by Callie Hart
I slip the contents of the small black box into my back pocket, frowning. “Of course.”
Michael looks dubious. He keeps his thoughts on the matter to himself, though. A wise move. I’m walking a fine line here. I’m barely holding onto my rage as it is. “Mason and I will look for Sloane while you deal with Alaska,” Michael says “I won’t bother telling you to play nice, but…”
I slam the trunk closed, staring at him, utterly still.
“Never mind.”
“All right. Let’s move then.”
******
Michael and Mason bust open the door to one of the external service entrances outside the stadium, wishing me luck before vanishing from sight. I walk out onto the field alone, scanning the entrances and exits to the huge, space. She’s picked this place specifically because of the rabbit warren of tunnels and pathways that riddle the structure—an easy place to hide in, should one feel so inclined.
Bitch.
Sloane’s here. I can tell she’s here somewhere, some part of me pulling towards her in the weirdest way. She’d better not be hurt. Julio’s whore had better not have harmed her or the baby in any way. The second I think about the baby, tight bands of steel constrict around my ribcage, making it almost impossible to breathe. I’ve never known fear like this. It’s devastating, to the point where I can’t even fucking see straight.
In the very middle of the field, I stop, spinning around, scanning the seating and the dugouts, searching for the woman brazen enough to fuck with my family. “Alaska!” My shout echoes around the stadium, repeating back to me once, twice, three times before fading into silence. Again, I draw in a deep lungful of air, and I split apart the silence with my rage. “ALASKA!”
I only have to wait a few moments before my eye catches on a bright flash of red, off to the right. Not just red hair. A red dress. Red shoes. She stands at the very top of a narrow stairway, leading up to the nosebleeds. I watch her, refusing to look away from her, as she saunters casually down the steps toward me, taking her time. Where are her men? I’m not stupid enough to believe she’s here on her own. I stand with my hands in my pockets as she walks her way across the field, body swaying in an overtly sexual way as she heads toward me. A small smile sits on her lips, glimmering in her eyes, not an ounce of fear on her. If she’s at all worried about pissing me off, she’s not showing it. To the contrary. She actually looks pleased to see me.
“Well, hello there, stranger,” she purrs. “Been a while.”
“You’ll be wish it was longer soon enough.”
“Oh, come on now, Zeth. No need to be like that. We’re alike, you and I. We both bent over and took it from our masters for so many years. And now, here we are, free of the men who ruled our lives.”
I wonder if she can read my disgust. “You’re the only whore here,” I inform her. “I worked for Charlie, but I was always my own man. I did as I saw fit.”
She laughs, the sound scathing. “Please. He said jump, you asked how high. Don’t pretend it was any other way. You forget how often you came to Julio’s as Charlie’s spymaster. Did you think Julio didn’t realize what you were doing there? You never touched any of his girls. You never touched me.”
“I didn’t touch you because the very sight of you made me gag, Alaska. You reeked of desperation. You fucking reek of it now.”
That annoying little smile on her face slips. “You’d be wise not to talk to me that way,” she warns.
“Or what? You’ll kill Sloane?” She remains silent, a quiet intensity pouring from her. “Where is she?” I demand. “And how the fuck do you think you’re gonna get away with this?”
“Sloane’s safe. She’s being watched over quite closely. It turns out we have a friend in common. Our mutual friend was very happy when they were reunited with your lovely girlfriend. I’ve never seen anyone so excited before. We’ll go down and see them soon. In the meantime, we’ll get down to brass tacks so to speak. You want to know what I’m playing at. You want to know why I took Sloane. Well, here. I’ll tell you. I took her because she stands in my way. The past few months, I’ve taken control of Julio’s territories in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. I’ve spread further east than Julio dared. And now I’m looking to the north. Seattle. San Francisco. These cities will be mine, Zeth, no matter what.”
Seriously? She wants the same thing Roberto wants. What the fuck is wrong with these people? None of them seem to be listening. “I don’t care if you want to claim Seattle,” I say. “I don’t care if you decide to stage a coup and burn the fucking city to the ground. You’ll have to war with the Barbieri for it, but I think you already know that. Go and head fucking kill each other for all I care. Just leave me and mine out of it.”
With infinite slowness, Alaska shakes her head from side to side. “No, Zeth. You don’t understand. I want to be queen of the east coast. But not only that. I want you to be by my side. I want you to be my king. And to do that, Sloane needs to vanish. She can’t be around any more to distract you. She needs to die. That is the only outcome of this situation. Especially since…” She falters, her expression flickering with rage. “Especially since she’s now pregnant with your baby.”
Every second she’s been talking, I’ve been picturing what she’s going to look like when the light fades from her eyes and she passes from this life and into the next. I’ve been imagining how fucking fantastic it’s going to feel as I pin her down and hold her in place as she dies. She’s fucking delusional. At some point since I saw her last, she’s actually gone and misplaced her mind. And now she’s talking about murdering Sloane, along with the baby, so she and I can be together?
“No need to look so troubled,” she says. “I love children. I’m still young. And Julio had to make me get four terminations over the years while I was with him, so I know I’m capable. You can still be a father. Just with me, instead of her.”
I blink at the woman standing opposite me. Can she hear herself? Does she have any idea how fucking insane she sounds? She seems far too mellow and calm right now to truly have a grasp on what’s happening. It’s like she’s medicated up to her eyeballs or something. “I’m going to give you one chance to tell me where she is, Alaska,” I tell her. “And if I find her with more than a hair out of place, I’m going to do far worse than kill you. You’re going to endure a living nightmare of pain and humiliation.”
She cocks her head to one side, her auburn curls shining like red ribbons under the floodlights. “Humiliation? You think I’m even capable of being humiliated anymore? After everything I went through at the compound?” She grimaces, her voice hoarse as she tips her head back and laughs. “I don’t think so. Did you know, Julio let kept me for himself all those years I was trapped out in the desert with him. He was so mad when he had to trade me with that sick Villalobos fuck, so to make himself feel better he allowed each and every one of his boys to take a turn with me before he gave me up. He watched, smoking one of those disgusting fucking cigars, drinking his beer, while one after another his men came and sank their dicks inside me. They spat on me. They came all over me. They pinned me down and squeezed my tits, bit my skin, spanked me, raped me repeatedly over and over again. Julio was a smart guy. By the time it was all over, he didn’t care about me anymore. He thought I was a revolting piece of trash, and he didn’t want to keep me any more. So I think, unfortunately for you, I’m all tapped out on the humiliation front these days.”
If I were a bigger man, I’d feel a tinge of something like pity for Alaska right now. Like all of Julio’s other women, I’m sure she had no choice in being at the compound. She was probably snatched from the street due to her unusual, admittedly beautiful appearance. Julio always did go for redheads. But… Does her suffering make it okay for her to cause suffering to others? No. No fucking way. My mouth is filled with the taste of copper. Blood. I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek.
“Sloane is underground, tied to a bed in the control room that monitors all of the stadium be
lls and whistles,” Alaska continues. “She hasn’t been harmed yet. I wanted you to be here, to see it, to witness it with your own two eyes. That way you’ll never doubt what happened. That she’s gone.”
I’m really fucking struggling to keep my cool here. She’s not making this easy at all. If she thinks for one second I’m going to stand by and watch Sloane be murdered, she has another thing coming. I am ready to fucking die before I allow that to happen. I want to feel the sickening crack of Alaska’s neck breaking beneath my hands. I want to hear the gurgling, choking sound of her suffocating as I cut off her air supply.
Such dark, dark thoughts.
Still, I bare my teeth at her, my hands itching by my sides. “Lead the way then. Let’s get this over with.”
******
Narrow, twisting walkways seem to stretch on forever beneath the stadium. Alaska is strangely trusting, walking ahead of me, not even worrying enough to occasionally look back over her shoulder at me as she navigates a pathway towards our location. If I were her, I’d be guiding me at gunpoint, safely from behind, but she didn’t bat an eyelid when she descended first down the steps into the darkness below. Flickering lights blink and hum angrily overhead.
It takes mere moments for Alaska to halt in her tracks, pointing at a heavy steel door. “Go ahead. Open it,” she says, gesturing to the handle.
I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to find in here, but my skin feels cold and clammy. I hold my breath as I jerk open the door and push it back to reveal…
My head spins.
I look to Alaska, trying to understand what’s going on here. Why Agent Denise Lowell is sitting on top of an unopened beer keg next to a gurney. On the gurney, a stark white sheet is draped over the shape of what appears to be a…a dead body.
My throat is instantly dry.
Lowell’s suddenly smiling, her face alive with happiness. It’s a terrifying sight to behold. “Mr. Mayfair! So glad to see you could make it.” She sounds like a fucking Bond villain. My eyes are fixed and locked on the gurney next to her; I cannot look away. Is it Sloane? I feel gutted from the inside out. It can’t be. It fucking can’t be. The body is…it’s too small. Too short. Too narrow at the shoulders. I take a step forward, and Lowell raises her arm, removing the safety from the gun she’s holding in her hand. “Don’t,” she warns. “I have every fucking right to shoot you in the head right now, you piece of shit. If you so much as take one more step in my direction…”
“What the fuck?” I snarl at Alaska. “Where is she? Where’s Sloane? And why the fuck is she here?”
Alaska saunters past me in the room, sighing. “Denise has been helping me for the last month or so. We’ve become quite good friends, haven’t we, Dee Dee?”
Lowell’s eyes flash with anger. “Don’t call me that.”
“Oops. Sorry.” Alaska pulls a face, cringing. “Still. It’s been kind of fun having a contact at the DEA to help me transition into my position of power. And having someone who can arrange a little misdirection here and there is, let’s face it, very convenient.”
“So you made a deal with the devil in order to avoid being arrested by the cops?”
She taps the end of her nose with her index finger, and then points it at me. “She’s obsessed with you and your girlfriend, this one. Made me promise she’d be the one to kill the girl.”
“I made you promise more than that,” Lowell hisses. “I made you promise I’d get to do it while he watched. And here we are. I’m one very happy girl.”
I refuse to say anything. I won’t engage either of them in this ridiculous game until they show me who is beneath that sheet. I fold my arms across my chest, and I wait. With every second that passes, I lose another small piece of my mind. It can’t be her. It can’t be her. It can’t be her.
“Aren’t you going to scream and shout?” Lowell sneers. “I thought you’d be a little less calm about this whole situation.”
I probably look calm on the outside. Inside, a tempest is raging. When I unleash the storm spinning out of control within me onto these women, they’re going to rue the day they ever heard the name Zeth Mayfair. For now, I merely arch an eyebrow, slowly shaking my head. “We can stand here all night, or you can quit fucking around and host your grand unveiling, bitch. Then we can move on to what comes next.”
Lowell makes a curious hmmming sound. “I wonder what does come next. See…you loved this woman,” she says, placing her hand on the gurney. “Loved her deeply. And I’m betting when you see what we’ve done to her body, you’re going to freak the fuck out just a little bit.”
A wave of nausea rolls over me. I swallow it down, breathing down my nose.
“Are you ready?” Lowell whispers.
I am going to rip her fucking tongue right out of her head before this day is over. I narrow my eyes at her, and she whips back the sheet, a look of sheer delight on her face.
And there, lying on the gurney…
Fuck.
Fucking god, no.
There, lying on the gurney, is my sister.
SEVENTEEN
SLOANE
Clay and Ben are twitchy as all hell. They won’t sit down, won’t stop pacing. Won’t stop checking their shared radio, or their personal cell phones. I know what their restless fidgeting means. It means that Zeth is here. He’s come for me, and they’re not sure how this is all going to go down.
I’ve never placed a bet on anything in my entire life, but I’m willing to bet things are not going to end well for them right now. It’s weird: throughout this entire experience, I’ve been uncomfortable and I’ve been pissed off. I’ve been irritated, and concerned, sure, but I haven’t been afraid. Not really. Maybe that’s complacent of me. I mean, being kidnapped is a scary ordeal where anyone’s concerned. Being held at gunpoint by strangers who want to cause me and the people I love harm is hardly going to be a walk in the park, but…I don’t know. I just haven’t given myself over to the panic and the terror, because a large part of me has known that Zeth is going to come for me.
And when Zeth Mayfair wants something, when someone he cares about is danger, god help any man or woman stupid enough to stand in his way. It’s not healthy to believe he’s invincible. He is a man, flesh and blood, like any other. But he’s also not like any other man on the planet. He’s fierce, and he’s determined, and I trust him more than anything in the world.
“Will you please sit down?” I say quietly. “It’s exhausting me just watching the two of you right now.”
Clay scowls at me. “Do we really look like we give a shit if we’re exhausting you? Huh? Keep running your mouth and I’ll find a way to distract myself. And I promise you won’t like it.”
“Nice. Threatening me with sexual assault. So very gentlemanly of you.”
Clay flips me off and keeps pacing. He sticks the end of his thumb in his mouth, eyeing Ben. “Shouldn’t we have heard something by now? Alaska’s not exactly a weapons expert , is she? It’s not like she could really defend herself against him.”
“She’s fine,” Ben says. “And anyway, Lowell has plenty of training. She could kick all of our asses without breaking a sweat.”
At the mention of Lowell’s name, my vision seesaws. When Alaska brought her in here earlier, I nearly broke both my wrists trying to get to her, to claw her fucking eyes out with my bare hands. Lowell had laughed, amused by my reaction. She seemed thrilled by mu hatred. Even more thrilled when she told me of her plans to kill me.
I try and suppress the angry growl that’s begging to rip free from my throat; it will only piss Ben and Clay off, and it’s better they forget I’m even here right now. God, where is Zeth? What is he doing right now? I shift on the bed, my back aching from lying in the same position for so long, and a strange, feather-light sensation flutters low in my stomach.
I freeze.
I hold my breath.
I count to five.
I’m not thinking about Alaska or Lowell anymore. I’m not thinking about an
ything. I’m locking in stunned silence, every part of me braced, waiting…
The baby. It moved. That was the baby moving inside me for the first time. A choked sob flies from my mouth before I can rein it in. Clay growls under his breath, an animalistic, wild sound. I roll onto my side, away from him.
I’ve been waiting for this moment for weeks, looking forward to it, counting down the days until the life form growing inside me was big enough for me to feel shifting inside my belly, and it happens now? Here? My eyes begin to sting. I should have gone with Oliver when he offered to do an ultrasound. I should have gone. I close my eyes, tears streaking down my cheeks. What if I’m wrong? What if things go badly, and Zeth can’t save me? I’ll die, and I won’t have laid eyes on my child. Not even via the grainy, black and white image picked up by an ultrasound.
I want to stack my hands on my stomach, to cradle the life inside me, but with my hands still tied above my head, it’s impossible. I have to stay calm. I have to. If I lose it now, Clay and Ben are going to teach me a lesson. They’re going to force me to shut up, and that could lead to the baby being hurt. I couldn’t bear that. I couldn’t fucking handle it. So I bite back my tears, facing the wall, eyes unblinking, jaw clenched and I do my best to ride the rollercoaster of panic I’m stuck on without making another sound.
It’s going to be okay.
It’s going to be okay.
It’s going to be okay, little one.
I promise, it’s going to be okay.
Time passes so slowly, a thousand single grains of sand passing through the eye of a narrow needle, one at a time. Ben’s phone chimes, and he and Clay both visibly relax. I dare not ask what’s happening, so I try and calm my racing mind.
After a while, there’s a knock at the door. Ben exhales a sigh of relief, as if he’s been expecting Alaska or her cohort for some time. “I’m grabbing food first,” he informs Clay, as he gets to his feet and heads to the door.