Yes, he’d told me he loved me. But I didn’t trust that love. Was it solid or was it full of holes? I wasn’t prepared to put all my emotional eggs back into the Cabe basket just yet.
What I didn’t want was for him to be with me only because I was pregnant, so I wasn’t ready for him to know yet .
I’m not sure what made me do it other than a lifetime of this being the only person I had around me on a daily basis, and she would be the only living person to know what huge news me being pregnant was. I picked up my phone and stared at it for a while, before making up my mind and texted my momma.
All I said was, “Momma, are you ok? I need to see you. I’m pregnant.”
I waited for the response, and when one didn’t come, I decided I might as well put the pregnancy test away and get on with my day.
I had three events that evening and the days following, several more. I was trying to keep myself as busy as possible. Cabe’s recent bizarre behavior, and the fight he had with Captain Steve had thrown me for a loop. I wasn’t sure what to make of it and I’d enough going on, that if I stayed busy enough, hopefully I wouldn’t dwell on it.
Stacy popped in and pulled me out of my kitchen and into a meeting about the winery to learn how well we did, and about the weight of grapes that were brought in from harvest. Stacy was a bundle of energy and was looking forward to giving the feedback on the events. We were booked out through the rest of the year. We were more worried about double bookings than anything else.
Looks like we were going to have one of the largest years that we’ve ever had with the grapes; it seemed that my aunt and uncle’s hard work was paying off and this is going to be one of the better years Bellini Estates had ever seen. Even the fire didn’t set us back.
I wish I could have told Antonio how well his vines had done this year. He would have been so proud.
I made it through the meetings in a stupor, not really hearing everything, but just sort of taking it all in. All of the data was given to me on paper, so I would be able to go over it all later. I smiled and nodded and asked (what I hoped were) correct questions. Knowing that everything was okay and there weren’t any disasters that we had to take care of made it better.
I was walking around like a zombie, so I decided the safest, most productive place for me was also my favorite place in the world, my kitchen. I headed back to my beautiful gleaming kitchen to finish the baking for the events coming up.
I was in the kitchen watching a Facebook live of one of my favorite sommeliers learning more about the different types of wine, when a text message came through on my phone and it was from momma.
“Oh baby that’s wonderful news we need to celebrate! Can you come see me right now?”
That was weird. I don’t think she had called me baby in decades, or written out a whole word since she started texting. And wonderful news? Maybe things were turning around with her.
I replied I wouldn’t be able to come right then but that I did want to see her. Was it possible for her to come to the winery?
I really didn’t think it was safe for me to leave and I certainly wasn’t willing to take any chances at this point. I had more to worry about than just me.
She sent a text back right away saying yes that she would meet me down by the river at two o’clock. That gave me just over an hour and a half to get my baking to a point where I could put it to rest for a bit, while I went and met momma. I text her back and told her ‘Bring your appetite and I’ll pack us a lunch’ . We could have a nice late lunch down by the river together.
I was so happy I was going to be seeing her. I knew she was a nightmare, but let’s face it, she was my nightmare and I would always worry about her. This is the longest we had gone without communicating, even in the past when she was nasty, at least I knew she wasn’t in the hospital or jail…or worse.
Eventually everybody would know that I had met my momma ‘cause every inch of this winery, estate and vineyard were under surveillance by Cabe and his gang of Macho Men, but that’s okay. She’s my momma and when everybody finds out why I was meeting her, it wasn’t going to be an issue. If it was, they would all have to get over it.
I finished up all the baking and prepared a light lunch of cheese and bread and some fruit for momma. I grabbed a couple bottles of water, and because momma wasn’t a big animal person, put Annie and Jake in their kennels with a couple of beef rib bones and headed down to the river.
I saw somebody down there waiting, but I couldn’t make out who it was. As I got closer, I saw that it was not my momma, but Mark. Well at least I knew it wasn’t going to be long before everybody came running. As soon as somebody saw that he was on our property, all of the security forces were going to converge on us.
“What are you doing here Mark?” I asked, “Where is my momma?” I stopped far enough away from him that I could high tail it outta there if he made a move towards me.
“Hi Isabella,” He said looking down at my stomach in such a manner I felt threatened. Every protective instinct in my body had me placing my free arm over my stomach.
“Your mom asked me to come get you and take you to her. She wasn’t feeling very well and she wasn’t able to get out of bed today.”
“What are you talking about? Is she okay? What’s wrong with her?” I asked.
“What isn’t wrong with her?” He sneered, “She’s nothing but a disgusting drunk.”
“Well then, why are you with her? Oh, don’t bother. Let me guess, you’re with her because you really wanted the estate. You never ever planned on being with her long-term; you just wanted to get ownership of Bellini Estate and Antonio’s grapes. ”
“You think you’re so smart, don’t you?” He said stepping closer to me.
“That’s all you ever wanted from the beginning. Guess what? We know all about you, Mark. We know that you killed my aunt and my uncle.”
“You stupid fucking cow, you don’t know anything. You don’t know what you’re talking about!” He was so upset; spittle flew with each word he spoke.
“I know you’re doing this for the Markins; they wanted my uncle’s grapes!” When I shared this bit of information, he went still and said, “Who else knows girl?”
“Everybody, Sydney, Cabe, all of the Macho Men, everybody knows. It’s not a secret and detective Roman knows too.”
“That’s too bad for you, but really good for me. Come on. You’re coming with me.” With that, he pulled out a gun and pointed directly at my stomach, saying,
“I’ll shoot you right in the stomach so even if you manage to survive a gunshot wound…. your baby won’t.”
“Please. Please don’t shoot me.” I seized with panic dropped the basket with the lunch I’d prepared in it,
and wrapped both arms around my midsection.
“Come on, my car is parked around the corner. Let’s go”
I could only pray that somebody was watching the monitors.
**** *
Lucas was monitoring the Bellini Estate, along with several other high security risk establishments, from headquarters at SDI. Some were clients, a few were under investigation by their team, and a couple were personal projects one or more of the team members were working on.
He’d just taken a bite of his calzone when he noticed that weasel Sephos drive onto the estate, prompting him to switch screens to where Isabella was marching out the back door and heading directly to where Sephos was now waiting.
“Motherf….” he mumbled, as he picked up his cell and dialed Cabe.
“Yeah.” Cabe’s standard answer.
“Man, your Chica is meeting that fucking weasel Sephos now, at the estate.”
“She inside or out of the house?”
“She’s heading down to the river where Sephos is currently. Looks like he is waiting. He’s pacing and acting shifty. I don’t like it man.”
“Fuck!” Cabe yelled. “I am too far away to get there quickly. Call in Roman and see how far out he is. Of all the fucking day
s to have called everyone off on other assignments!”
“We gotta work man. This isn’t your fault.”
“You say that again to me if anything happens to Isabella.”
“Okay. Okay. I get ya. ”
“I’m on my fucking way.”
“You got a lock on her?”
“Yeah, I just brought her up.”
“Drive like a bat out of hell man! Sephos just pulled a gun and is aiming it at her midsection.”
“FUCK!” Lucas heard Cabe shout as the call ended.
Chapter 21
Bella Baby
Mark took me to an abandoned harvesting shed outside of town. Once inside, it took my eyes a bit to adjust and when they did, I could see my momma laying on a filthy mattress with a chain locked around her ankle and attached to a pole.
The old harvester shed was a large metal building, with a concrete floor that was all busted up. There were huge chunks of concrete, debris and rebar everywhere.
I stumbled a few times and had to be careful where I stepped. It looked like lightning had struck and left big holes everywhere in the concrete floor.
The smell of the old abandoned shed was so nauseating; it was all I could do to keep from gagging. I wouldn’t be able to hold the contents of my stomach down for long. I could feel the hot saliva building up in my mouth and I was going to have to concentrate to keep myself from retching.
The sight of my momma, dirty laying on the disgusting mattress, with her filth all around her (they hadn’t even given her anything to use the bathroom in) sickened me further. You could tell she had been there for a while. Her hair was matted and sticking out in every direction. It looked like she was in the same clothes she’d worn to court; it was hard to tell through the filth but I was thinking that was the truth. She was clearly drugged; she wasn’t drunk and passed out like I’ve seen her hundreds of times before.
My God. What had he done to her?
Yes, she was a mean drunk.
Yes, she needed to get it together and clean up her act. Yes, she had been awful to me most of my life. But this was my momma and no one had the right to treat her this way. She was chained up like a dog, one I’d try to rescue from its horrible living conditions.
“What have you done?” I asked, turning to look at Mark.
“What? She deserved it. Your mother is nothing but a drunk. I couldn’t stand one more day with her. I only needed to keep her to lure you out. Once the judge dismissed the contested case, I had very little use for her, and I couldn’t stand her anymore.” Mark sneered at me.
“What do you possibly think this is going to get you? I can’t sign the winery over to you. Sydney and Cabe have measures in place to keep that from happening. If you kill me, my momma will not inherit the winery. Sydney will remain the executor and Cabe will inherit my portion of the estate; that’s the way my aunt and uncle wrote it up.” This was looking worse and worse. Once he realized he’d backed himself into a corner, who knew what he would do.
“That’s too bad. I guess I’ll be keeping you alive and using your mother to keep you in line. I had planned on getting rid of her, but maybe she will come in handy after all.”
“Do you honestly think you’re going to keep me, and my momma, contained for over a year? While I’m pregnant with Cabe’s child? You honestly think that’s gonna work and that Cabe is just gonna to give up?”
I heard a car as it pulled up outside and prayed that was my rescue team. I wasn’t feeling super good about it however, ‘cause if I could hear the car, so could Mark and he wasn’t looking worried. In fact, he looked smug.
“Just you hold on now Isabella, I’ve had a little bit of help. Why don’t you meet my partner?”
The door opened to the harvester shed letting the sun stream in and in walked Lance Drake.
“Help! Lance!” I yelled, “Mark is holding us! Run! Get help! He has a gun!” I screamed.
Lance didn’t run. He didn’t freak out. And he wasn’t scared of the gun.
“Okay Isabella, just hang on now, let me talk to Mark and figure this all out.” Lance responded, walking towards us, like this was a normal dispute and he just needed to hear the other guys side.
A cold dread washed over me. “What exactly are you doing here Lance?”
Ignoring me, Lance turned to Mark and said,
“What the fuck man?”
“I told you I was bringing her here.”
“Yeah, you did, but you didn’t bother to talk to me about it first! You’ve completely fucked us good now. I was getting somewhere with Isabella. We were finally dating.”
“We weren’t dating.” I muttered. I was so shocked that Lance was standing here talking to Mark while he was holding a gun on me, and my momma was chained to a pole while laying on a horrid mattress. I was having a hard time wrapping my head around this entire situation.
“You stupid imbecile! You’ve ruined everything! You’ve ruined all my hard work. Everything down the drain. She’s seen me. You purposely let her see me! You were supposed to protect my identity. What the fuck man?” Lance was losing his cool and I hadn’t ever seen him this disheveled before. He kept running his hands over his head and was making his hair stand up. It was weird; this was the second time I focused on him doing this while freaking out.
“You weren’t going to have anything to work on as soon as Cabe finds out Isabella is pregnant with his fucking kid.”
Lance slowly turned his head to look at me and screamed, “You stupid fucking whore! I went through all that trouble to get rid of Antonio and Raquel. You were never supposed to meet Cabe or Steve. You should’ve fallen for me; I could’ve married you. At least it would have lasted a year or two before I completely took over the vineyard and winery.”
“My God I’m gonna be sick.” I mumbled. And I was. I could feel it building up. “This is crazy. I can’t believe any of this is happening. Lance, how could you? I thought we were friends!”
“Really?” He laughed but it looked more like a snarl, “You thought somebody like me could be friends with some southern hick like you?”
At his words I started crying, realizing how completely stupid I was. How was I so totally fooled by him? “Come on Isabella, no hard feelings; it’s just business.”
I’m not sure how everything could’ve gone so terribly wrong or how we possibly ended up in this situation, but I knew my child had to be protected first and foremost.
And nobody chains my bitch ass momma to a freaking pole!
“Were you behind the men in the SUV attempt to kill me? And the gun man at the Gala?”
“Those stupid assholes. The Markins thought they could scare you into selling or letting your mother take over. I knew it wouldn’t work and when they realized the will excluded your mother from inheriting, and then they lost the law suit contesting the will, they completely pulled off the project.” Lance said coldly .
Jumpin’ Jezebels!
I’m glad at least my instincts were honed well enough that I was never really interested in this creep. What could I have ever seen in him anyway? Looking at him now, all I could see was a skinny blond wimp.
“That’s when he and I joined teams. I had already put in so much time with your mother I wasn’t willing to walk away with nothing. She made it impossible to walk away with nothing. Having to deal with her was fucking horrible,” Mark filled in. Like some bad movie, these two were going over their whole plan with me, which told me they never expected me to make it out of there alive to tell anyone the story. They planned to kill both me and my momma.
“You can’t be so foolish to think that Cabe is just going to go away.” I was reaching for straws, and I knew it, but I had to try to get us out of this and I was starting to worry if that was going to happen.
“It doesn’t matter!” Lance was really agitated now and was going nuts on his hair, running his hands through it over and over, making it stand straight up, in every which way, like some mad scientist.
“You�
��ve seen me! You know I’m involved and you know I was behind the accident that killed Raquel and Antonio!”
I was going to vomit any minute. I kept talking trying to buy myself some time. I chanced a glance at my momma laying on that awful mattress and noted she hadn’t moved once since we entered the shed.
Looking back to Lance, I whispered, “Why?” Tears streaming down my face; I was totally freaking out, but also trying to buy time. I didn’t know if Cabe and his band of Macho Men, or Roman and the police knew where we were, or if any of them would reach us in time to rescue us.
Lance looked to Mark and said, “We need to get rid of them. We need to do it in a manner where they can’t be found. Do we have any hog farms around here?”
“Yes, but I think it’d be quicker with less chance of being caught if we weighted their bodies down and sunk them in the river. Not the Mokelumne, but the American.”
“Are you seriously discussing how to get rid of me and my momma’s bodies right in front of me?”
Lance walked to me and said, “Come on, enough chatting. Let’s go.”
I looked at my poor momma and couldn’t stand to see her like that one moment longer.
“I’m not going anywhere until you unchain her. She’s been treated like an animal, worse than an animal. I’m not doing anything until you free her. How do I know she is even still alive?”
Lance looked over at her and then told Mark, “She’s so high on devil’s breath, she isn’t going to go anywhere or do anything. Unchain her; she’s like a fucking zombie anyway.”
I watched as Mark walked over and kicked at my momma’s prone body. When she didn’t move, he set about unchaining her leg from the pole.
Suddenly, my momma was up and moving at a pace I’d never seen her move at before. And then my momma did something I never realized she was capable of. She picked up a piece of jagged concrete the size of a bowling ball and slammed it against the side of Mark’s head. Once, twice and then he toppled over while he was still holding the gun. His head made a sickening sound as it hit hard on the concrete. The gun skidding across the floor. The sound of the attack echoed off the metal walls. Then she lifted that chunk of concrete and brought it down on his head again, and she did it again, lifted up above her head and came down, this time with an animal screech. Each time the concrete piece struck his head it made a distinctive wet crunching sound.
Murder & Mayhem Page 18
