by M. G. Morgan
The room was packed with boxes and crates, I inched forward searching for something, anything that would help me escape.
Reaching the back of the room, my eyes scanned the space and came to rest on a second door embedded in the wall. The metal was old and rusted as I tugged on it but it finally swung open, revealing a ladder that descended into the darkness.
Staring down into the black pit I swallowed hard. I couldn’t see anything beyond the first few rungs of the ladder and I had no idea where it would even lead to. But what choice did I have?
There had to be a way out and as far as I could see the only way out seemed to be right in front of me.
Reaching down I dropped to my knees and crawled to the edge of the hole, my foot dangling down into the darkness as I sought for the first rung.
“Carrie!” The sing-song voice called my name and I froze, my fingers digging into the dirt on the floor.
The sound of gunfire had stopped completely leaving nothing but silence.
“I know you can hear me, you haven’t gone very far.” The voice spoke again, carrying across the still air.
It wasn’t the voice of Taylor’s son from early, of that I was certain but there was a familiarity about it that raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
“You’re going to give yourself up or I start spilling blood.”
His statement sounded so certain, hadn’t they already spilled blood? I’d watched Marcus hit the ground, the expression on his face burned into my memory.
I hesitated, I could climb down the ladder and leave but something stopped me. There had to be a reason why the voice was so certain I’d come back and just hand myself over to them.
I climbed back out of the hole and crept towards the door that led to the gallery. All I had to do was stay out of sight and take a look at what was going on down there. It was obviously some sort of trick, a ruse to draw me out.
“Tell her, David, tell her I’m serious.” His voice was quieter, as though he was speaking to someone nearby but it was just loud enough for me to pick out his words as he spoke.
My heart stalled in my chest and I clamped my hand across my mouth to keep my sob from escaping into the air around me. It wasn’t possible, David was at home with Jenson.
Dropping to my knees I crawled forward and peered out through the bars that surrounded the gallery.
I searched the group gathered below until my eyes found what they were searching for.
David stood in the centre of the room, his hands held high. Behind him stood someone I recognised and bile crawled up my throat as I realised he was the man who had taken David in the first place. The man with the scar, the one with the dead eyes who had caught my eye and smiled as he’d bundled David into the backseat of the S.U.V.
Chapter 12
There had to be a mistake, I was hallucinating or I’d received a blow to the head but there was no way David stood in the middle of the room below.
“You need to come out, Carrie, or I will kill him.”
David’s promise that they needed to keep him alive rang in my head.
“It’s a lie, Carrie, ignore them. They’re grasping at straws, they can’t hurt me, they need me!” David spat the words out as he shot scar face a black look.
Scar face laughed but the expression never reached his eyes, instead they stayed as dead as I remembered them from the first time I’d seen him.
He lashed out, his hand and the butt of the gun he held connecting with the side of David’s face.
David took the blow and blood bloomed on his cheek before starting its slow descent down his jaw. Pride mingled with the fear I had and spread through my chest.
“I will kill you, there are other ways to exact the payment.” Scar face said pushing up into David’s face as he stroked the gun down the side of David’s head.
“You can’t kill me, if you do then you’ll never get what your want and your precious father will die without achieving his goals,” David said, leaning into the gun.
He wasn’t going to back down, that I knew for certain and scar face seemed unstable enough that he might just do as he promised and kill David. My chest constricted and my lungs refused to cooperate making breathing almost impossible.
Scar face smiled and grabbed David by the hair, forcing him to his knees in front of him.
“I don’t care what my father wants, I care about the things I can get,” he said, placing the end of the gun against David’s head.
“Dom, what the hell are you doing, you know what father said,” the skinny one who had spoken to me earlier approached his brother and grabbed his arm.
There was a moment that seemed to pass between them and I could see the hatred in the skinny one’s eyes as he stared at his brother.
“Andy, get your hand off me. I’m carrying out father’s wishes exactly as he decreed.”
I expected the skinny one to argue with him, to tell his brother he was wrong but he didn’t. Instead he leaned in towards him and pulled a short bladed knife from inside his jacket and held it out to his brother.
“He wouldn’t do it with a gun.”
The one I’d now discovered was called Dom grinned and took the knife, passing the gun over to his brother as he once more returned his attention to David.
“Carrie, you have thirty seconds or I slit him from ear to ear and take your son as payment.”
As though to emphasise his point he gripped David’s hair tighter and jerked his head backwards, exposing his neck.
“If I cut the carotid artery he will bleed out in minutes, considering how fast his heart is beating it will be much faster than that.” He pressed the tip of the blade in against David’s neck and the first drop of dark blood appeared.
“Don’t hurt him!” I shouted, fear strangling my voice.
“You have thirty seconds starting from now to get down here and present yourself to me…” Dom said, his face lighting with a smile. “Twenty-nine, twenty-eight.”
I didn’t think, I just ran, my feet carrying me across the steel gallery towards the stairs. I pounded down the steps my legs burning, my breaths coming in small pants.
I reached the bottom step as his count hit nine and a guard slammed into me, knocking me against the wall.
“I’m here, I’m down, stop counting!” I pleaded, the sound of his counting echoing in my ears.
“Eight, I said you needed to present yourself to me,” he answered, the grin on his face ratcheting up my panic.
“Get off me!” I struggled against the strong arms holding me in place, the only thought in my mind was to get to David, to keep him safe it was all that mattered.
“Five,” Dom said, the knife pressing further into David’s neck. I knew it hurt, I could tell from the expression on his face that the slow progression of Dom’s blade was agony.
Grabbing the guards upper arms I jerked my knee upwards burying it in his crotch. He doubled over, his gasping groan ringing in my ears as I hopped over him and hurtled towards David.
“Two,” Dom said as I reached them and another guard wrapped his arms around my body. He pinned my arms down by my sides, holding me against his chest and preventing me from moving even an inch.
“One.”
The number filled me with dread and Dom jerked the knife against David’s neck, a thin bloody line appearing beneath the blade.
I screamed and fought the hold the guard had on me but it was no use.
Dom released David’s hair, letting him slump forward and still I fought.
“You said if I got down here he would be safe!” I screamed at him, my voice ragged.
“And he is, he’s not dead. I’m a man of my word.” Dom said, sauntering towards me.
He pressed the bloodied tip of the knife against my face but I didn’t flinch, my eyes following David’s movements on the floor.
He lifted his hand and cupped his neck, a small trickle of blood seeping out from between his fingers.
“I’m fine, Carrie, it’s
just superficial…” David said, the look in his eyes one of horror as he met my gaze.
“It’s a funny thing, that I can hold the knife to you and it doesn’t frighten you. You care only for him and yet if I do this with the blade…” Dom lowered it until it came even with my abdomen.
Without thinking I fought to move away from its sharp edge but he pressed it in against my body, the tip piercing my blouse until it came to a halt against my skin.
I froze, my eyes going to his.
“I thought that might get your attention, it would only take one well placed strike to end the life inside you. You’d survive of course, I’m very precise…” He emphasised his point by pressing the blade a little firmer against my stomach and I felt the first trickle of warmth roll across my skin.
I didn’t say anything to him, just stared him down despite the fear roaring in my head.
A slow smile crept across his face and he withdrew the knife.
“We’re going to have a lot of fun together,” he said, before gesturing to his brother to step forward, “get her in the van ready for transit.”
The only fun I could imagine us having was the type where I buried the knife in his heart and if I was given the opportunity then that was exactly what I would do. I wasn’t going to be his victim, I would do whatever I had to in order to survive and protect my child and those I loved.
“Carrie, no,” David said, his voice filled with anguish as he pushed up to his feet.
“I’ll be fine,” I answered, conveying as much as I could with my eyes.
“She’ll be fine as long as you do what you’re supposed to do. If you fail then you’ll start getting her back in pieces,” Andy the skinny brother said as he cradled the arm I’d hit with the piece of timber. It’d obviously caused him some sort of serious injury and he winced every time he had to move.
“If you hurt her…”
“You’ll do what? Fall apart? You’re not exactly in a position to argue, Mr Ashcroft,” Andy said as the guard holding me followed him to the door.
Dom approached David where he stood in the centre of the room and I knew from the cruel expression on his face that he had something else planned.
“You said he wouldn’t get hurt if I gave myself up!” I shouted, fighting the guards grip once more.
“I said he wouldn’t die and he won’t… No one said anything about hurt.” Dom said, and the guard dragged me out through the open door.
“You lying piece of shit!” I fought hard enough that another guard was forced to step in and grab my legs.
Between them they scooped me up and carried me out of the warehouse to the waiting van. I screamed until my throat was raw as they bundled me into the backseat and attempted to fasten the seatbelt around my waist.
“Carrie, you have a choice.” Andy’s voice cut through the grunting of the guards efforts as they fought to keep me in place. “You can come easily with us, awake and without any restraints.”
“Or?” I asked, my breathing hard as the guards pinned me beneath their collective weight.
“Or I can inject you with something that may or may not harm your unborn child. The choice is yours but make your decision fast. We have a long journey ahead of us and I want to reach the airport before the roads get busy.”
I let my body go limp and I struggled to suck in a deep breath. The guards shifted enough to let my chest expand.
“Awake and without restraints,” I said, my eyes widening as I caught sight of the wicked needle in Andy’s hands.
He nodded and smiled, “ good choice.”
The guard wrapped the belt around my lap, securing me in place as Andy hopped in beside me.
Dom appeared a moment later with two more guards carrying a body between them. My stomach flipped as I wriggled in the seat to get a look at who it was.
Relief tinged with panic flooded through me as I realised it wasn’t David. But just because it wasn’t him didn’t mean they hadn’t hurt him and left him for dead inside.
The guards carried the body to the back of the van and opened the doors before tossing the unfortunate man inside.
Craning my neck I peered into he darkness, my eyes straining to make out any discerning features on the man’s face. His breathing was shallow but he was still alive, for how long more I had no idea.
It wasn’t until he moaned and rolled onto his back, the street lights casting an orange glow across his face that I realised it was Marcus.
“We don’t need any extra witnesses and the rest of your guards were dead anyway. If this one survives he might have some worthwhile insights.” Andy said, his tone light and conversationalist as the van started up and rolled away from the Sovereign Club.
We passed the cars I’d arrived in and bile rolled up my throat as I spotted the other guards littering the ground, their bodies utterly limp and lifeless.
I’d caused all of this. If they hadn’t come with me they would still be alive.
“You wish you hadn’t come don’t you?” Andy said, leaning in towards me, his breath hot and moist against my neck and I fought the urge not to shudder.
“It wouldn’t have mattered, if you hadn’t come many more of your men would have died. We’d planned to hit your home until Dom found out from Tamara that you’d been a guest at the Sovereign Club on more than one occasion.”
“Why?” I asked, my lashes growing wet with unshed tears.
“What would you do to get your child back?” Andy asked, his question catching me off guard.
“I don’t understand.”
“My father wants his daughter back, Henry wouldn’t give her up but I have a feeling that David will do better, considering he doesn’t know who we want him to kill.”
“Melissa?” I said, the confusion evident in my voice. “She’s dead, she died in an accident nearly twenty five years ago.”
“No she didn’t, Henry knew my father was closing in on him, he set it up. She’s very much alive and it’s time she came home.”
His words left me speechless and I felt my mouth opening and closing as I struggled to get my head around his announcement. It was entirely possible, Henry was certainly cruel enough to fake his own daughter’s death and not tell his family.
But how he’d managed to do it without ever leaving any evidence behind him was astounding.
“I’ve surprised you, it’s just the first of many, Carrie. You should sleep because when we get home my father will want to see you and rest might not be something you get to do very often.”
He turned away from me leaving me alone with my own thoughts. I stared out the small window in the back of the van as the streetlights flashed by.
I would get home to David, I would see him again. I just needed to hold onto that thought. If I could do that then I would get through what lay ahead of me.
No matter what, I would keep those I loved safe, including the life I carried within me. As I stared out the window, one lone tear rolled down my cheek, its salty tang stinging my lips.
I would be strong. My loved ones needed me and I couldn’t let them down.
<<<<>>>>
To find out more about this book or others in the series, email M.G. Morgan
[email protected]
Visit my website
http://milliemorganromance.blogspot.com
Or join my mailing list for new release notices and other little extras:
http://eepurl.com/rdBpP
Also by M.G. Morgan
David and Carrie
Kisses for the Billionaire - Promised Kiss Part One
Kisses for the Billionaire - Stolen Kiss Part Two
Billionaire Brothers
At the Billionaire’s Pleasure Book One
At the Billionaire’s Pleasure Christmas Stocking Novella 1.5
At the Billionaire’s Promise Book Two
Loving the Billionaire Book Three
Loving the Billionaire Winter’s Wedding Novella 3.5
At the Billionaire’s
Paradise Book Four
Loving the Billionaire Picture Perfect Book Five
At the Billionaire’s Passion Book Six
Loving the Billionaire Ever After Book Seven
Sovereign Club Series
Precious Book One
Bound Book Two
Coming Soon:
Mirage Book Three
Breaker’s Point Series
Breaker’s Point Rogue
Breaker’s Point Beau
Breaker’s Point Sinner
Coming Soon:
Breaker’s Point Liar
Breaker’s Point Billionaires
Ash
Blake
Cole
Desired by the Billionaire
Remember Me Book 0.5
Desired Book 1
Forget Me Not Book 1.5
Adored Book 2