by Abbi Cook
I walk to the front door and check it. Unlocked. There’s nothing to stop me, so I open the door and peek out. Not a soul in sight.
Finally, my chance to escape this place.
Chapter Thirteen
King
The silence in the apartment tells me she’s gone. I stand in the doorway to the bathroom and listen for any sign of Sophie but hear nothing. Maybe she’s in the bedroom sleeping. Maybe she’s in the kitchen.
I close my eyes as stabbing pain in my ribs makes it hard to breathe. She’s not here.
By the time I make it to my bed, I barely have enough strength to care where the fuck she is. Still, I hope she finds a way off the estate. If not, all that’s in store for her is a world of hurt, likely at the hands of that asshole Tap, assuming the dogs don’t get her first. Duke will finally give her over to him once he realizes I couldn’t stop her from running.
Silly girl. If only she’d been patient.
Even lifting my cell to my ear hurts, so I quickly lower my arm and squeeze the phone between my head and shoulder after calling the doctor. “Cam, when you can, come up. I need your help with a gash on my cheek and maybe a rib or two.”
“Okay, King. I’ll be a while. Marsh is pretty ripped up. Don’t take any painkillers yet, though. It’s better if you’re awake for me.”
I stare up at the white ceiling and groan as pain tears through me again. “No pills. Got it. Not that I was planning on moving from this bed anytime soon. Just come in. The door’s unlocked.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
He ends the call, so I turn my head and let the phone drop into the sheets next to me. Over on the dresser, the bottle of painkillers sits there calling out to me like some kind of goddamned siren. That’s the last thing I need right now. Whatever my ribs feel like doesn’t matter. If Sophie gets caught, I’m going to need to be on my game when Duke calls me down to his office to ask just how she fucking had the chance to go roaming around the estate.
Not that anything I say is going to matter at that point. Just the fact that she had the chance to get away from me says it all. He’ll give her to Tap after this. Why wouldn’t he? Her escape is proof I can’t control her, and I can’t argue with that.
Somewhere in the pain from my ribs pinching at my ability to take in a full breath of air another kind of hurt presses down on me. It makes my chest ache. I know what that fucker will do to her. She won’t make it out of this place alive if he has anything to say about it, no matter what Duke plans to use her for.
I did what I could. If only she’d been patient for just a little while longer.
The sound of the front door opening makes my eyes fly open, and my heart pounds against my chest as I wait to see if she returned. If no one saw her, we might be okay.
One second passes, followed by another, and I begin to wonder if my ears are playing tricks on me and I didn’t really hear the door open. Am I delusional because of the pain?
I watch for any sight of her appearing in the bedroom doorway, but I see no one. Unable to wait, I call out, “Who’s there?”
Cam walks into the room a few moments later as he stuffs his phone into his jacket pocket. “Sorry about that, King. Someone texted me just as I walked in, and I had to answer back right then and there. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Waving off his explanation, I force a laugh that makes me feel like my fucking ribs are stabbing my insides to come out. “No problem. I just didn’t know if that motherfucker Tap had somehow gotten lost and walked into the wrong apartment.”
The doctor sets his black bag down on the bed beside me and smiles in a way that tells me he knows far more about all of us than he lets on. Cam’s older—maybe forty or forty-five—and doesn’t tend to get involved in company bullshit. He just tends to our wounds when he can. He’s an actual doctor, so he has a practice somewhere I think, but Duke relies on him to handle the scrapes and bruises the bunch of us end up getting doing our kind of work.
“How’s the leg feeling?” he asks, glancing over at me as he rummages through his bag looking for something.
I shrug. I haven’t thought about my leg for at least a day or so. I guess I was too busy thinking about something else.
Someone else.
“It’s fine. I’m just not going to let Stills do your job anymore,” I joke.
Cam rolls his eyes at me and laughs. “I think that’s a good idea.” Changing the subject, he nods toward my cheek. “So what do we have going on under this bandage?”
“Think my leg but not as bad. I don’t think it needs stitches,” I answer as I unpeel the tape from my skin and lift the bandage to expose the gash that runs along my cheekbone.
His eyes run the full length of the cut before he nods. “Nice job. You’re right. I can use steri strips instead of stitches. You’ve had so many of these injuries you’re starting to know as much as I do.”
“Well, I’m a quick learner.”
He gets to work closing the wound and applying the bandages while I lay there and try to get a full breath of air into my lungs. I fail and wince as the pain stabs at me once more.
“You cleaned this up nicely. I’m impressed, King. Normally, you’re a mess with this kind of thing.”
I take this opportunity to mention Sophie and hope she hasn’t been caught roaming around the grounds already. “The girl helped. You know me. I’d leave the damn thing all bloody and fucked up, but she kept insisting on cleaning it up so it doesn’t get infected.”
My intention had been to bring her up so Cam might say something to Duke since I know he gives him a full report whenever he tends to any of us. Unfortunately, I didn’t think further than that, and now Cam’s looking around for any sign of her, which I should have thought of.
He doesn’t ask about her, but I have to keep the façade up, so I add, “I think the whole thing made her sort of sick to her stomach. You know how females are. She’s hiding out in the bathroom, probably puking her guts up.”
Leaning back to admire his handiwork on my cheek, he smiles. “Well, I can understand that. Taking care of wounds isn’t for everyone. This looks good now, and I don’t expect it to be any problem for you.”
I look up at him and smile. “No scar I can make up a story for when I’m old and gray?”
“You already have a lot of those, but I’d hazard a guess that this might not be one you can add to your collection. So, what else did they get? I’m assuming you’re not breathing like that because you like me.”
“One of those fuckers got me right in the ribs. Fuck, man, I thought he sent a couple of them shooting right out my fucking back it hurt so much.”
Cam nods, giving me a sly smile. “And the payback for that was your usual?”
“He’s not going to be crushing anyone’s ribs ever again, so yeah, my usual,” I say proudly, happy to report that fuck with the size thirteen shitkickers got what he had coming to him.
The doctor offers me his hand and then pulls me up off the bed as a thousand spikes of red-hot pain shoot through my torso. “Fuck! That hurts. There’s got to be at least a couple that are bad this time,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Let me check,” he says as he moves his hands to my sides and then begins to press against my skin. “I’m not sure anything’s broken, but they could be badly bruised. I’m thinking we need some X-rays, though, to be sure.”
I shake my head and wave off his suggestion. “I don’t need X-rays. It’s not like you’re going to be able to do anything different if we find out they’re broken and not only bruised. I’ll be fine.”
Cam twists his expression into the usual look of disapproval he wears any time I tell him I don’t want to bother with his tests. They don’t change anything anyway. It’s not like he can set broken ribs. They just need to heal on their own.
“You know, if it’s a bad break, you can have internal damage. You don’t want to mess up any organs.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Just promise me you’ll make sure you take deep breaths so you don’t get pneumonia. If so, I’ll be sure to tell Duke that you’re only out of commission for a few days to give you a chance to heal a little.”
Taking a deep breath hasn’t been easy up to now, so I’m guessing it’s going to hurt for a while. I don’t want the doctor telling Duke I’m out of commission at all, though, so I need to show him I’m all good right here and now.
I tilt my head back to look at him and inhale deeply through my nose. The pain threatens to make my eyes tear, but I force myself to smile through the unbelievable agony this single breath is dealing me.
After I let it out, I say, “See? All good. The worst thing was the gash on my face, and that didn’t even need stitches. I’ll be at his office the same time I am any other day I work.”
Cam rolls his eyes. “Okay, but at least rest for tonight. I’ll give you something to sleep.”
He tries to hand me another bottle of pills, but I push them away. “I don’t need anything. Thanks.”
For a long moment, he stares at me, like he’s sizing up how likely it is I feel as good as I claim. Finally, he closes his bag and nods. “I swear you’re made of steel, King. You have my number. Call if you need anything. I’ll check back with you about the cheek in a couple days.”
“Thanks, Cam. Do me a favor and lock the door on your way out. I don’t need any wayward sons of bitches wandering into my place while I’m trying to get some sleep.”
“Gotcha. Remember, call me if you need anything, especially those pills you wouldn’t take,” Cam says with a smile that makes me think he knows I’m in a metric shit ton of pain but won’t call me on it.
I watch him leave, and before he even reaches the front door, I collapse back onto the bed. If I didn’t have to worry about the effect of painkillers on my ability to hold my own with the likes of Tap, I’d swallow a bunch of them because just taking that single breath in made me feel like someone was ripping my body apart with pliers.
Closing my eyes, I pray to a god I don’t believe in that I can get some sleep. Anything that will let me forget about this pain for even a little while.
Pounding on my front door rips me out of a sound sleep, and without thinking, I sit up in bed, only to feel like a vice is crushing my body. I fall back onto the bed nearly in tears at how bad this feels. Holy fuck!
“King! You in there?” I hear someone yell, and I remember I told Cam to lock the door on his way out.
What seemed like a great idea at the time is way less fucking spectacular now as I struggle to get myself out of bed. After far more effort than I ever thought I’d need to get to the floor, I walk through the apartment and throw the front door open, already pissed off at whoever it is banging the fuck out of it.
One of the guys I work with stands there with his fist at the ready to pound again. Nico’s surprised expression probably matches the one I had on when I first woke up a few seconds ago. Taller and bigger than most of Duke’s guys, he looks like he spends every minute of the day at the gym. He also has a streak of meanness running through him that rivals Tap’s, but he’s not a psychopath.
“King, you have to get up. The boss wants you.”
“I am up, man,” I snap, already disgusted with this conversation. “What time is it?”
Nico shrugs. “I don’t know. Right around one, I think.”
One o’clock in the morning? Why the fuck does Duke need me at this time of night? Then it dawns on me. Sophie. She got herself fucking caught, and now on top of feeling like a fucking truck ran me over, I get to watch him hand her over to Tap.
Fucking great.
“Any idea why he needs me now?” I ask, pretending to not know just in case it’s something else.
“In his office. Now. That’s all he said,” Nico says, repeating our boss’s words verbatim, I’m sure.
“Fine. I’ll be right there,” I answer as I slam the door in his face.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m dressed as well as I’m going to be considering my ribs threw up a roadblock every time I tried to put a T-shirt on. I don’t usually wear button down shirts, but in my current state, it’s all I could manage.
As I walk through the living room, I glance over at the empty couch where Sophie usually sat. My stomach tightens at the thought of what Duke is so eager to discuss since I’m pretty sure it’s nothing good and has everything to do with her.
Closing the front door behind me, I take one last look back at the couch. “Serves her right. Stupid girl.”
By the time I reach the hallway outside of Duke’s office, I’ve screwed my face into its usual I don’t fucking care expression I put on any time I have to be around him. Busted ribs can’t change that look or he’ll know I give a damn about what’s going on with her.
I walk in ready to see Tap holding Sophie and her dark eyes full of fear silently pleading with me to save her, but there’s no one there but Duke. Seated behind his desk, he looks worried.
But why if this meeting has nothing to do with Sophie? There’s no way he’d just hand her over to Tap without rubbing my face in it. Duke’s never that nice.
He studies me for a minute before he extends his arm to offer me a seat in front of his desk. “Relax. Take a load off, King. I’m guessing I woke you up.”
As much as I don’t want to sit because standing hurts so much less, I take the seat he offers and nod. “Needed a little sleep after today’s action.”
His eyes move up and down like he’s examining me for some defect. “I hope you feel better than you look. I’ve seen shit warmed over that looked better than you do at this moment, although the dress shirt makes you seem a little less roughed up.”
“I feel like shit, but don’t worry. I’ll be fine tomorrow. A little more sleep and I’ll be good.”
He believes my act and easily moves on to the reason he dragged me down here in the middle of the night. “Okay, then down to business. I think I have a rat in my midst.”
My heart slams into my chest, and I worry how much my whole body hurts at that moment is so obvious that he’s going to decide not to continue telling me about his suspicions. I need for him to trust me, so I fight every instinct inside me to wince as my ribs send waves of pain radiating through my torso.
I have to keep cool, so I casually ask the logical question anyone would. “Why?”
“That ambush today. Somebody knew what you three were there for. Somebody other than the buyers.”
Nodding, I pretend like I’m thinking of what he’s suggesting. “We did go in there expecting only three of them. Then, out of nowhere, it’s like double that many came at us from all sides. Angelo got the worst of it because he was closest to where they came from. Poor guy.”
Duke sighs deeply, like the loss of one of his men bothers him. “Well, I don’t think he was the rat, unfortunately, so my problem still exists.”
So much for caring.
“One of the new guys?” I ask, quickly wondering who he suspects. “Personally, I’d be looking at Tap.”
At my mention of that asshole, Duke throws his head back and laughs. “That’s because you two don’t get along. Men shouldn’t let women come between them. There’s enough pussy in this world to go around for everyone.”
“I hated him long before she came along. He’s too apt to go rogue. He’s all about him, and everyone else can go fuck themselves. People get hurt, or worse, killed that way.”
I watch for his reaction since I know he likes Tap. Even more, I wonder if Duke already knows Sophie has run off. I’ve already decided I’ll claim she hurts him more than helps him since Tap should have never taken her in the first place.
“He’s proven himself almost as much as you have, so for now, Tap isn’t my rat,” Duke says sharply, effectively ending our discussion of him.
All the better. Talking about that fuck only makes me want to crush something, preferably him.
We sit there silently as he thinks about who his rat can be and I t
hink about how thankful I am Sophie didn’t escape until after what went down at the buy meeting yesterday. If she’d left earlier, Duke would think she got word to her uncle and the shit show that greeted the three of us was his way of retaliating.
Curious, I break the silence between the two of us and ask about that very idea. “Any chance her uncle had a part in what went down yesterday? Tap did take his niece.”
“Maybe, but with her still with you, I don’t see how. Any chance she got your phone and called him?”
I chuckle and shake my head. “She and I aren’t close. She’s basically my slave. I take what I want from her, and she cooks my meals and keeps my place clean. I guess she’s more like a housekeeper-cook-whore.”
My description of Sophie’s part in my life amuses him, and he lets out a deep belly laugh. “I should get one of them. Kill three birds with one stone.”
We laugh together, and he adds, “You know, Tap reminds me every damn day that she should be his.”
“Well, he’s wrong, and anyway, he’d just abuse the hell out of her. He probably wouldn’t even fuck her. Complete waste of fucking pussy, if you ask me. You’d end up sending her back looking like goddamned hamburger meat if he got a hold of her.”
Duke shakes his head. “All of this over some cunt. I wish he had never grabbed her at all. I’ve heard nothing from her uncle about her either, which makes me wonder. I don’t like wondering, King. You know that.”
“Leave it to Tap to grab some useless bitch. She’s probably the daughter of the one brother or sister her uncle doesn’t like,” I say with a forced chuckle. “Just another reason he shouldn’t have her.”
My jab at Tap falls flat, and Duke quickly moves the conversation back to his rat problem. “Well, I want you to keep your eyes open from now on. We need to find the rat among us, King.”