SweetHarts (5 Book Box Set)

by Kira Graham

  Even Tee snorts and chuckles, a miraculous occurrence that makes me wonder what the heck is up with her lately. She’s so…not present most of the time.

  “What about that website that the church is so into?”

  “Date and Wait?” Mindy asks, her tone scathing. “It’s terrible. The only guys on there are ‘waiting for marriage’ because they don’t have a choice. Half of them are middle-aged, bald, and still living with their mothers!”

  I laugh along with everyone else, and by the time we’re done with the massages and on our way to being scrubbed down, I’m relaxed and having fun listening to Mindy’s theories about guys who wear suspenders. All in all, it turns out to be a great day, and, by the end of it, I almost like Mindy enough to agree with Sin that she’s one of us. Huh.

  Rosetta, of course, hasn’t stopped calling Zeus, and by calling I mean that she falls just short of having full phone sex. How the guy gets any work done is beyond me, but hey—I can’t argue since I’ve been texting with Chilli all day myself.

  Huh. Maybe Sin is right. Maybe this isn’t so bad, and things will be okay.

  Three hours later, I walk out of the spa and say goodbye to them all as Sin goes off with Mindy, who has enlisted her as a wing woman and intends to go clubbing—yeah, right—leaving me alone as I walk to my car and watch them all drive away, the security that’s been near-invisible falling in behind them. With a smile, I unlock my car, slide into the seat, and sigh, wondering what I should do for din—

  “Make a sound, and I’ll kill you,” a voice hisses as soon as I’ve started the car and am reaching to put it in drive.

  Shock and fear paralyze me for the space of a few heartbeats, causing me to freeze in place and peer over at the black Escalade on the corner, where I know my security is sitting. Today, I know that it isn’t Grange or Heath in that car, or this wouldn’t have happened at all. I should have realized that the one day that those guys took off to do some personal business would be the day that I’d end up being mugged. Just my luck.

  “Take whatever you want and go—just please don’t hurt me. I have cash in my purse, jewelry, and my phone. You can have it all. Take it,” I say, my voice quivering when I feel something hard press into my spine from behind the seat.

  “You’re going to shift into gear and start driving,” the voice says, its deep rasp letting me know that it’s a man behind me, and not a woman.

  Good to know, because if it were a chick, I would totally mess her up. As it is, my hand is shaking badly when I reach for the gearshift and slowly push it into drive. I don’t want to drive.

  “Please just take what you want and go. Please,” I try again, my heart beating hard enough that I can hear it in my ears.

  “Drive, bitch. We have somewhere to be.”

  Achilles

  “What the hell do you mean, she put her foot down and you lost her?” I yell into the phone, my temper controlled only by the fear that shoots through me as soon as I pick up the call from Newman.

  “We stayed on her at the spa, and then we kept within following distance once she pulled out of the neighborhood. Dubrow is driving, and, like Mrs. Hart requested, we didn’t ride her pipe like Heath or Grange do. But then she just took off, boss,” he repeats, as if hearing it again makes it any fucking better.

  “Where to? Goddammit! Ares, call Grange and Heath. I need them here immediately,” I bark at my brother, my palms sweating.

  “We don’t know. Truth is that by the time we made it around an accident on the freeway, she was gone. We tried tracking her phone, but she must have turned it off.”

  I curse, this time letting the inept idiot know just how I feel about his opinions. Alex would never turn her phone off. Ever since the boys were born, she’s been obsessive about taking pictures whenever the mood strikes. Yesterday, she tried to take a video of them sleeping, for God’s sake, because she’s convinced that Axel grunts like a pig when he’s asleep.

  If that phone is off and not giving out a signal, then something is very wrong.

  Ares runs back into my office five minutes later, just as I’m giving Dubrow and Newman their walking papers, with a scowling Heath and a seething Grange following closely behind him. They weren’t on Alex today because Heath had to help Zeus out with a South American contact concerning one of the companies he’s been working with in conjunction with the Waters well-digging projects that they’re conducting at the moment. And Grange, still active with the military, just returned from a recon mission that he’s been involved with for the past week.

  “What’s going on? Ares says that something’s wrong. Is Al okay? Goddammit—I knew I shouldn’t have let those two assholes watch her. Dubrow has a habit of dozing off when he’s in the car,” Grange mutters, his eyes going hard as he fully takes me in.

  My tie, askew since I started tugging at it, is nothing compared to the way my hair must look after I kept yanking on it while arguing with Dubrow. According to him, my wife is probably at home with a dead battery and doesn’t realize what’s going on. After I track Alex down, I’m going to deaden his fucking battery for him and then shove something up his ass. After I remove his head from it.

  “They lost her getting on the freeway. Her phone isn’t pinging a signal,” I tell them, my heart beating harder when they exchange a look and Heath immediately whips out his phone, barking something into it—only to end the call and shake his head a few moments later.

  “Something is wrong. The tracking signal we have on her shouldn’t just go out unless she’s removed the battery from her phone. Do we have a direction?” he barks at me, typing something on his own phone when I tell him that she’d have headed straight for the Sweet house after the spa.

  “West. I’m putting Hoover on the cameras, but it’s going to take a sec,” he tells me, scowling at his phone until it rings a minute later.

  I watch and listen as he talks to Hoover, and then curse when he curls his hand into a fist and nods before ending the call.

  “He caught her heading westbound. He’s trying to keep up with her car as we speak by using the GPS, but it’s not easy since she seems to be heading for the woods. Come on!”

  I don’t ask questions, just follow them out and down to the elevator, where Adonis is already waiting, talking into his phone and barking orders at his own security guys.

  I have a bad feeling about this, a feeling that isn’t filled with amusement, because as much as I like to tease Alex about her freak-outs and how she used to drive halfway across the state before she realized she was running away, I know that this isn’t one of those times. Something is wrong, and I need to get to her.

  “Nate’s on his way—should be here in five. What are we doing?” Adonis asks, just as Z steps into the elevator with us, his phone plastered to his head as Rosetta keeps screaming something into his ear.

  “Hoover’s been able to bounce from camera to camera so far, but that isn’t going to last. She’s headed towards the country, away from the freeway. We need to get to her as soon as we can,” I tell him, watching Heath and Grange closely as they talk on their phones and confer with whomever they’re getting on this.

  The journey down to the cars takes an eternity, and by the time we’re flying through the streets and headed west, I’m not sure that I can breathe properly. Between the rage and the worry, I can hardly keep my thoughts from spiraling out of control and taking me to a place that I can’t go to right now.

  What if someone took her? What if she’s hurt or in trouble? Because there’s no other way for me to view what’s happening right now. Alex is a little scattered at times, but she would never just skip out. The boys are her life.

  “Can’t this piece of shit go faster?” Heath yells at Grange, cursing when the man yells back that we’re going way past the speed limit already.

  The other cars on the road become a blur as we fly by, their shapes and sounds blending into one long whistle that starts in my ears and doesn’t seem to lessen as the minutes tick by. A
ll I can think about is what happened before with Rosetta, and how I almost didn’t get there in time to help her and Sin when they were in trouble. What if something bad has now happened to Alex, and I’m too late?

  “What are we thinking here? What does her security team have to say?” Adonis asks, ignoring the ringing of his phone even though “Low” keeps blasting on and off as Cleo tries to get in touch with him.

  “Secondary unit was on the spa, while Kevin and Marx stayed on the house, as usual. They didn’t see anything, and I’ve been in touch with Falconer and Dobbs from Rosetta’s team as well. They didn’t see anything suspicious, either, but then again, they were doing a sweep of the interior while Dubrow and Newman were watching the parking spots,” Heath says, glaring at his phone and then cursing.

  We’re still nowhere near where the cameras have Alex exiting the freeway, even with Grange breaking every speeding law in the state. I’m on edge, and while I am fully aware that this could turn out to be nothing—that Alex really could just be going somewhere and her phone could actually be off—I don’t believe it.

  So until I have my eyes and hands on her, this is an emergency, and it’s made even more urgent by the fact that Zeus just reported this morning that he’s been intercepting calls made to Rosetta’s phone late at night. Since the calls and texts are coming from a burner phone, they’re impossible to trace, but just hearing that this shit has started up again is enough to make my balls draw up with worry.

  “She’s out of sight. Hoover’s lost her. He’s trying to patch in to her phone again, but he isn’t having any luck. The GPS went dead a minute ago as well. I hate to say this, man, but it’s not looking good. This isn’t Alex. She wouldn’t toss her GPS,” he says softly, confirming my worst fears.

  “Pull out all the stops, Grange. Break every record you can—I’ll deal with the cops later,” Adonis says, when we hear the distinct whoop-whoop of a squad car coming up behind us.

  The guy nods and slams the pedal all the way down to the floor while I watch the road and start praying. Hang on, baby. I’m coming.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Alexandria

  Hostage situations. I’ve seen them on TV shows, on the news, and even as reenactments on the Crime Channel. Hell, my own cousin Cleo was kidnapped and held hostage in a car over a year ago, and she almost died when she made the kidnapper flip his car.

  When she told us all about it, I was suitably horrified, but also one hundred percent certain that I would have handled it differently and come out on top. It’s funny the things you tell yourself when your life isn’t in danger, because let me tell ya, now that I’m actually in a life-threatening situation, it is in no way something that I see myself getting out of.

  I’ve been driving for almost forty minutes with someone’s arm around my throat, something poking into my seat from behind, and a deep, panting breath in my ear. When I try to take a peek at the mirror to see the guy’s face, he tightens his arm to the point that I almost lose my breath, and then warns me not to look at him unless I want a bullet in my head.

  I find it prudent not to tell the guy that shooting me while I’m driving would kill him, too, but then again, I’m not Cleo. That chick is so nuts that she attacked her kidnapper while he was going over a hundred down the freeway and ended up wrecking the car. Badly. I can’t bring myself to do something like that, because one, I don’t have my seat belt on, and two, what if I’m not lucky like Cleo was? I don’t want to die. I have babies at home who are less than a month old and need their mama. I can’t risk losing my life, and I won’t take any chances out here, off the beaten track, where help isn’t close at hand.

  Without my cell phone, which was taken from my bag and tossed, I have no way to call for help if I get hurt, and no way to get to help if I ruin the car. No, I need to stay calm and keep going. Eventually, he’ll let me go, I tell myself, breathing as deeply as I can despite my urge to fall apart.

  “Turn left up ahead, where you see that big tree,” the guy says to me, jamming the gun against my temple hard enough that I cry out and wince.

  “Please. I have children and a husband. If this is about money, then just take it all. Let me out on the side of the road and take the car. I won’t fight you,” I beg, my brain yelling at me not to turn onto a dirt track and drive further into the woods.

  Don’t go anywhere secluded. That’s where they bury bodies!

  “Keep driving and do what I tell you, and you’ll be fine.”

  “Please. I’m scared. I just want to go home and feed my sons,” I beg, my voice breaking now.

  My boobs hurt from being full with milk, and my stomach is twisted in knots that make it roil and threaten to heave. If anyone had ever told me that I’d be in this position one day, I’d have laughed my ass off, pointed to Grange and Heath, and said, ”Give it your best shot.”

  “You’ll be home feeding them boys soon, if you do what I tell ya. Now shut up and make the turn,” he hisses, giving my throat a jerk to make me obey.

  I turn, the car handling the rough track amazingly well, and then I try to take it as slowly as possible, stalling for time. It’s been nearly an hour already. Surely someone knows that I’m gone and that my phone is off. Chilli is paranoid about where I go, and I know that I am never alone. They’ll know that something has happened, I tell myself, letting the reassurance calm me when I peer ahead along the tree-lined track and see a small, shed-like structure coming into view.

  Oh, God. It’s like one of those creepy places you see on TV and—

  “Stop the car, and hand me the keys,” the guy tells me, and now that we’ve stopped, I don’t argue.

  I remove the key slowly, and shakily hand it back, winging my eyes to the side mirror. I don’t see the man clearly, but what I can make out of his face is covered in a scraggly beard and looks a little dark, as if he spends a lot of time outside.

  “Please. Let me go.”

  “This is what is going to happen, so listen up and pay attention, lady. You’re gonna let me take you in there, and you’re going to do it while keeping your eyes on the ground. I don’t want to kill you, but if you look at me, I will. When we’re in there, you’re going to be good and let me tie you up. I’ll say it again—I don’t wanna hurt you. Make this easy on us both.”

  When he’s done talking, and I’ve nodded, agreeing to obey, he presses the button to release the locks and slides out of the car, keeping behind me and just to the left as he opens the door and barks at me to get out.

  My legs, which are barely holding me up, are shaking so badly that when he grabs my arm to walk me to the shed, I’m almost grateful for the support. Oh, God. I don’t want to go in there. Nothing good will happen to me in a little shed-like house in the woods, and my brain is screaming at me to run like hell.

  The gun in my side, though, tells me that I wouldn’t make it two steps, and I’m sure that the man behind me, while he hasn’t hurt me thus far or even been overly scary, will probably shoot me if I make one wrong move.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  If I’m going to get myself shot or abandoned in the woods, I want some answers, because I know, deep down, that this has something to do with the stalking that our family has been struggling with for months. A while ago, right around the time that Cleo met Adonis, someone started stalking them and even took a knife to the bed where Cleo and Adonis had been sleeping just hours before. The attack and vandalism were so violent that Adonis immediately put us all under the keen and watchful eye of several full security teams. Things settled down after a bit, but then Rosetta and Zeus hooked up, and together they started looking into the stalking and who might have been behind it. Then Barnes Hilan crawled out of the woodwork and framed Rosetta for murdering her three ex-partners, a situation that could have turned out extremely badly for Rose if she hadn’t had so many contacts and higher level government officials working for her instead of against her.

  In fact, she could have landed in prison for murders
she didn’t commit, and even after she’d been cleared and Barnes Hilan was being hunted by the CIA, she almost died when the deranged psycho came after her. Things only turned out as well as they did because Chilli showed up just in the nick of time.

  Right now, I am praying to God that he pulls a repeat performance and shows up before something bad happens to me. It’s one thing to assume that I’m a badass mother with the skills of a ninja, but quite another to be walking towards a dingy little shack in the middle of the woods with a gun pointed at my head.

  I try to drag my feet in order to play for more time, but all too soon, I find myself pulling open the battered wooden plank of a door, as the guy behind me shoves his gun into my back and gives me a nudge, urging me into the dark little room.

  “Please—”

  “Shut your mouth and walk to the middle of the room. When you get to the chair, sit your ass down and keep your eyes closed. Do what I tell you, and you’ll be just fine,” he rasps, sounding so relieved that it sounds almost as if he’s reassuring himself that he won’t have to kill me.

  Call me crazy, but that totally works for me, so instead of pulling a Sandra Bullock on the guy, I obey, shuffling forward as my eyes adjust, and then sitting down in the rickety old chair, my eyes falling closed despite my mind’s reluctance to shut them. My breath comes out as a stuttered gasp, and I flinch when I feel hands landing on my arms, pressing my wrists down onto the arms of the chair in preparation for…yup, I hear the hiss and crackle of duct tape seconds before I’m strapped into the chair.

  Now I start praying, because while I’ve fooled myself into thinking that it’ll be okay, it really won’t be. This man, just like the others, isn’t here to kill me. He’s bringing me to someone, my head screams, its cacophony of conflicting thoughts serving to make my panic rise again. So far, I’ve been calm and told myself that this isn’t how I’m going to die, and yet, as I sit here, my eyes firmly closed, with sweat building up on my skin, my mind keeps yelling at me that I messed up. I should have pulled a Cleo and sped up, or hit the brakes. Done something.