by L. E. Bross
“Welcome home, boss.”
As the door creaks open, revealing a dimly lit concrete hallway, Nate leans down.
“Welcome home, babe.”
‘Home’ is a huge warehouse filled with old machinery of some kind and thick layers of dust. It smells like a mix between an auto repair shop and an old moldy mattress.
There are tracks on the floor, a pathway leading through the grit and grime that Nate follows to a large main room. There’s only a couple of working lights in here which throws most of the space into deep shadow.
Undeterred, Nate keeps walking, dragging me along with him to where a narrow hallway cuts between two steel columns. What look like storage rooms line both sides of the hall and through an open door, I see a cot under a bare light bulb. They must all sleep here. Nate finally stops and throws open the last door before the hall ends at a solid concrete wall.
The light outside the room illuminates the same setup as the previous room; a cot and not much else. With a hand on my lower back, Nate shoves me inside. After a couple of staggering steps, I stop and spin around.
There aren’t any windows, just four dirty grey walls and a cot. It’s about the size of my closet at the Panchard mansion. The air is thick and musty and clings to my tongue as my breathing gets heavier.
“You’re keeping me in here? Nate, you can't keep me in here.” My voice rises along with my panic.
“Get used to these walls, babe. Unless you decide to play nice. Just knock three times if you want to earn some amenities on your back. Or hell, on your hands and knees, don’t matter much to me.” He stops in the doorway and swings his gaze to me. “Or my guys. Since you seem to have a thing for more than one dick now.”
The door slams shut and I hear a lock slide into place.
Complete blackness engulfs me. I can hear my heart thundering in my ears. I reach over my head, to where I think I saw a string hanging beside the light bulb. After several swipes, something brushes my hand. I grab and pull and at first, nothing happens.
I try again and this time, I hear a click and then bright cold light floods the space. After blinking away the sudden blindness, I can see it’s even worse than I thought. If I wasn’t so afraid of the dark, I’d turn the light back off.
At least then I could pretend that I’m not trapped in a box.
The longer I stand there, straining to hear any sign of life, the more the panic sets in. What if he left me here, alone? What if he doesn't come back? If Peter was the one who paid him to take me, then he’s the only one who knows who did it.
The text I sent Baz made it clear that I was leaving.
Even if they looked, the guys would never find me here. If they did, Nate would kill them before he’d let them save me. I’m here because I need to make sure they’re safe.
As long as I know that, then I can handle anything.
My teeth clatter, more from fear than from the cold. This is my fate. I’m here to keep my guys alive. My only regret is that they think I left them. I wish I could have seen them one last time.
There’s a thin blanket on the cot, so I pull it free and shake it out, choking on the plume of dust that rises up. With nowhere to go, it settles into my lungs and onto my skin.
I leave the light on and climb onto the cot then lean back against the wall, wrapping the blanket around me. I have no idea what time it is but it has to be late by now. The spike of adrenaline in the parking lot is long gone and exhaustion seeps into my bones. I drop my head forward and rest it on my knees until I drift off into a troubled sleep.
At least in my dreams, I can see my guys again.
The screech of rusty hinges pulls me from sleep with a jerk. I must have lain down at some point in the night because my head is cradled against my arm.
I sit up and blink the sleep from my eyes, disoriented for a few seconds. Doug stands at the end of the cot, leering at me. I’ve always hated the guy. He puts the creep in creepy.
He tosses something at me and I see a granola bar fall next to my leg.
“Boss said to feed you.” He scratches at his arm, a prime example of what happens when you use the product you sell. “Don’t know why he bothered hunting your ass down and bringing you back, you ain't worth shit. And now I gotta babysit your ass until he decides what to do with you.”
“I need to use the bathroom,” I tell Doug, pushing to my feet.
When he points to the bucket in the corner, I shake my head.
“Not happening.”
“If you need to go bad enough, it’ll do.” He moves to the door and I’m right behind him. He’s gotten skinnier since the last time I saw him. I’m pretty sure I could knock him down if I had too. Except I have nowhere to go. If I leave, my guys aren’t safe.
I’m stuck between a wall and hard place.
“Nate. Let me use a real bathroom, you asshole.” My raised voice bounces down the hall and I hear a chuckle before Nate saunters into view.
“Change your mind about those privileges?” His gaze rakes over my body and I pull the blanket tighter around me.
“Hell will freeze over first,” I grind out.
“You might feel different after a few days in there.”
I push the sick feeling back down at the idea of being cooped up in that room for any longer than I already have been. He moves closer and pushes Doug out of the way to lean against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest.
“So that’s your big plan? Keep me locked up until I agree to fuck you? When did you get so desperate that you have to bribe women to sleep with you?”
He pushes into the room and narrows his eyes at me. I step back until the back of my legs hit the cot.
“Option two is that I put one right between your eyes and leave you here to rot where no one would ever find your body.”
My eyes widen. He said that so nonchalantly.
“You’d really do that to me?” I gasp.
I knew Nate was dangerous, but I’ve never seen that particular gleam in his eyes directed at me. Like he wants to hurt me.
My knees feel like Jell-O, so I sink onto the edge of the cot and stare up at him.
He backs toward the door, never taking his eyes off me.
“Babe, you have no idea what I am. What I’ve done. I’m standing up here on a mountain made of flesh and blood, the fucking King of it all. If you push me, you’ll end up under my boots. In the meantime,” he points to the corner, a smirk dancing over his lips. He’s loving this. “There’s the bathroom. Enjoy your stay.”
He blows me a kiss and slams the door shut.
“Fuck you!” I scream the words and they bounce off the walls, ricochet around in my head until I have to press my hands over my ears. Even so, I hear his parting words.
“Oh, you will babe, I have no doubt about that. It’s just a matter of time.” He taps the door three times, then everything goes silent again.
Chapter Six
Baz
Peter not only deleted Ever’s file, he scrubbed her off the fucking planet.
Lucky for me, he didn’t hide the people in her past quite as well. I started at the police station where Peter found her. I found a backdoor into the system and with a hastily written program, found the address for one Nate Connors.
“This guy is dangerous,” I tell Ry. “Known gangster, arrested for dealing drugs, weapons charges, a fucking prostitution ring.”
The last one makes me clench my jaw. Any guy who sells women to be used for sex has zero moral compass. The things he could do to Ever make my chest hurt.
“How the hell is he still on the street?” X asks.
I glance at X. “The same way Peter got two years for something that should have put him behind bars for life. Connections. Bribes. A plea deal.”
I still can’t believe that the feds accepted Peter’s deal. I guess the list of people dealing with Peter was more valuable than putting him in prison long term. I grit my teeth. It doesn't matter. Nothing does until we find Ever.
&nb
sp; “Here’s his address.” I rip off the piece of paper where I jotted it down and Ry grabs it, already on his way out the door. “Ry, stop. You can't go barging in there. This guy has guns. Judging by what I saw, he’d have no problem shooting you.”
“Which is why we need to get Ever the fuck out of there.”
“I agree, but stop and think. We need to be smart about this.” X shoves to his feet and drags his hand over his face.
It’s past one in the morning already and the guys only got a couple hours of restless sleep while I was doing my thing. My eyes are blurry and it feels like my brain is leaking out of my ears, but I did it.
I found her.
“Look, when we get there, we wait. I can call 911 and report an abduction at that address. We’ll let the cops handle the hard part and we’ll be there when they bring Ever out. Then we bring her home. Agreed?”
X nods and we look to Riot. He’s always reacted before thinking and if he goes off half-cocked, there’s no telling what might happen.
“It’s the safest way for Ever, too.”
Finally Ry nods. “Fine, but we leave right the fuck now.”
“Figured as much. Let’s go.”
I claim the backseat so I can stretch out and Riot plugs the coordinates into his GPS. We take off in a cloud of burnt rubber. Five minutes into the drive my eyes drift shut and I’m out. It seems like only minutes later when I feel a hand on my shoulder, shaking me awake.
“Baz, man, we’re here.”
It takes superhuman effort to pull myself out of the sleep-fog my brain is stuck in.
“It’s that house right there.”
Ry points to a run-down ranch diagonally across from where he parked. There aren’t any lights on, but it’s also after two in the morning.
“Make the call because I can't stand knowing she’s on the other side of one of those walls,” Riot grits out. “So fucking close I can almost touch her.”
I pull out my phone and punch in the numbers.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Hello? I just saw two men drag a girl into a house. She was screaming for help. Sixty-two twenty Highland Drive. Please hurry, I don’t know what they’re going to do to her.”
“I’m sending a cruiser there now. Are you in a safe place?”
“Yes, I’m calling from down the street.”
“Do you see anything else?”
“No. They went inside and the screaming stopped. Please hurry.”
“The police are almost there, tell me if you can hear the siren?”
Riot lowers the window and we hear the faint sound growing louder.
“Yes, I can hear them.”
Lights flash at the end of the street and then stop in front of the house.
“They’re here.”
“Okay, do you want me to stay on the line with you?”
“No, I just wanted to make sure someone came to help.”
“Can you give me your name and number, in case the police have any questions?”
I disconnect the call and make sure that the scrambler I installed is working. They won’t be able to trace the call back to my phone.
“They’re going in,” X says.
Riot gets out of the car and watches over the hood. I hold my breath when I see them kick the door in. It feels like hours before they emerge, and one starts to talk into his shoulder radio.
We watch as they get into their cruiser and flip the lights off.
When they drive away, Ry slams his fist on the roof of the car.
“What the fuck just happened?” X asks.
Riot takes off across the street, bounding up the steps and into the house.
“Fuck.” X pushes out of the car and runs across behind him.
I maneuver out of the backseat and grab Ry’s keys out of the ignition, then lock the doors before I head across to join them. Ry greets me at the door.
“The house is fucking empty. No one lives there, there’s nothing inside.”
That doesn’t make sense. This was the address that came up for Nate Connors. The only known address.
“She was supposed to be here.” Ry drives his hands behind his neck and drops his head forward. “Where the fuck is she?” His voice cracks and he curls his elbows inward, shielding his face.
Guilt rises up inside me and clogs my throat. They were counting on me and I let them down. X catches my stare and shakes his head.
“Not your fault, man, you only see what’s there. You couldn’t have known.”
Without Ever’s phone, I can’t track her. She could be anywhere—hell, she could be in the house next door right now and we’d never even know it. I need more information.
“I need to get back to Panchard, see if there’s something I missed. It doesn’t make sense, why her ex-boyfriend shows up now. Where was he months ago? There’s got to be a reason and if we find it, we’ll know where to start looking.”
“Fuck,” Ry explodes, driving his boot against the rotted door frame. “We put all that shit behind us, it was supposed to be over. That mother fucker is in prison and we’re free. Ever is free. I should have been there. Should have noticed something was wrong. What if she thinks we don’t fucking care she’s gone?”
“She’d never think that,” X assures him. “She knows how we feel about her.”
“Really, X? Then why the fuck was she so quick to believe you were out with another girl? Why do you think she looked so sad? You fucking called us to come home because something was off. We stopped paying attention and look what happened. Someone took her right out from under us.”
X straightens and crowds Riot against the side of the house.
“We are going to find her.” The guttural promise in his words falls between them.
Ry lifts his tortured gaze and I can see the fear in his eyes.
“What if we don’t?”
“We have the biggest genius in the fucking world right here.” X motions to me. “He wrote a program that can find anyone, remember? We will find her. Don’t you dare think otherwise. Got me?”
Ry sucks in several ragged breaths then nods. “We will fucking find her.”
“Yes we will.” X claps him on the shoulder and together, we walk back to the car. X grabs the keys before Ry can take them. “I’m driving. If you get behind the wheel you might road-rage us right off a cliff.”
They jostle each other, but I can see there isn’t any real fight in Riot as he slides into the passenger seat.
“There aren’t any cliffs on the highway, asshole.”
Once we’re back on the road, I see X looking at me in the rearview mirror.
“We’ll find her.”
I’m not sure if he’s asking or telling me, but I nod just the same, because I will move heaven and earth, hack into every damned database in the world to find our girl.
Nothing and no one is going to stop me.
Chapter Seven
Ever
I pee in the bucket.
It was there or in my pants, and I’m not about to take option two. I have some dignity left.
When the door finally opens, I’m tempted to throw the bucket’s contents at whoever dares to walk through first. When I see Doug’s face, I’m doubly tempted, until he opens the door wide.
“Come on,” he says without even stepping into the room.
I follow behind him. I have no idea how long I’ve been in that room, but as soon as I step out, I pull fresh air into my lungs. I think we’re going back to the main room, but Doug stops at the end of the hall and takes a right, leading me up a set of narrow metal stairs that I swear sway under our weight.
Light peeks through the broken windows that line the upper walls.
It’s daytime; I’m just not sure of which day.
When we reach the top, I see we’ve come up to some kind of balcony overlooking the entire warehouse floor below. Nate stands with his back to me and doesn't turn around until the sound of Doug’s footsteps fades away.
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“I’d forgotten how stubborn you can be.”
I keep away from the railing, sticking to the relative safety of the unexposed part of the balcony. If his plan is to throw me over, I’m not going to make it easy on him.
Nate turns and meets my gaze and the manic energy in his eyes is gone in the light of day. He looks tired and there’s a shadow along his jaw. He scrubs at it absently while watching me.
“It’s one of the things that drew me to you. Do you remember when we first met? In line at that hole-in-the-wall BBQ place.”
I do remember, but have no idea why he’s bringing it up now.
As he gets closer, I reach back and wrap my fingers around the part of the railing that’s bolted to the concrete.
Nate sighs and scrubs his hand over his entire face.
“I thought I could do it. When Pe…” He catches himself and straightens with a harsh exhale. “When the client contacted me, offered me half a million to come and take you…”
I gasp out loud. Half a million?
“What is it with that man and half a million dollars?” I mutter mostly to myself. When I see Nate’s curious gaze, I shrug. “It’s what he offered me to steal something that I thought belonged to him. Turns out, it belonged to his missing wife, who wasn’t really missing, he’d just been keeping her drugged at a mental hospital. The watch he asked me to steal contained incriminating evidence that he was selling tech to terrorists.”
Nate’s eyes get big. “No shit.”
“Oh, and that he had a kid that he convinced to try and shoot his adopted sons. That son is also in prison right now.”
A low whistle comes from Nate’s lips. “Fucking rich people act just like the thugs on the street. We’re not all that different, just have different addresses.”
He smiles like we’ve just shared a secret. Like we’re friends now.
We’re not. He threatened and kidnapped me. “Why are you talking to me? Clearing your conscience before you shove me over the railing to my death?”
He shrugs. “The thought did cross my mind.”
I push back even further against the rail behind me, tightening my fingers in a death grip. Is that where the phrase came from? No, I can't think about that right now.