by Cassia Leo
“Fuck you,” I mutter clumsily, my mouth sticky and woolen from the after effects of whatever drug they pumped into my veins.
“You sound thirsty,” he says, nodding to one of the goons behind him. “Get her some water.”
“I don’t want water,” I reply, curling my fingers into fists to flex the muscles in my wrists, attempting to stretch the plastic zip ties that bind me.
The other goon grabs an empty steel chair from the corner and drags into the space between me and the desk. Benny sits in the chair and leans over, resting his elbows on his knees to get a closer look at me. If my hands and feet weren’t restrained, he’d be close enough to strangle.
“I must say, Kara, I am very proud of you,” he begins, and his words turn my stomach. “When I found out you were fucking a billionaire, I had to applaud you for your cunning. Screwing a billionaire for a million dollars is brilliant. Bravo, Kara. You truly are your father’s daughter.” He waits a moment for me to respond, but I won’t give him the satisfaction. “I would have waited for you to finish the job, but I couldn’t risk you screwing it up. Then, I wouldn’t get my money. And, besides, what’s the point in collecting $140,000 from poor little Kara when I can put in a little work and collect $2,000,000 in ransom from the lovesick billionaire. Your pussy must be made of gold the way he tried to save you tonight. Maybe I should take a peek to see for myself?”
“Don’t you fucking touch me,” I warn him, meeting his gaze straight on.
He smiles. “That’s good, Kara. Keep fighting. The more fight you have in you, the longer you’ll survive as I cut away at you, inch by inch.” He stands suddenly and nods at the guy in the corner. “Clean her up so we can record the video. Make it quick.”
The goon with the scar that runs from his hairline, across his eyelid, and down to his nose, busies himself with setting up a video camera on a tripod. I close my eyes and grit my teeth as he uses a damp cloth to wipe blood and vomit from my face and neck. But as his hand moves farther down my chest, I begin squirming in my chair, enough to send it teetering sideways.
He catches me before I tip over completely and laughs as he sets me upright again. “Stupid bitch,” he says in a dopey, unaccented voice.
“Fuck you,” I spit back, flashing my teeth at him as he reaches for my chest again. “I’ll bite your fingers off. Touch me again. I fucking dare you.”
He rolls his eyes and begins adjusting the camera angle. “You’re gonna read this,” he says, opening up a note app on his phone and holding up the screen so I can see it. “Read loud and clear and I’ll use a condom when I rape you. Deal?”
“I’m not reading shit,” I say, looking away from the phone as I try to focus all my effort on concealing the way my body is trembling uncontrollably.
“You’ll read it or I’ll fuck you with the claw end of this hammer.”
“God, you’re such a loser,” I reply, staring at the camera lens. “Is that thing recording now?”
“Do you see the fucking light flashing? No, it’s not recording, you fucking moron. Now, rehearse your fucking lines before I bend you over and sterilize you.” He holds the phone closer to my face, then yanks my head up by my hair to force me to look at it. “Read the words loud and clear.”
I force out a puff of laughter through my tears as I begin to read. “I’m being treated well. Please give them the money and they’ll let me go. Give them any amount they ask for. If you… If you call the police, they threatened…” My nose begins to run as my tears come faster now.
“Louder!” he shouts.
I tense my muscles to keep from flinching at his raw anger. “If you call the police, they threatened…to rape me. If you don’t drop off the money by midnight, they’ll cut off a finger for every hour you’re late.”
“That was pathetic,” he says, letting go of my hair. “And now I have to clean the fucking snot from your face. You’d better not cry on the video or I’ll rape you until you’re so dead inside, you won’t have any tears left.”
My body trembles violently as he walks behind the camera.
“Stop fucking shaking.”
“I can’t! I’m cold,” I reply, my voice breaking. “P-Please get me a blanket. Please. It will cover up the shaking on the camera. Please.”
He rolls his eyes. “Don’t you fucking move.”
As soon as he leaves, I begin leaning forward so I can use my toes to pull me across the concrete floor toward the desk in the center of the room. When I hear a voice outside the door, I freeze, my heart thudding in my aching head as I wait for the voice to subside.
I’m only moving a few inches at a time, but I manage to get to the desk in what feels like four or five minutes. I struggle to turn the chair around without making loud scraping noises on the floor, but I can’t worry about being heard now when I’m so close. Finally, with my back to the desk, I have to decide between reaching for my iPhone X, the handsaw, or the hedge clippers.
The clippers are too large and unwieldy. I wouldn’t be able to angle them enough to cut my wrist restraint. The saw would be the easiest way to break free, but how am I going to fight them off.
I reach for the phone, which is no more than two inches from the edge of the desk. Unfortunately, my hands are restrained at a level a couple of inches below the surface of the desk. I have to try to stand on my tiptoes without toppling over.
Leaning forward, I put all my weight on my toes and try to remember everything I was taught in ballet class when I was eight years old. Curling my toes under, I push up until all my weight and the weight of the wooden chair I’m tied to is resting on the very tip of my pointed-toe silver pumps.
I almost cry when my finger touches the phone. Stretching the plastic around my wrists as much as I possibly can, I manage to clasp the phone between my two index fingers. I turn away from the table as quickly as I can, praying that the phone doesn’t slip from my grasp. Landing on the five-point base of the chair with a loud thud, my heart hammers against my chest as the phone stays firmly between my fingers.
I use my sore toes to push myself back into the corner, all the while attempting to feel my way around the phone to familiarize myself with the location of the power button and volume buttons. Turning on the iPhone, I sigh with relief when I feel the familiar brief vibration it makes when powering up.
As Dopey returns to the office, I try to regulate my breathing, so I don’t appear out of breath. I hold the phone close to my back, so he doesn’t see it when he wraps a scratchy gray blanket around my shoulders. Luckily, the blanket now completely obscures the phone in my hands.
As he turns on the camera, and I proceed to read his script without a single tear rolling down my cheeks, I hold down the power button and volume up button until I feel the phone vibrate. The brief pulse indicates the emergency SOS screen is now showing. I continue holding down the power and volume button until my phone beeps loudly.
“What the fuck was that?” Dopey asks. “What the fuck was that, bitch?”
I force myself to laugh as I hear the faint voice of the 911 operator answering the call. “Help! I’ve been kidnapped!” I manage to get the words out a millisecond before Dopey backhands me across the face and the iPhone drops onto the concrete. “They’re going to kill me! Help!”
19
Cash
As Sven shouts directions, Hector flies through the streets of downtown Las Vegas toward the signal from Kara’s phone, which just turned on four minutes ago and sent out an emergency SOS signal.
I’m no longer in my seat. I’m wearing the Teflon vest Knox gave me when we made a stop to pick up my father at AutoZone ten minutes ago. My father is sitting between me and Bruno in the backseat, wearing his own bulletproof vest and carrying a stun gun. Like me, he also refused to sit back and do nothing. I’m crouching behind the front passenger seat, holding a .38 in my right hand, waiting for Hector to arrive at the location Kara’s being held, which appears to be a warehouse in an industrial park. I want to be ready to jump o
ut and murder anyone who gets between me and her.
I know I have to let Knox and his team go in first, but I will not hesitate to act if one of them is sidelined. I’m ready to burn this fucking place to the ground to get my girl back. Nothing and no one is going to stop me.
But as the SUV turns left onto Lamb Blvd, my heart stops at the sight of a police car pulling up next to the warehouse. His siren isn’t on and his lights aren’t flashing, so he’s probably just responding to Kara’s emergency call. Without hesitation, Hector pulls up next to the cop as he’s stepping out of his car.
The cop can’t be more than thirty years old, and he looks scared out of his mind, resting his hand on his holster as he watches the SUV come to stop next to him. “Can I help you?” he asks tentatively, eyeing the Teflon vest Knox is wearing over his black T-shirt as the front passenger side window lowers.
“Good evening, officer,” Knox begins, and the cops eyes widen at the sound of his wise guy accent. “I’m gonna need you to radio for backup and make sure your fellow officers approach without lights and sirens.”
The cop looks very skeptical of this request. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m Knox Savage of Knox Security. I have a very high profile client who’s been abducted and taken to this warehouse. Her abductor has requested no law enforcement or she may be killed. We understand she may have activated a message or phone call to emergency services, and we believe she may be in imminent danger of retaliation. I know your job is to catch the bad guys, but I need you to let me do my job and get her out of there alive. I don’t want to have to subdue you, but I will do whatever needs to be done to recover my client alive.”
The cop stares at Knox in silence for what seems like an eternity before he finally replies, “I’m calling for backup.”
“Do it quietly,” Knox replies, as if he’s the guy’s commanding officer, then he twists around in his seat to address my father. “I need you to stay with the officer to update him on the details of the situation.”
My father nods and I tuck the .38 Knox gave me under the passenger seat before opening the back door. No need to spook this cop even further. I step out quickly and my father follows suit.
“Be careful,” he urges me. “Your mother cannot lose another son.”
I nod as I climb into the back seat, but I make no promises of a happy ending. This is not a movie. This is love, and it’s as real and raw and risky as it gets. The hardest gamble you’ll ever take. You don’t always make it out alive.
The cop speaks calmly and clearly into his shoulder mic. “10-33, officer requesting assistance. I need backup. Send officers and at least one ambulance to warehouse at southeast corner of Lamb Blvd and Cecile Ave. Possible kidnapping victim and suspects inside building. Perimeter not secured. Suspects possibly armed and dangerous. I repeat: 10-33, requesting backup to southeast corner of Lamb and Cecile.”
Knox nods at him. “Thank you, officer. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a job to do.”
“Fuck,” the cop hisses as the SUV begins to drive away.
Hector heads toward the parking lot in the back of the warehouse, where we find two vans and one BMW parked inside truck bays. The steel overhead doors are rolled up. Either Benny and his men never closed the doors or they’re getting ready to leave. Either they’re idiots or they’re ready for action, or both, which doesn’t bode well for Kara.
“What’s the game plan?” I ask, ready to charge in this fucking warehouse and raise hell.
“Pull up so they can’t see us,” Knox orders Hector before turning to face me. “The plan is you stay behind me so you don’t get killed. Got it? I’ve only lost one man in a recovery operation, and I’ve never lost a client. I always recover clients in less than two hours. We just passed the one-hour mark. I don’t need you getting yourself or your girlfriend killed and ruining my track record, okay?”
I can’t tell if this guy is a fucking narcissist or a sociopath. Whichever it is, he’s exactly what Kara needs right now, someone who will do whatever needs to be done without regard for anything but his ego.
“Got it,” I reply, sliding the .38 out from underneath the passenger seat.
“Sven, get behind the wheel and keep this baby running,” he says before turning toward me again. “The plan is you and I are going in one direction and Hector, Jimmy, and Bruno will take the other direction. We’ll clear each unlocked room we come across. If we encounter hostiles, we shoot to disable. In a hostage situation, we shoot to kill.”
Sven reaches into the trunk of the SUV and tosses Bruno, Knox, and me gas masks.
“What the fuck is this for?” I ask. “We need to get moving!”
“If we’re able to approach unseen, we’ll be using smoke grenades to confuse them. You’ll need the mask,” Knox insists.
I almost groan with frustration. I want to get the fuck inside. I’m tired of all this fucking chit-chat. But I have to keep my cool. This is the test of a fucking lifetime. If I fail, Kara dies.
20
Kara
Dopey snatches the phone up from the floor and stares at it for a moment as the far away voice of the 911 operator utters the words I’ve been dying to hear, the words that send Dopey into a blind fury: Ma’am, officers are on their way.
The scar across his face turns purple as the rest of his face turns scarlet with rage. “You’re dead!” he roars, and I brace myself for another blow.
Closing my eyes and tucking my chin to my chest, his backhand lands on the side of my head. I yelp at the burning pain in my ear. As warm blood trickles down my earlobe, I realize he must be wearing a ring. He pulls his hand back to do it again, but someone bursts through the door. Looking up, I see it’s the Russian in the tux who was seated next to me at the blackjack table.
“I’m getting police chatter—” The Russian cuts himself off mid-sentence as he processes the scene before him.
Dopey has one hand raised, ready to strike me, as his other hand grips my phone. “She called the cops,” he informs the Russian.
“You idiot! You left her alone with the phone?” the Russian shouts.
Dopey is about to reply, but the Russian pulls a gun from inside his tuxedo and points it at him.
“Untie her feet. We have to move her. Do it now!” he barks the order.
Dopey sets my phone down on the desk, oblivious to the fact he’s left the line open on the emergency call. Pulling a retractable hunting knife from his back pocket, he slices the plastic ties around my ankles. My thighs tremble as he yanks me up by my hair.
“Let’s move. Come on!” the Russian says, holding the office door open for us to exit.
I’m unsteady on my feet from the blows to the head and the drug hangover. I can barely walk a straight line in my heels. Dopey’s large hand curls around my bicep, his fingers digging in painfully to keep me from falling as they lead me down a drab concrete corridor. We’re halfway down, when the sound of gunshots stops us cold.
“Help!” I shout, toward the sound of the shots. “Help me!”
“Kara, I’m coming!” shouts a deep voice I recognize as Cash.
I want to drop to my knees with relief, but Dopey yanks me back toward the office we came from.
“Run, bitch!” he orders me as I stumble over my heels and he has to catch me. “Run or die!”
“Cash!” I shout over my shoulder, but I still can’t see anyone behind us. “Cash!”
Dopey shoves me into the office and closes the door behind me as I fall onto the concrete floor. I quickly kick off my heels and backup against the desk to grab the handsaw. My entire body flinches at the sound of gunfire and I drop the saw on the floor.
“Fuck,” I whisper, as I try rubbing the plastic tie around my wrists against the sharp corner of the metal desk. Then, I remember that the phone line may still be open. “Operator, are you still there?” I ask as I bend over the desk to put my mouth closer to the phone.
“Ma’am, officers are on their way. Can you get to safety
?” the woman asks, and I cry tears of joy at the sound of her voice.
“I can’t,” I sob. “Oh, my God. They’re gonna kill me. Please help me. They’re shooting.”
“Are they shooting at you?”
“They’re shooting at my boyfriend. Please hurry. They’ll kill him.”
How did Cash find me? I don’t know the answer to this question. All I know is that if I die tonight, I will die at his side. He will make it to me. Of that, I am certain.
“Are the gunshots getting closer or farther away?” the operator asks me. “Do you know what part of the building you’re being held in?”
“The shots are getting closer. Oh, God. I don’t know where I am. It looks like, like, like maybe an office building or a warehouse. I don’t know!” I reply with frustrated defeat.
“It’s okay, ma’am. Can you tell me your name?”
“Kara Langley,” I reply before something explodes outside in the corridor, blowing the office door off its hinges.
I can barely hear the 911 operator yelling at me through the ringing in my ears. The phone disappears as the office fills with thick white smoke.
Disoriented and gasping for air, I choke out a response for the operator. “I think we were bombed.”
Crouching down behind the desk, my body shivers with fear as I try to turn my face away from the smoke. But even turning away from the door and taking shallow breaths doesn’t help. The smoke burns my eyes, throat, and lungs.
Closing my eyes, I lie down on the cold concrete as I wait for the wooziness to overcome me. My airway is on fire and my headache intensifies tenfold. The ringing in my ears subsides as I feel my body slackening from lack of oxygen.
“Kara!”
I try to open my eyes, but the smoke is still too hot and thick. “I’m in here,” I reply in barely a whisper, like I’m stuck in a bad dream.