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He doesn’t answer, the bubbling anxiety reaching a boiling point. I glance back at Tommy again and decide I’m in over my head. I take a deep breath ready to scream but the scary dude steps forward, moving his jacket aside to show a gun nestles at his waist.
“Ah, ah, ah, pretty thing.”
I swallow my scream before it escapes. I have had three sessions with Ruby in which she has shown me how to deflect a physical attack, but in this calm exchange, I am completely defenceless. I nod reluctantly and follow him back to his vehicle. I try and catch Tommy’s eye on the way but he’s looking in the opposite direction.
I slip onto the cool leather back seat and Scary McScaryson shuts the door with a smack. From feeling like fire in the club,I’m now shivering with icy fear as we pull away from the club on my way to meet Lance’s father.
“Your phone please,” my abductor says reaching his palm behind as he sits in the front seat. I sigh, handing the device over and watching as he turns it off and stashes it in the glove compartment.
We drive for a long time, Lance must have realised I’m missing by now. Is he panicking? Has he figured out who has me? Will he come for me? We are outside the city when we pull into what looks like an abandoned office block.
It looks like a freaking horror movie set with blinking fluorescents and cracked windows. If I wasn’t so utterly terrified, I would probably think how much Lance would love this like one of his stupid movies that I refuse to watch with him.
My brooding chauffeur pulls up and opens my door, ushering me into the slasher movie set. He leads the way along several littered corridors, up a set of rickety stairs, and into an open office space that I am sure was once divided by desks or cubicles but is now vast and sparce.
I choke on a gasp as I see an occupied chair in the centre. Gray’s head lays limp on his own shoulder, his nose bloody, and his eye blackened and swollen. He isn’t moving and I forget my own fears as I overtake my captor and run to his side. I kneel by the chair and hold his face in my hands, pulling it to me. He’s not conscious, but he is breathing.
“Gray? Can you hear me? Gray, talk to me,” I urge. “What have you done to him?” I growl at the scarred arsehole who brought me here. He doesn’t answer.
“Oh, don’t worry about him, he’ll be awake in a few minutes probably.” The voice comes from across the room. Looking up, I see Lance’s father entering the room from a different set of doors than we came through. He‘s wearing a sharp grey suit and looks as though he’s just sauntered into a board meeting and not a kidnapping.
“Why is he bleeding? Why is he here?” I growl at him, my anger for my friend far more pungent than my fear of being here.
Sydney Preston stops in front of where I kneel. He’s an ominous presence and I remember my panic as I look up at him. He is so much like Lance that it confuses my brain momentarily. His mouth has the same sculpted sharpness and his hair curls in the same way, dirty blonde now streaked with white. His eyes are black though, not warm golden brown like the ones that centre me in my darkest moments. If eyes truly are a window to the soul, Sydney Preston’s soul is an abyss of emptiness.
“He is bleeding because your friend wasn’t too cooperative when we invited him here and he’s here to keep you in line, just as you are here to keep my son in line.”
I don’t know what to make of that, so I feign complete ignorance. “What are you talking about?”
He tilts his head with an unnervingly amused smirk. “You’re fucking him, no?”
I push up to a standing position, jutting my chin out in an attempt at confidence. “Who I fuck is really none of your business.”
“Ah, you see, that’s where you’re wrong.” He takes a step forward, putting us only an inch apart. I can’t step back without falling over Gray, so I stand firm. “It became my business when the little prick fucked up a simple business deal over nothing more than a pretty cunt.”
“Fuck you,” I spit.
“I’m flattered sweetheart, but I don’t usually go for my son’s sloppy seconds.” He strokes the back of his knuckle over my cheek with a tenderness that sends a wave of nausea through me. “Although, for you I couldn’t make an exception.”
The panic threatens to bubble over but I centre myself, thinking back to Ruby’s training. I grab his hand and wrench it back to double his wrist over, he cries out and curses me as I duck under his arm. I start to run but don’t make it far, not that I had anywhere to go, nor would I have left Gray here. A sharp sting explodes over my scalp as someone pulls me back by my hair. A scream escapes me and tears stream from my eyes. I stumble back only to be caught by a hand splayed on the back of my head, preventing me from falling over completely. The scarychauffeur smiles down at me cruelly before slapping me hard across the cheek. Pain blasts over the point of contact followed by searing heat before he drops me with a thud onto the grubby carpet.
I want to curl up into a ball and cry, but he grabs me again by the tops of my arms, his fingertips digging to the point that my arms start to go achingly numb. Depositing me on a chair next to Gray, he tugs my arms carelessly behind me, the cruel bite of cable ties sinks into my wrists as they are tied to the back of the chair.
My breath is coming out in harsh, panicked pants and I’m trying desperately to control the juddering shakes wracking my body. Sydney leans over me, tipping the back of the chair so I am balanced on the rear legs, snarling at me, the pretence of aloof calm all gone.
“You’ve got nowhere to run, sweetheart.” I flinch at Lance’s pet name for me coming from his father’s lips. “Like I said, you’re here to keep Lance in check. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to.” He rights the chair and takes a couple of steps back, a bolster of unexpected boldness has me snorting a laugh.
“If you didn’t want to hurt me, why did you send someone to my apartment to beat and kidnap me?”
His slow smile has my breath stopping.Shit. Should I have said that? Have I given something away? “I was wondering why I haven’t been able to get hold of the three stooges. I’m guessing they’re dead?”
I don’t answer, not wanting to tell him anything Lance wouldn’t want him to know. Apparently, my silence is answer enough.
“Ah huh, and how long has Lance known I was responsible but has done nothing in retaliation?”
I keep my mouth shut.
“I wonder what goes on in that boy’s head sometimes,” he shakes his head in disappointment. “You are apparently worthy of ruining my deal but not important enough for him to allow an attack to go unavenged.”
