I backtracked down the hall, faster this time. There was an urgency pounding at me and a feeling that something really, really bad was happening.
I crept into the office. A giant mahogany desk in one corner, a flat-screened TV mounted on the wall. Some old-looking paintings of hunting scenes. Bookshelves. Dark wood wainscoting. Gold sconces. A giant oil painting of Dominick himself took up one wall. He was dressed in a crimson velvet smoking jacket, larger than life-size, and had a lanky blonde draped over his shoulder, a la Hugh Heffner. If the crazy blue eyes of the man in the painting hadn't been so creepily lifelike, I'd have rolled my eyes at the clichéd thing.
I thought furiously for a moment. Where would an egomaniacal criminal with an overdeveloped flair for the dramatic keep his secret dungeon?
On the other side of a secret passageway, of course.
I tried moving a few books along the back wall, but no convenient dias spun around to deposit me on the other side. I tugged on the sconces and pulled up the Persian rug, but there were no hidden trapdoors or sliding portals. I huffed out a breath, cursing. Then my eyes fastened on the painting again. It was big. Almost ceiling to floor, and about eight feet wide. Definitely big enough to hide a doorway.
I tucked the gun in the front of my pants, making sure that the safety was on first so I didn't shoot myself in the leg, and grabbed hold of the painting with both hands. I was going to try and pull it outward, but as soon as I touched it, it slipped silently to one side, apparently riding on well-greased rollers. I pushed it the rest of the way to reveal a steel door recessed into the wall by a few inches.
Not wanting the painting to slide back again, I quickly deposited a nearby bust on the floor and dragged the heavy wooden pedestal it had been sitting on over to hold the painting in place.
Holding my breath, I grabbed the handle and turned it. As it swung open, I heard screaming. It was Addy. And then Jack's voice, yelling hoarsely, "No, no, no!"
Before I even finished whispering "ohmigod," I was at the bottom of the concrete steps in front of me. The narrow stairway opened into a long basement room that kind of looked like someone's garage workshop. There were no windows, fluorescent shop lights overhead, wooden tables with what looked like tools on them, a utility sink, concrete floor and white-painted cinderblock walls. The difference was that this workshop had cages built into one side with thick metal bars, like jail cells out of the old West, and the tools on the table looked pretty standard for woodworking, but probably had never been used to build birdhouses.
There were six cells. Two were empty, except for small cots, and toilets bolted to the wall. A third cell held my brother, his faced bruised and furious, gripping the bars in front of him. He also looked terrified which scared the crap out of me. He might be an ass in general, but he was no coward and I'd never seen my big brother really afraid of anything. Addy was in the next cell, sobbing, her dress torn and hanging from one shoulder and one shoe missing. In the other two were blonde women, one standing stiffly in the center of her cell and the other cowering back against the far wall, hiding her face.
Time had slowed to a crawl again, and I took in the scene in about a millisecond. In the center of the room with his back to me was Dominick, holding something that whirred like a dentist's drill. In front of him, shirtless and hanging by his wrists from shackles bolted to the ceiling, was Chance. His dark head was hanging limply and I couldn't see his face. For a second, I thought I was too late and froze as a crushing pain gripped my chest. But then his body jerked and twisted convulsively as Dominick moved closer with the thing in his hands. Addy let out a keening wail and fainted, crumpling to the floor, and Jack roared.
My own fear crystallized into pure murderous rage as I raced silently across the floor and launched myself at Dominick's suit-clad back with every ounce of strength I had. I hit him with a force that clacked my teeth together, and we went flying past Chance, my arms wrapped tightly around Dominick's throat and my legs gripping his waist. We hit the floor with a bone-jarring impact and all the air left my body, leaving my lungs feeling like empty plastic grocery bags. I didn't slacken my grip, though, and even though my chest was screaming for air, I held on to Dominick like grim death.
He made a choking, wheezing sound and struggled fiercely, but I didn't let go. My vision started to dim from lack of oxygen, and I could hear Addy yelling something, but my brain wasn't processing language. I was focusing everything I had on squeezing the life out of the bastard. He was trying to climb to his hands and knees, but my weight was too much for him. Whatever he had in his hands was still buzzing beneath us and I felt a burning pressure on my arm, but I kept my arms and legs locked into place, concentrating on getting my breath back.
And then he sent a flailing fist backward and caught me hard in the nose. I loosened my grip involuntarily at the flare of pain. At the same time, he bucked hard, and I flew off his back, hitting the ground and rolling over onto my stomach. The concrete floor beneath my face was cold and hard and my dazed consciousness registered crimson drips on the immaculate white surface and a drain next to me. That's convenient, I thought stupidly. Wouldn't want to get the floor all messy.
Hearing Dominick cursing, I coordinated my leaden limbs and fuzzy thoughts enough to flop over onto my back. He'd gotten to his feet and his handsome, urbane features were contorted into a snarl of rage. His formerly-immaculate suit jacket was ripped at the shoulder and hanging open. The white dress shirt beneath was torn and bloodied at midchest, probably from where he'd fallen on the jigsaw that was still buzzing away in one hand. The other hand was pressed to the welling wound. He must've fallen on his own torture tool.
Good. I felt a venomous satisfaction.
"You bitch," he bellowed. Dropping the jigsaw, he picked up a hatchet from the table next to him. He raised it above his head and the wickedly sharp steel glittered in the light overhead. I went tense as a bowstring, and struggled to free the gun still tucked into my waistband. Suddenly, there was a rattle of metal on metal, as behind Dominick, Chance gripped the chains that strung him up. His biceps corded and bunched and he swung his legs up to deliver a brutal kick to the back of Dominick's head.
Dominick collapsed heavily—right on me. What really sucked was that the hatchet he'd been holding had embedded itself in my thigh, helped along by Dominick's weight. I shrieked at the pain in my leg and tried to wriggle away from it, but I was pinned. Dominick groaned and pushed himself up on his hands. I couldn't scoot away, though, since his weight was on my bottom half now, grinding down on the hatchet and sending white-hot licks of hellfire through me.
In seconds, his eyes focused, and his face twisted again. He grabbed my thrashing arms and pulled them up over my head, holding them in a pitiless one-handed grip that ground my wrist bones together. I wanted to whimper, but I did not want to give him that satisfaction.
And then, to my horror, his eyes lit on my gun, which had been knocked to the side. He grabbed it easily, and just as easily, kept my imprisoned wrists in place when I went back to fighting him frantically.
His cool smile had fallen back into place as he cocked the gun and his blue eyes glittered feverishly as he pressed it almost tenderly to my forehead. "Now that was the fight I was hoping for. I had a feeling you wouldn't disappoint me, Lucky."
It was all so unreal. Trapped in Dominick's gloating stare and the harsh haze of pain that was rapidly getting to the overwhelming point, my thoughts pinged around like birdshot in a coffee can. Dimly, I could hear Chance swearing and fighting the chains that held him up. Crap, the idiot would think this was his fault. And how much worse would it be for him if I was really pregnant? Not that he'd have time to feel sorry for himself, because he'd be dead soon, too, I thought wrenchingly. And Jack was still setting up a horrible racket in his cage to the left of me. I didn't want him to see his twin sister murdered. At least Addy had done the smart thing and passed out. I wished I could pass out on cue.
The soft, sibilant hiss of evil cut through my th
oughts. "Last words, Lucky? Don't you want to beg me to make their deaths fast?"
This was it. Tears slid into my hairline, and I could see Dominick taking them in, avidly feeding off my pain and fear. "Please," I croaked.
"Yes?" His look was triumphant.
"Please… go fuck yourself."
I spit in his face. Dead in the eye. He reared back and leveled the gun at me, and I squeezed my eyes shut, the last of my bravado gone.
A shot rang out and then there was nothing but blackness.
Chapter 41
If I was in heaven, it smelled like lime Jello and bleach. And it was noisy. There were beeps and intercoms. And I didn't think angels argued, but somewhere nearby, a full scale battle was taking place in whispers.
"I can not believe you're sitting there eating right now."
"I'm hungry. It's been like two days since I've had anything to eat."
"She's sitting there near death and you're scarfing her Jello! Why the hell did I marry you, you worthless, selfish jerk? If it were me lying there, would you be eating my Jello?"
I cracked one eye open blearily. The room was spinning, but after a second, it righted enough for me to make out Addy, swimming in a pair of oversized blue hospital scrubs, her small hands clenched in fists on her hips. Jack was in front of her, wolfing down the jiggly green stuff with a mutinous look on his face.
"Knock it off, kids," I managed, my voice coming out all weird and wavery. "I don't even like Jello."
Addy gasped and spun around. It was gratifying to see Jack drop his spoon in guilty surprise and push the rolling tray aside to jump to his feet. He was wearing scrubs, too, and had a butterfly bandage on a cut over his cheekbone. His left eye was blackened.
"Don't talk!" Addy said, bottom lip quivering, tears already tracking down her cheeks. She was still cute as a button, even when she cried. "I'm calling the nurse."
She pressed the intercom button before I could even muster the wits to tell her no. I needed to know about Chance. Something must be horribly wrong or he'd be here, too.
I was dizzy and floaty, though, probably from painkillers and it was impossible to even pull together a coherent thought, much less make it come out of my mouth. Everything next seemed to happen in a blur. The last thing I remember was asking the impossibly young-looking nurse if pain meds would hurt the baby, and my intention was to whisper it, but my voice boomed out like someone had been screwing with my volume button. The chaos in the room stilled for about six seconds.
I don't know what happened after that, though, because the darkness sucked me under again.
It was actually quiet in the room when I woke up. The shades on the window beside the bed were open, and I could see it was night. Enough neon to light up the moon told me I was still in Vegas and I was suddenly desperate to get home. I missed my mom. I missed Louie. I missed trees, unpredictable weather that alternately steamed like the world's most humid clambake or blasted you to the bone with frigid sub-zero temps, sometimes even in the same day, and the relative calmness of the Student Ghetto. It was normalcy.
Rolling my head to the other side, I saw Chance sleeping in the chair next to my bed. He was in a hospital gown, stretched between two uncomfortable-looking chairs, heavily-muscled arms folded across his chest and head resting against the wall behind him. His legs should've looked funny sticking out from beneath the thin blue gown, but Chance could've made a paper bag look sexy. Thick and tan, dusted with dark hair, big feet. Dark lashes long enough that they should have made him look feminine but didn't resting against his cheeks. His lips were parted just a little bit, and I could hear him breathing.
Then the tears started. He was breathing, chest rising and falling steadily in his sleep. I was so afraid I'd never see him alive again, and judging by the new bruises, cuts and snowy white bandages that criss-crossed in places where his skin showed, it was a major miracle he was sitting here next to me. I cried harder. I was just so freaking grateful that he was breathing.
I tried to be quiet, muffling my sniffles under the thin hospital blanket I pulled up over my face, but then Chance was awake, standing over my bed. He was hunched over a little and I saw a grimace of pain pass across his face, but his eyes were soft and warm, and he was whispering for me to hush in a deep, affectionate rumble, and that made me cry harder.
"Are pregnant women always this emotional?" he asked huskily.
I sighed and snuffled a last time before rolling to one side and scooting backward to make room for him on the bed, gritting my teeth a little as my thigh twinged. "You escaped from your own room, didn't you?" I asked, while he lay down next to me, huffing a little as he pulled his legs up on the bed.
"It's not like I left the hospital," he shrugged. "They'll find me. I was a couple rooms down."
The bed was not built for two and the metal side rail dug between my shoulder blades, but he felt so good and warm and solid pressed against my front that I just burrowed closer and carefully slid my hand across his front to hug him to me. His unbandaged arm held me tight to him. I wanted to ask where all he was hurt. Heck, I wanted to ask where all I was hurt. But I didn't want to bring Dominick's shadow into the bed with us.
"Am I, for sure?" I asked instead.
"What?"
"Pregnant."
He gave me another light squeeze, reassuring this time. "Pretty sure. After your outburst—which I literally heard from my room, by the way—the nurse ordered a couple of blood tests on you. It's really, really early to tell, but your hormones levels are elevated and rising, which is a good sign. So far, neither the pain meds or anything else, seems to have bothered the little tadpole."
I felt a tightness in my chest that was part happy, part scared shitless, and my laugh was watery. "Tadpole? Really? That just sounds gross."
He laughed too and my heart skipped at the sound. I wanted to make him laugh again. It reminded me of the old Chance, but deeper and grown-up. "No, not really even a tadpole yet. He or she's not much more than a tiny blip on your hormone radar, but I'm kind of stumped on a size comparison for that. You know, though, they said that an hCG count this high so soon after conception, and the fact that you're a twin, is a good indicator that there's two on the way."
Yikes. Another Lucky and Jack? But no, I immediately pictured two sweet babies—one with auburn tufts of hair, and the other with a shock of silky black. A little Lucky and Chance, except hopefully little Lucky would end up with a nicer brother.
"And how would you feel about that," I asked tentatively, tracing a nervous circle in the dark hair of his arm.
"I like babies."
"Really?" This surprised me. I'd never seen Chance with a baby, but then again, I knew what kind of gentleness those big hands were capable of and it didn't seem like that much of a stretch.
"There's only one thing…"
Uh oh.
"We might want to make the wedding soon, if that's the case. You'll probably get as big as a house, and it'll be hard to find a vintage wedding gown that'll fit."
"I found your letter. And the ring. You should probably tell me all that in person, you know. And ask me."
Carefully, he rolled over on to his side, so he was facing me. "You're probably right." He traced the outline of my jaw, and then my lips, with one finger, his eyes mossy green and intently fixed on my face. "Hell, I fell half in love with you when I was about fifteen. Remember the pool party at Carly Morales's house?"
I groaned and buried my face in his chest. "You fell in love with the Topless Wonder?"
Chance's chuckle rumbled against my ear. "I think a lot of guys secretly fell in love with you that day."
I remembered that day, all too well. I was wearing my brand new bikini with the ruffles and black polka dots. It was my first bikini and I'd been feeling like pretty hot stuff. I wasn't the world's greatest swimmer, but I'd managed to slice a perfect dive off the board and had come up to cheers and whistles. It wasn't until I'd climbed out of the pool and took a smug little bow that I
realized my ruffled pink bikini top was still floating in the deep end. And I'd just flashed my little fifteen year-old boobies to half the high school. And then Jack had fished the bikini top out with the skimmer and tossed it up on Carly's roof, where, for all I knew, it still lived. Probably the story had gone on to become urban legend, the Topless Wonder still a part of Parchment High School's collective memory like that girl with the dog and the peanut butter back in 1974.
I shuddered.
"Hey," Chance said, putting his lips to mine in a brief, soft kiss. "You do know how to get a guy to notice you."
"Right," I said, a little dazed by the jolt I got just that simple caress. I sure couldn't doubt we had something special when my toes went numb just from a simple brush of lips. "You just waited two years to do anything about it."
His face clouded a little. "I had a lot going on at home. I made the decision that you were hands-off. You were all sunshine and kittens and I was redneck alcoholics and loud, abusive fights."
I ran my knuckles down his prickly cheek. "Until that day in the gym."
"Until that day in the gym," he agreed, and grinned. "You were such a little spitfire, those blue eyes of yours shooting sparks and your face all flushed. I couldn't stand it anymore. That's when I finally fell for you all the way.
"I'm sorry for walking away from you," he said and kissed me again, a heated, possessive slanting of lips and tongue. "You kept me sane during the years after that. I went through some brutal shit, but you were always there, in the back of my mind, and the thought of you kept me going, waking up the next day to do it all over again."
Lucky in Love Page 16