holding up a middle finger to the other– the one whose nose I'd broken with the football trophy, I surmised, and who I'd left out cold on the floor in the hallway.
I grunted, shutting my eyes again, hoping this might settle the world back into some semblance of focus. I shook my head, and then pulled forward. My hands were tied behind my back, and I was secured tightly to a chair in the center of the room. A bright yellow light shone down on me from overhead, a naked bulb casting shadows all around the room.
It was cold. Very cold. I still had on nothing but underwear and Luc's overlarge t-shirt, and I felt my body shivering around me. I wondered if I'd been doing it ever since I'd been asleep.
I lifted my head up, trying to see straight again.
“Hey, I think she's waking up...”
“You up, bitch?!”
“For fuck's sake, O'Leary!”
“What! This little whore could have given me a concussion! And if we did all that just to end up with the wrong chick...”
“It can't be any worse than when your mom dropped you on your fucking head as a baby. I say that did a hell of lot more damage than this broad ever did.”
“Damn it, Stevens, whose side are you on?!”
They weren't wearing masks as they'd done during the kidnapping. The scrawnier of the two men was the one whose nose I'd broken, and who kept insulting me. He struck me as having something of a temper, and being high strung in general from the looks of him. He had greased back blond hair and sort of bug eyes, whereas his partner was huge and hulking, more laid back, but no less menacing with his jet black hair and black, soulless eyes.
“Where am I?” I dared to ask, and the two of them suddenly became silent. “What did you do to me?”
“Nothing yet,” snarled O'Leary, the scrawny one. “We promised our boss we wouldn't lay a hand on you until he's decided what we're gonna do with you. But I swear to Christ, the moment he gives the go-ahead...”
O'Leary's massive eyes narrowed. There was a glint of silver and I gasped. I leaned so far back in my chair that I thought I might tip it over, and O'Leary came in close with the switchblade, bringing it right up to my face, just below my left eye, streaming with tears, and up against my cheek.
“You've heard of an eye for an eye?” he hissed. “Well... The same principle applies in our situation, don't you think?”
He drew the blade down, pressing the tip against my nose just enough to draw a single, small drop of blood.
“Please... Please... I'm sorry,” I wheezed. “I don't understand! I don't understand what's happening!”
“I bet you're sorry,” O’Leary whispered, his breath rancid as it drifted into my nostril. “And I'd love to make you even sorrier...”
All at once the door to the ram burst open, slamming against the cinderblock wall.
“O’Leary! That'll be enough of that! Christ, Stevens, can't you control that little shit stain?”
The man wore a suit, and waddled like a penguin when he walked. His eyes were gray and distant, his hair a graying black and slicked back like O’Leary’s, his aging face pockmarked with acne scars. “Greasy” was the one word that came to mind when I looked at him, though it was abundantly clear that he aspired to pull off something like an air of refinement judging by the suit and gold watch he wore.
“Aw, he's mostly harmless,” Stevens dismissed. “He's like a cat is all, playing with his food before he eats it. And she did break his nose, after all...”
“She's no good to us chopped up before we get the money,” the third man smiled.
“Bitch might not be no good to us at all,” barked O’Leary.
“What?! Why?” snapped the boss, looking panicked.
“We think we might have gotten the wrong woman,” said Stevens.
“What?! For Christ's sake! How could this have happened?!”
“We snuck in during the party, just like you asked us to,” said O’Leary. “Kept our distance, hung out in an empty room until the place cleared out.”
“We hid out until we saw her coming out of her room, late at night” continued Stevens. “We wanted to make sure Stalworth was completely out of it before we made a move, so he wouldn't wake up and try to stop us. She was the only other person in the entire place that we saw, and we grabbed her the first chance that we got. We didn't realize our mistake until we already had her here, and got her under the light.”
The boss snarled, and shoved his goons out of the way, leaning in to get a closer look at me.
“What the– who the fuck is this?! She doesn't look anything like Stalworth's sister!”
His cratered moon face drew uncomfortably close to mine, and I didn't appreciate the smell of him any more than that of O’Leary’s awful breath.
“We aren't sure yet,” said Stevens, “she just now woke up from the ether. Might just be some random hookup. He is the Superbowl champion of the world, after all. I don't imagine he has any trouble getting dates...”
The boss's clear gray eyes narrowed in on me, considering me. They all were speaking of me as though I wasn't right there in front of them, as though I couldn't hear what they were saying or add to the conversation. I came within a hair's breadth of wanting to speak up, of wanting to clarify the matter for them, but the words caught in my throat before I could breathe a single syllable. O’Leary still had his switchblade out, and I didn't dare see what he might actually do with it when given the opportunity.
“Is Stalworth seeing anybody regularly?” the boss asked his men, though still staring at me, studying me.
“Not that we know of,” said Stevens. “Nothing public, anyway.”
The man breathed in, then exhaled slowly, his breath causing my eyelids to flutter.
“My name,” he said sl
owly, directly addressing me for the first time, “Is Montana Holder. Now it's your turn. Who the fuck are you?”
My lip quivered. I found myself at a loss to answer this very basic question. What should I say? How the hell was I going to get out of this? If I said I was his girlfriend, would that bode better for me than if I said I was just some random floozy who'd been in his bed that night? I could easily see that they had no plans of letting me walk no matter who I was. They would either use me as leverage against Luc as they'd plainly been attempting to do with his sister, or they would slit my throat and dump my body in the river, if they didn't think they could get any use out of me.
But who the hell were these people? Just some freaked out mob psychopaths?
Whoever they were, I knew I had to answer. I couldn't delay. And I was sure they would know if I was lying. Or at least, Montana Holder would know. That much I could see in those unfathomable gray eyes.
“I'm... I'm, uh... Sylvia. Sylvia Cole,” I said, doing my damnedest to steady my breathing. “I've Vanessa's best friend, since high school. And I guess... Luc and I, we're– we're dating now...”
A lurid sneer spread itself across Montana's cracked lips. O’Leary, behind him, cackled with laughter, and I could see that even the more reserved Stevens was smiling, however slightly, at this information.
“Ooh, naughty naughty!” laughed O’Leary. “The great Luc Stalworth is porkin' it to his little sister's best friend now!”
“Enough O’Leary,” said Montana, though he was still smiling. “Well, now. It appears that your blunder isn't quite the unmitigated disaster it initially seemed. I have a feeling that Stalworth will be only to eager to see his little girlfriend again, and the attachment to the sister is far from bad news, either...”
“Please,” I said, tears still streaming from my eyes. “Please, don't hurt me! I'm begging you!”
Montana clicked his tongue sarcastically, furrowing his brow. He drew a hand up to the side of my face and caressed my cheek, a feigned tenderness that made me want to lash out and bite off the tip of his finger.
“Oh, poor baby... Don't worry... I don't want to hurt you either.”
“Speak for yourself!” O’Leary shouted, but Montana ignored him.
“As long as your darling champion makes good on his end of the deal, I should like to think that that won't be necessary. That no harm will come to you. Just pray that he does. Because I'm afraid I cannot guarantee what might happen if he fails to live up to his obligations. If that's the case, my hand might be forced. And I might just have to let O’Leary here unleash some of his pent up rage.”
O’Leary scowled and laughed.
“No!” I said. “Please, please, I beg you!”
“Sniveling won't help, I'm afraid,” said Montana, turning from me, and heading for the door. “Although you're free to continue if you like. We've given your boyfriend three days' time to bring us what we've asked of him. And until then you will be looked after with the utmost care. After seventy-two hours, however? Well... I make no guarantees...”
And with that Montana disappeared into the hallway, followed after by his men, and the door shut behind him.
I was alone in this cold, cinderblock room, out of my mind with terror. Wondering how the hell Luc was connected to these monsters, what they wanted from him– and whether he truly loved me enough to give them what they wanted...
8
Luc
“I'm out.”
“Excuse me? What do you mean, you're out?!”
“I mean I'm out. Here.”
I threw the money on his desk. Two canvas bags stuffed full of cash, like something out of an old Looney Tunes cartoon. All that was missing were two large green dollar signs stitched onto the bags.
His gray eyes narrowed at the bags, as though penetrating their surfaces to inspect the money inside. I stood there watching him, hands clenched into fists, doing my best to conceal the very real anxiety I was experiencing. Two of his guards stood behind me, guns at the ready. They'd forbade me from bursting into their boss's office as I'd done, and only a wave of Montana's ringed hand, halting them for the moment, was responsible for my still being alive at that moment.
“I'm cashing out,” I reiterated. “Paying off my debts, in full. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm not doing this anymore.”
His gray eyes pivoted dubiously up to me. He glared back down at the bags, again appearing as though he could see straight through the fabric, and count every single bill contained within. It was the full amount that I owed him, and I was sure that he knew that. I'd had to take out a predatory loan from some dudes who were almost as bastardly as he was, but for whom there was no contingency of gang membership in exchange for their services.
I was sure that this wasn't going to fly with him. Sure that it was too easy a way out, and that he might even take it as an insult for me to suppose that I might somehow get away with it. But I didn't care anymore. I was done with his shit. I was cashing out now, before things got any worse than they already were.
It was time to turn my life around. Time to turn over a new leaf, and be the man I presented myself to be to the rest of the world. Not the one lurking in shadows, getting in bed with mobsters in order to score a few cheap thrills.
“You'll forgive me,” said Montana, eyes flitting back to me at length, “but I'm confused... You were well aware, were you not, that upon your initiation into the Red Death Syndicate, you would henceforth be committed for life? A permanent member, I believe the line in our pledge reads... Was there something about that that wasn't entirely clear to you?”
“What's clear to me is that you people are monsters,” I said, very nearly forgetting about the men standing behind me with guns pointed at my back.
Montana actually laughed, a cold, cruel cackle that made my blood grow hot. I had to stop myself from leaping across the desk and knocking the fucking gold tooth out of his head, not to mention ending my own life in the process.
“Well what the hell did you think we were?” he asked, sneering. “We're the Red Death Syndicate, not the Red Hatter Society... I'm ever so sorry if we failed to live up to your charitable expectations for how an organization such as ours should be.”
“You killed people,” I snarled at him. “Women! Children!”
“It wasn't personal,” he said with a shrug. “A business dispute, no more, no less. And it's all been paved over now, anyway. It's tragic, of course, I don't deny that. But there have always been casualties in war, since time immemorial. And I assure you, the families affected will be well compensated for their losses.”
“Well comp– what the fuck are you talking about?!” I snarled at him, and moved threateningly toward him. I heard the guns of the men being cocked, aimed at the ready to fire on their boss's command. Again he raised a hand, stopping them in their tracks.
“You're insane, Holder! Insane!” I shouted at him.
“I am a businessman,” he said smoothly, unconcernedly. “I am the American Dream... I started from nothing, and now I have everything. What they don't ever tell you is that you can't always keep your hands clean while getting from point A to point B. In fact you seldom do. Your hands aren't so clean either, Stalworth. You're as responsible for the flow of their blood as I am. You understood this the day that you became involved with our organization, and you signed up regardless. How does your distance from the actual crime make you any less culpable, when your own vast fortunes helped pay for our bullets?”
“Don't pin your shit on me,” I said, stabbing a finger at him across the desk. “You deserve to burn in hell for what you've done. And if there is a hell, I'm confident you'll end up there sooner or later. Hopefully sooner, for everyone's sake. But not me. I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not going to keep on funding your little campaign of terror. This was never what I wanted, and you goddamn well know it!”
“And yet it's what you paid for,” he said, with chilling evil in his gray eyes. “It's what you signed up for,
regardless of whether or not it was what you wanted. Rarely in life does one get exactly what one wants. Perhaps your trust fund upbringing and your NFL billionaire lifestyle have insulated you from that harsh reality. But it is a fundamental law of nature, nonetheless. It's a dog eat dog world out there, you see. Kill or be killed. And that's exactly what I did. What I've done, to get to where I am today.”
“I play by a different set of rules,” I said, scowling. “I guess I don't have it in me to be that vicious...”
“And yet you remain no less complicit,” he said.
“I don't deny that,” I said, a painful knot forming in my chest at the truth in his words. “That's why I'm finished. I'm quitting this. I'm quitting you, for good. I won't be complicit any more in your monstrosity.”
“And here, again, we arrive at an impasse,” he said, “for let me iterate– no one who enters the brotherhood of the Red Death Syndicate may ever again hope to leave it. At the very least, not with their lives intact...”
“There's a first time for everything,” I said, unrelenting, still staring him squarely in the eyes. “Let me reiterate– I am the exception to your motherfucking rules...”
“There are no exceptions to my rules,” he said, eyes narrowing. “My rule is law...”
“Fuck. Your. Law.” I said, so that there could be no risk whatsoever of his misinterpreting it, willfully or otherwise. “My debts are paid. Those bags contain every last goddamn penny you claim that I owe you, and that's all I'm giving you. And you should be thanking me for that. If I didn't think you'd already bought off every goddamn cop in the city I'd have you arrested for murder the moment I leave your office.”
“I wouldn't allow you to set foot outside of this office if that were even remotely possible,” he said, a trace of sardonic humor flashing into his hateful eyes.
“I know that,” I said. “I'm no fool. As much as I would like to, I'm well aware that there's no way I can take you fuckers down on my own. So I'm cashing out instead, because that's all I can do.”
The Red Zone: Second Chance Sports Romance Page 6