by LP Lovell
I walk around the back of the couch and squat in front of her. “How stupid are you? Huh?”
Her chest rises and falls in uneven draws. She’s shaking, her eyes wide, and she’s struggling around the gag.
“I swear to God, if I find out you’re anything besides just a fucking unlucky girl…” I can’t even finish my sentence because the prospect makes me so angry.
Her brows pinch together in a frown and she glares at me.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Why can’t you just fucking listen and stay put until that stupid boyfriend of yours pays up?”
And then what? Release her so Joe can show up at my house? Fuck, I am beyond screwed here.
I rise, repeatedly combing my hands through my hair. I can’t stand to look at her right now. “Where the fuck is Caleb?” I ask Bob.
“Fuck if I know! I’ve been dealing with her shit for the past half hour.”
I storm off, shouting for him as I wander through the hallways.
“Caleb?” Silence. “Caleb!” I deepen my voice as I round the corner to find him sitting at the foot of the stairs.
“You fucking let her escape?” I shout. He’s my brother, but his stupidity pisses me off.
He drags a hand through his hair, refusing to look up at me. “I fucked up. I’m sorry.”
“Jesus fucking...how the hell am I supposed to trust you if you can’t even look after a fucking girl? One girl, no weapons!” I yell, launching a vase from table. The sound of shattering glass gets Caleb’s attention.
I grab him by his shirt, forcing him to his feet. I can see the flash of fear in his eyes, because he knows what’s coming. “What did I fucking tell you?” I ask.
He keeps his eyes down. “Not to let her out of the room.”
“And what did you fucking do?” I twist the material in my hand and pull him to my face.
“I let her out,” he says quietly.
It’s ingrained in me that when you get pissed, you fight. I pull my elbow back and punch him square in the jaw. His head jerks to the side, and he rears his fist to punch me back, but stops, and his hand falls to his side.
“Fuck, Caleb!” Releasing his shirt, I push him away from me.
He’s holding his jaw. I know that hurt. I shouldn’t have hit him, but damn. “Sorry. You fucked up.” I shrug.
I don’t wait for him to respond. I turn and head down the hall. “Like I said, if she has to piss, you tie her ass up. Got it? I’ve got a meeting. Think you can handle the simple fucking task of watching her for a few hours until I get back?”
I make my way back to the front of the house, angry as hell and late for an appointment.
When I pass Bob and that damn girl, all I can manage is a growl. “Probably best to leave the fucking gag in her mouth,” I grumble as I walk out the door.
As soon as Jude slams the door behind him, Bob grabs me by the shoulders and pushes me forward. “Get the fuck back in that room.”
Every few steps, he shoves me and I stumble. We come to the door and I see Caleb standing at the end of the hallway. Bob pushes me through the door and I fall against the chest of drawers.
Caleb walks in after me, and I hear the lock click shut. There’s an awkward silence between us, and he can barely look at me.
I wish I could tell him I’m sorry, but I have this stupid gag in my mouth. My head hurts from where it hit the ground. My feet are cut and my knees are skinned. Worst of all, though, it was all for nothing. I barely made it fifty yards before they caught me.
Caleb looks up at me and sighs, running his hand over the back of his neck; I’ve noticed he and his brother both do that when they get angry.
I’m waiting for him to shout at me, but he doesn’t. “It’s my fault,” he mumbles. “I knew not to trust you.”
I shake my head, trying to talk around the gag. The look on his face nearly kills me. He looks hurt and angry and confused, because surely he knows he shouldn’t feel sorry for me.
Caleb is nothing like his brother. He’s kind, too kind for this corrupt shit, and I just kicked him in the nuts for it. Literally.
Taking pity on me, he steps forward. His eyes have gone all puppy dog. He sighs, shaking his head as he unties the makeshift gag.
Guilt is eating me alive.
“I’m so sorry, Caleb!” I blurt the second I can speak.
“I trusted you, Ria. I felt bad for you.”
Oh my fucking God, could he make me feel any worse right now? His round brown eyes are gutting me.
He frowns, and a look of hurt crosses his features.
“I’m sorry!” I can feel my eyes starting to prickle. Shit, this is ridiculous. I feel guilty for trying to escape. Something is seriously wrong with this picture.
He rubs at his jaw, and I notice it’s red and swelling.
“What happened to your face?” I ask quickly.
He sighs. “What do you think? I told you he would kick my ass for letting you out of this room.”
“Shit.” I lose my grip on whatever emotional stronghold I had in place, and the dam bursts. I start crying—like ugly crying.
“Oh, fuck!” His eyes widen and he’s checking me over as though I might be hurt, lifting my chin like he’s looking for choke marks or something. “What the hell did Bob do to you?”
“I can’t...I just…” I cry through heaving breaths. “I miss my sister, and my job, and my fucking life, Caleb! I don’t want to die here!”
His shoulders drop a little, and his eyes soften even more. “Look, I know this is in no way ideal, but I promise, you’ll get that all back soon.” He paces for a second. “You’re not gonna die. I mean, hell, this is not normal. Not normal at all. Jude doesn’t deal with hostages. So you”—his eyes scan over me and he shakes his head like he’s sorry for something—“you are not meant to be here. Trust me.”
“You don’t see the way he looks at me, Caleb. He’s going to fucking kill me!” I sniff through my tears.
His eyes close and he pulls his lip in. “No, he won’t. I know you can’t see it, but he’s not a bad person. We’re all fucked up. We grew up in this shit, so…” He pauses and looks at me. “But he won’t kill you.”
“Jesus Christ, Caleb, wake the fuck up. He is a killer. It’s what he does! I’m going to die in this fucking place. My sister will never know what happened to me. I’ll never become a doctor…” My voice breaks on a loud sob.
“He’s a bookie, not a killer. It’s just business.” He pats my back, his face the image of uncomfortable. “Don’t cry,” he says, trying to sound reassuring, but I can hear the slight tremble in his voice. “I...it’s...shit. What do you want me to do, Ria?”
“Nothing,” I wail. “There’s nothing you can do.”
Poor guy looks like he’d rather shoot himself than deal with me right now.
“Ria, I promise I won’t let anything happen to you, okay?”
I stare into his big brown eyes, and despite my inner turmoil and my fear of Jude, I actually believe that he means that. The problem is that if Jude wants to hurt me, nothing will stop him, and certainly not his baby brother.
Forty minutes after leaving my house, I pull into the gravel lot outside of the lodge. As I walk toward the entrance, I watch a few drunk old men stumble out of the doors and head to their cars.
“Ah, hell, Frank,” one of the white-haired guys grumbles. “You know damn well this country’s gone to the Democrats.”
The other man swats his hand through the air, losing his balance and falling against the side of the building.
I push the door open, and a thick haze of smoke slaps me in the face. My eyes dart around the dimly-lit room and hone in on the guy who’s slumped over the bar.
I nod to a few of the other men as I make my way across the room. I lightly touch my hand to his shoulder and he groans.
“Hey, Jim. You know today’s the last Friday of the month, huh?”
He rolls his head to the side, peeping up at me with only one eye. “Yeah,
JP, I know.”
He sits up, leaning back in the chair and digging in his back pocket. He pulls out a manila envelope and hands it to me. “I gotta stop making bets with your boss man. He’s got a lot of juice for this old square.”
I smile as I take the envelope. Most people think I’m a beard—they think I’m the person between them and the bookie. They have no idea I’m the person they really don’t want to piss off.
“Ah, come on, now, Jim. You say that every time.” I shake his shoulder and open the envelope to peek inside. “It’s just for fun anyway, right?”
He snorts and picks up his glass, swirling the beer in the bottom before dumping it into his mouth. “Yeah, damn good time draining my bank account, but one of these days,” he says, shaking his finger at me, “I’mma win big. Then I’ll stop.”
“See you in a few weeks, Jim,” I call out as I head toward the door.
I climb in my car and barely get make it back onto the road before my phone rings. I answer it, and all I can hear is maniacal laughter.
“I’m busy. What the hell is going on there now?” I ask, switching lanes.
“Oh,” Bob manages through a cough, “you just need to come home. See what your pussy-ass little brother’s doing.”
“What? Oh, for fuck’s sake. Tell me he hasn’t gotten his ass handed to him by that little girl again?”
There’s hooting and hollering in the background from the rest of the guys. “Go, Brown. Go! Run that damn ball!” A loud eruption of screams ring out. “Looks like you’re gonna have a lot of collecting to get at. Florida just lost.”
“Good,” I groan, more concerned with what the hell that woman has done than the money I’d just made. “Now, what the hell is Caleb doing?”
“You just need to come see this, Jude. Sad to say I don’t know that he’s cut out for the family business. I think he may be hiding a vagina between his legs.”
I hang up and toss the phone in the passenger seat. “Damn it, Caleb!” I pound my fist over the steering wheel and swerve across the traffic to exit.
As soon as I walk in, I find a group of my uncles crammed around the kitchen table, pounding back beers and playing poker.
“Am I gonna have to beat his ass?” I ask.
Bob smiles, shrugging his shoulders. “If you ask me, I think he’s probably been traumatized enough by the sound of it.”
I shake my head and head down the hallway. Caleb’s just a fucking kid. He’s twenty-one, and at times I feel remorse that I allowed him to get involved with this shit. Sure, it’s our heritage, but at some point someone has to say they're too good for this fucked-up way of living. I tried that. I tried to get out of this, but I am undeniably damaged from growing up in the middle of threats, dirty money, and vengeance. It was my job to carry on my family’s legacy, but Caleb, he has no business here. He still has morals, and sometimes I hope that one day I’ll be too much and he’ll leave, forgetting how fucked up we all are.
I stop outside the door, jamming the key in when I hear sniffling.
As soon as the door swings open, I see him with his head on her shoulder and he’s fucking crying. She has her arm around him, soothing him. She looks up when I walk in and shoots daggers at me.
“What the...” I glance at the TV and see the end credits of a movie rolling. “What the fuck? Caleb?”
He looks up, wiping the snot with his sleeve. “Dude, Jude, that’s some sad shit. That’s true fucking love...and the birds at the end flying off”—he pulls in a breath—“that was like their souls flying away to spend eternity together. Deep-ass, sad shit!”
My eyes bulge and my jaw unhinges. I am literally speechless as my gaze darts back and forth between the TV and the two of them snuggled up on the bed.
“The Notebook,” Victoria says. “I’m going to take a stab in the dark here and say you haven’t seen it.”
“Are you kidding me?” I shake my head and comb my fingers through my hair, trying to understand exactly what the hell has just happened.
This woman has turned my little brother into a dribbling pussy. He’s watched people brutally lose their lives, and here he sits, crying over some movie, being consoled by a girl. “Fuck, Caleb!” I stomp toward them and yank him up. “Just….get the fuck outta here.” I open the door, intending to shove him out into the hall, but stop.
“You know, you redefine arsehole,” she snaps.
Did she really just mouth off to me? When did the weak little girl grow a pair of balls? I have to straighten this out right now. The second she’s no longer afraid of me is the second my life becomes absolute hell. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I spin to face her. “You want to die? You’re going the right way about it, doll.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She twirls her hand in the air. “Again with the death threats.” What the hell has Caleb told her?
Pointing at Caleb, she wrinkles her brow. “You punched him!”
“He let you out! Of course I punched him.” I take Caleb by the shoulders and push him to the door.
“You’re a piece of shit!” she shouts, her face turning beet-red.
“Ria…” Caleb starts, but shuts up when I squeeze his shoulders.
“Ria? You fucking named her?”
Caleb ignores that question, and she points at him again. “He’s your brother! You don’t even care about your family.”
Oh, now she’s touched a sore spot. I feel heat flood my skin, causing me to press my fingers into my little brother’s shoulders. “I know he’s my fucking brother. I also know it’s none of your damn business. If you were so concerned about him maybe you shouldn’t have kicked him in his balls.”
She looks at Caleb and her eyes go all soft and mushy-looking. Oh, fuck, it seems the bitch has it bad for my little brother. I never should have left him in charge of her.
“I had to! I’m sorry, Caleb.” She redirects her attention to me. “I have been kidnapped, of course I’m going to try to escape. What do you expect me to do, just wait for you to kill me? I do have a basic will to live, you know? You, on the other hand, are just plain mean. You don’t deserve a brother like him.”
I grit my teeth, open the door, and shove Caleb outside. Slamming the door shut, I turn back to her. “You don’t know anything about us, so I suggest you shut your mouth if you really do have a basic will to live.”
“I know that he’s nice, and you’re not,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest
“Nice?” I laugh. “What do you think this is? A fucking summer camp? He’s watching you. He’s not your new friend. What next? You going to start braiding each other’s fucking hair?”
She scowls at me, and I inch my way closer to her, forcing her to back up. I keep going until she’s against the wall.
“Evidently, somehow you have my brother wrapped around your little finger, blubbering over some chick-flick crap, and he’s apparently too nice to stop you from escaping. So, from now on, you’ll be in my room, or with me, twenty-four hours a day, until the debt is settled or I find a better place to put you. Do you hear me?”
Her eyes lock with mine, her teeth gritting as she rises to the challenge. “Oh, I hear you,” she growls. “I heard the thirteen fucking death threats. I also heard that I was supposed to be out of this shit-hole after three days. You want to kill me, then fucking get on with it already. You want to spend every minute of the day with me?” She smiles. “I’m going to make your life hell.”
She’s pissed as hell. She’s lost her fucking mind, or is on her fucking period, because she’s turned into one massive bitch. I clench my jaw, grip her arm, and yank her away from the wall, bringing her face so close to mine, our noses are actually touching. She’s pulling in hard breaths, and each time she does I’m hyper-aware of those breasts of hers pressing against my chest. “You won’t even so much as take a piss without me watching you. How about that?”
“I tell you what, why don’t you set yourself on fire, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll get to see me piss!”
>
I bow my head, sucking in a quick breath to try to hide the slight grin threatening to curve over my mouth. I should be livid as hell that she’s being so mouthy with me, but that smart-ass mouth is hot, and that British accent could give fucking Viagra a run for its money.
“I don’t even want to breathe the same air as you,” she shouts. “So you might as well just shoot me now.”
“Oh, trust me, I’d love to fucking put myself out of this misery, but I’m not feeling up to scrubbing blood out of the carpet today.” I jerk her closer to me, bringing her forehead level with my chin. I curl my lip at the sudden whiff I just got of her. She smells like absolute shit. “Fucking hell,” I cough from the stench. “No wonder Caleb wanted to get you out of this room, you smell like open ass!” I pull her behind me and reach for the door.
“That’s what happens when you lock a girl in a room for four fucking days!” she says, and rips her arm out of my grasp.
At this point, treating her like a child may be my best bet. I open the door, snatch her by her wrists, and drag her into the hallway. She obviously no longer has a filter, no self-control, and absolutely no survival instincts. Maybe she’s just lost her shit.
“Let go of me.” She squirms. “You pikey criminal.”
“Not a chance, doll.” Laughing, I add, “And really, a criminal? That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?” I can’t help but smirk.
“You tried to fucking kill me a few days ago! If that doesn’t make you a criminal then what does?” She pulls in a breath and I keep dragging her behind me as she continues to ramble about how cruel I am.
I turn at the end of the corridor and head for the bathroom.
“And you are absolutely, definitely, a massive”—she struggles against me—“fucking arsehole.”
“You done?”
Her response; showing me her middle finger.
“Oh, really?” I bend, scooping her up and throwing her over my shoulder. My hand instinctually rests over her firm ass. I could move it, but seeing as how I’m such an asshole, I don’t.