Beyond Ransom (The Ransom Series)

by A. T. Douglas

“Fine,” I respond, but I’m not fine. The dull but strong pain in my shoulder hasn’t improved in however long it’s been that I was asleep in the car.

  Leo sees right through my answer. “I know it hurts like hell. We have a doctor coming. He’ll be here soon to fix you up, and he’ll have pain killers.”

  My fingers reach out to touch Leo’s bloody face. “You may need some, too.”

  “I’m fine. This is nothing,” he insists.

  “It didn’t look like nothing back at the prison.”

  Leo shakes his head at me. “Don’t worry about me. I just want you to relax. You need to rest.”

  “You’re always telling me to rest. I’m sick of resting.” My mouth curves up slightly into a smile. How is it possible that I’m smiling right now?

  “God, you’re a stubborn teenager,” Leo teases, and then his face falters. He lowers his voice to a barely audible whisper and leans down toward me. “We’ll talk later. Alone.”

  I nod, and Leo sweeps his lips down on mine in the slightest kiss. He brushes the hair from my eyes with a sigh before standing up and walking away from me.

  It feels like I’ve just seen a switch flipped in Leo. I’m reminded of how he had to act at the prison, to appear as one of the guys when he was doing things only because Mark said to, but I can tell he’s not acting now. I watch him move through this office and talk with Mark, totally in his element. The criminal side of Leo is playing out in front of me, and it scares me to know that this person exists within him, that this life has been so engrained in his psyche that it’s like second nature to him.

  Mark has Leo fully engaged in what seems like completely normal conversation between them: how to handle an upcoming new business deal, how they’ll teach a lesson to an existing associate who didn’t pull through on his end of a bargain, which lackey will make the next cash collection rounds from distributors.

  Leo’s sitting on Mark’s desk looking with him at the laptop screen, the crimson wet towel now idle in his hands from cleaning the blood off his face, when there’s a knock at the door.

  An older-looking gentleman with graying hair and a brown overcoat and slacks steps inside the door just enough for Mark and Leo to see who he is.

  Mark waves him into the room. “Come in, Jack.”

  The man enters with a large black bag in hand. He only glances toward me before walking over to greet Mark and shake his hand.

  “Good to see you, old friend.” Jack turns to Leo and pats him on the shoulder. “Leo. How’s my favorite student? You look like hell, boy.”

  Leo glances at Mark but it’s clear that he’s not going to speak a word of how his face came to be the way it is. “I’m fine, Jack. It’s just been a rough day.” He shakes Jack’s hand quickly and hops down from the desk before indicating toward me on the couch. “We have a gunshot wound for you to fix. This is Morgan.”

  “Ah, the infamous Morgan Whitford. I’m surprised you’ve brought her back here.”

  “She’s here by choice,” Mark interjects with a satisfied smile.

  “So your plan worked, then?” Jack sounds genuinely surprised as he pulls up a chair next to me. “Remind me never to get on your bad side, Mark.”

  When Jack’s attention turns to me, I immediately wish I could go back to being an observer in this little reunion between them. He seems nice enough, and I know he’s only here to help me, but I still feel uneasy. Every bit of this situation makes me uneasy.

  “So, Morgan,” he says as he pulls off the gauze taped to my shoulder, “it would appear you had a run-in with a decent-sized handgun today.”

  My response is automatic. “Yes, I would consider an M9 a decent-sized handgun.”

  Jack looks to Leo in astonishment.

  “Daughter of a cop. She knows her guns,” Leo explains with a shrug.

  “You’ll fit in well here, then,” Jack replies, turning his attention back to my shoulder, touching and manipulating the skin around the wound. I know he’s just a doctor, but I don’t like the feeling of his hands on me. A bit of panic washes over me, and I suddenly feel the urge to get up and run out of the room.

  I briefly look to Leo for help. “Let Leo do it. You said he’s your student? Teach him to do this. I want him to fix me.”

  Jack looks at Leo for direction, clearly not sure what to make of my suggestion. “I suppose it’s not every day I can give you a lesson in removing bullets from the human body.”

  Leo gives me a concerned look. “Why don’t you let him take this? He’s fixed me up on more than one occasion. I trust him.”

  “I want you to do it. Please,” I beg him.

  Leo’s mouth opens slightly as he’s about to speak, then it closes. I sigh with relief as he nods his agreement. “Okay, I’ll do it.” He looks to Jack for guidance. “Where do I start?”

  Jack’s already setting out supplies on the small coffee table in front of the couch. I watch as they both sanitize their hands and put on latex gloves. Jack holds a flashlight to my shoulder as they both inspect the wound.

  “The bullet is partly visible. You’ll need to use the forceps to grab at the side of it and pry it out. Before you start, I think we should open the entrance to give you a little extra room.” Jack turns toward me. “This is going to be painful. You need to prepare yourself.”

  I look to Leo, the one who will solidify my strength to help me get through this. He smiles at me, but he’s clearly concerned over what he’s about to do.

  “I’ll be fine,” I assure him. “Do what you need to do.”

  Jack hands Leo a scalpel that he’s reluctant to accept, but he does.

  “Make a small incision here and here to open it,” Jack directs.

  I ball my hands into tight fists as Leo cuts my skin. It takes every bit of strength and willpower I have to keep my body still under the blade. When he finishes that step, Leo takes a deep breath and exchanges the scalpel for the forceps.

  My body was braced for the sensation of the metal instrument poking around inside me, but I wasn’t fully prepared for just how painful it would actually be. My eyes squeeze shut as all my focus goes into not moving. I grit my teeth together to keep my mouth from screaming.

  “I’m sorry. I’m trying.”

  Leo sounds frantic as the pain builds to something I can no longer tolerate. My body needs to release the pent-up pain somehow, so my foot starts kicking up and down wildly against the couch cushion. A groan builds at the back of my throat. I don’t know how much longer I can keep from screaming at the top of my lungs.

  “There,” Leo says with relief, and the surge in pain drops to a dull ache.

  I open my eyes to see the bloody remnants of the bullet resting innocently in Leo’s gloved hand. I look straight to the ceiling and sigh in relief.

  Compared to the feeling of Leo digging around within my flesh, the rest of the cleaning and dressing of the wound is not that bad. I feel like I can finally breathe again when the last piece of tape is applied over the gauze bandage and my arm is secured in a makeshift sling.

  “You need to take it easy. Rest. Enjoy your time being waited on by these gentlemen,” Jack says to me as he finishes packing up his medical bag. He hands me a small unlabeled prescription bottle. “Take these twice a day for a few days. They’ll help with the pain.”

  “Thank you,” I say as I look from Jack to Leo. Now that they’re done, I feel slightly bad for convincing them that Leo should perform the procedure, but the small extent I was able to relax was solely thanks to knowing that Leo was the one behind the medical instruments poking and prodding my body.

  “Until the next gunshot wound, then,” Jack says with a smile as he gets up to leave.

  Mark approaches the three of us from his desk and shakes Jack’s hand. He was so quiet the whole time I didn’t even notice he was still in the room, or maybe I was too distracted by the people tearing into my flesh to notice him there.

  “If everyone behaves we shouldn’t require your services again for a while, t
hough it is always great to see you. I’ll try not to shoot or maim anyone in the near future.”

  I wonder if Mark’s words are an attempt at warning, but in Jack’s jovial response I figure it’s just Mark’s twisted sense of humor showing through. “Yes, take it easy on the shooting and maiming, please. I’m supposed to be retired, after all.”

  Leo walks Jack to the door and shakes his hand. “Thanks, Jack.”

  “You did all the work.” He leans in to speak to Leo quietly, though I can still hear what he’s saying. “Take care of your girlfriend there. She looks like quite the catch.”

  Leo glances back at me with an expression that he knows I’ve just heard what the man said. He tries to open his mouth to speak but thinks better of it. He just smiles instead.

  I carefully sit up on the couch as Jack leaves and closes the door behind him. I feel like I haven’t sat up in ages.

  “If you’re all set, I’m going to take her to my room,” Leo half-asks, half-declares as Mark takes his seat behind the large desk again.

  He smiles widely at Leo, going about his business on the laptop as he speaks. “You may want to lay off the fucking for a few nights. Give that shoulder a chance to heal and let the girl regain her strength first.”

  Leo ignores Mark’s tease completely as he approaches me. He moves to pick me up in his arms, but I hold out my hand to stop him. “Let me walk. I need to move these legs.”

  It takes a moment, but Leo finally steps back and offers a hand to help me to standing. My legs initially feel wobbly but quickly normalize as I move toward the door.

  It’s the strangest feeling being free from restraints and torture just feet away from the man I have loathed and feared and fought against for the last few weeks. It’s as if he’s just an acquaintance or friend or colleague and not the psychotic asshole who took me from my family and my life and tormented me for weeks on end. One would never know how this man violated me in the time I spent with him before. It seems almost normal between us now even though the reality of this situation is far from normal.

  Leo can clearly see these thoughts making their way to my face as I look at Mark, and he makes the right move to help encourage me out the door so I won’t say anything. He speaks for us both instead. “Goodnight, Mark.”

  “Sweet dreams,” Mark replies with a smile toward me. Despite my improved situation here, I still can’t help the shudder that overtakes me when I’m under his gaze.

  22

  Sanctuary

  “What is this place?”

  The further we walk through this building, the more confused I become about what it used to be before it became the base of Mark’s operations.

  “That’s a loaded question,” Leo says ahead of me as he leads me up yet another staircase. “It used to be a factory. Honestly, with what little is left on the first floor, I don’t even know what they made here, but you’ll rarely see that part of the building. It’s the decrepit front that protects us from the outside world. The innards of the building are where we’ve setup shop: the administrative offices and kitchen and the apartments on the upper floors.”

  “So that’s where we’re heading. You have your own apartment in here?”

  Leo beams a grin at me as we enter another long hallway with multiple identical doors. “It’s nothing fancy, but it’s my own space. I’m happy to share it with you.”

  Something warm and light radiates within my chest at the thought of this. It’s the first time that I haven’t felt weighed down in guilt about my decision to save Leo and stay with Mark’s crew. In Leo’s room we can both be free. We will at least have that space for us.

  Leo laughs at me, and I love the sound. I need to make that sound come out of him more often, because the world needs to hear it sing through the air and make everything brighter with its loveliness.

  I need to make him laugh at other things, though, because it’s unnerving to have him openly laughing at me for no reason.

  “Okay, what’s so funny?”

  The look on Leo’s face turns more serious. I’m clearly not going to get the real answer to my question.

  “This is surreal, you know. This was never supposed to happen. I told myself I couldn’t get this close to someone, but how can I not give in to this when you’ve chosen to stay with me?” He places a soft kiss on the top of my hand, leaving me breathless, before pulling me around the nearest corner to a run-down door. “We’re here.”

  With a turn of the key in the lock, Leo opens the door and turns on the light to my new home, and I instantly know what this is to me.

  Sanctuary.

  Almost everything is compacted into one main room that takes up the majority of the space. A double-size bed is against the peeling white wall on one side of the door with a tiny kitchen full of decades-old olive green appliances on the other side. A small table with two chairs and a worn plaid fabric couch round out the rest of the main room. The only small window in the room is painted over so that no light goes in or out of it.

  At the end of the room I see the most exciting part of the space: a separate bathroom. A hint of a shower curtain is even visible through its doorway. I can finally have a place of privacy to shower and do my business in without the fear of someone watching or listening from two feet away.

  “So perfect,” I say, taking a few steps into the room.

  Leo sets down his keys on the narrow bit of kitchen counter and looks unconvinced by my observation. “You don’t have to say that to make me feel better.”

  “I’m not just saying it. There is nothing wrong with this space.” I stare at him for a moment, his expression remaining the same. “You’re talking to a girl who just spent the last few weeks of her life locked up in prison cell. This place might as well be a fucking Ritz-Carlton.”

  Leo’s expression finally softens, but he still looks sad. “I didn’t want this for you. You could have been back home right now with your family, spending the night in your own bed with your own things. I have nothing for you here.”

  I close the space between us and let my hand and gaze linger low on Leo’s chest. “You’re here. That’s all that matters. Things are already better here than they were back at the prison. Mark’s even acting halfway human.”

  Leo lets out a sarcastic laugh. It sounds unnatural coming from him. “Don’t let Mark fool you. You may have chosen his side, but he’s still your enemy.”

  “I chose your side, not his,” I counter. “I’m in this for you. For us.”

  Leo catches me glancing up at him, and something briefly sparks between us. I see the need building in his eyes and feel the same power growing within me. My breathing quickens with the building heat in my body, my chest rising and falling with deep breaths against him. He dips his head down to kiss me but stops when his eyes dart to the bandage on my shoulder and the sling holding my arm.

  “I can’t,” he says, turning away from me. “We shouldn’t. You’ve been through a lot, and I’m not just talking about the bullet hole in your shoulder.”

  “I’m fine, Leo. You fixed me up. I’m healing.”

  “You’re not fine!” he yells at me, and I wonder where the smiling and thoughtful Leo from moments before has gone off to.

  I shrink back from him, tears immediately forming in my eyes. If I were anywhere else right now, I’d run. I’d put space between us and go be alone somewhere to get my thoughts straight, but I can’t do that. I have absolutely nowhere else to go.

  Leo’s next to me in seconds, holding me gently against his chest. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Don’t listen to me. God, I am such a fucking idiot.”

  I let the tears fall into his shirt as he holds me. They’re the pent-up tears from all day finally being expressed and put out in the open. Everything hits me at once, the shame and guilt and pain from abandoning my family for someone I care about but hardly know, someone who hurt me repeatedly but also helped me and protected me. I hope Leo cares about me as much as I care about him, or I really did just
make the biggest mistake of my life.

  When Leo lets go of me to read my face, I don’t attempt to hide the fact that I’m upset. I need to turn off my brain and escape my reality for a while. I need to sleep.

  “Rest,” I say softly. “Jack said I need to rest.”

  A tiny hint of a smile plays on Leo’s lips. “I always say you need to rest, but you don’t listen to me when I say it.”

  I return his tiny smile with my own. “That’s because I’m a stubborn teenager.”

  Leo pulls me against him, being careful not to touch my shoulder before guiding me toward the bed. “Well we had better listen to Jack, then.”

  As I take a seat on the bed, Leo supports my back and lowers me carefully to the pillow. The pillow is flat and the bedding is not that much better than at the prison, but that’s fine because I think I could fall asleep standing up at this point.

  When I’m settled in on the bed, Leo takes a seat next to me and observes me, moving loose strands of my hair away from my face and brushing his fingers softly over my skin. His touch is relaxing, and I can’t help closing my eyes and letting myself be taken away by it. We’re both silent for a long moment. It’s almost peaceful.

  “Thank you for choosing me.” I hear the breath of his words on my lips just before he kisses me. It’s a gentle gesture, and he continues to thank me with his lips until our movements hit a peak and we open our eyes and both know we need to slow down.

  “Lie down with me?” I ask, not ready for Leo to leave my side. “It would help me sleep.”

  It takes Leo only a moment to comply. He lifts me slightly to scoot me all the way over on the bed, leaving just enough space that my arm won’t touch the wall. In the small size of the bed, he lies on his side facing me, sneaking his arm around my waist and carefully pulling me toward him. His nose is in my hair, his face nuzzling up against me, and I can hear him breathing in my scent.

  It seems so right to be here with him despite how wrong my overall situation is. I try to push away my recent memories and absorb this feeling and this moment to take their place.