Theirs to Ransom

by Stasia Black

  So where the fuck was Sophia and what the hell had happened to her?

  Eric was about to shove the medic out of the way and grab the man to shake him until he told them where Sophia was, but he lifted a wobbly arm to Finn and spoke in a gasp, “Tablet. Sophia.”

  He was only able to get those two words out before he fainted dead away.

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Eric yelled.

  “Sir, he did have this on him when he arrived.” Another soldier, not the one who’d come to get him, stepped forward with a small hand-held tablet. They used to be a commonplace item but ever since D-Day when EMP attacks had fried most electronics, it was rare to find one that worked.

  But this one not only worked, it was fully charged.

  Eric swiped to turn it on and then almost dropped it when he saw his daughter tied to a bed on the screen.

  Along with Arnold Travis.

  Eric choked and fell to his knees, clutching the tablet to his chest as he did, though, careful not to drop it. Finn swore behind him as they both continued to watch and listen.

  Eric wanted to smash the tablet to pieces when he saw his one-time best friend touch his daughter’s thigh. And then he threatened the most vile—

  Eric dropped the tablet to the floor, unable to trust himself not to throw it across the room.

  “Five days,” Travis said over the speakers. “Don’t be late.”

  Eric roared in fury the second the message cut off. But he knew what he had to do. If it was a question of exchanging his life for his daughter’s, well, there was really no question at all, was there?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  SOPHIA

  Arnold Travis was a monster. How had her father ever been friends with this man? She couldn’t understand it.

  His thugs had thrown another black bag over her head and taken her to a different location after Travis filmed the horrible video and sent Jagger off to deliver it.

  At least it meant Jagger had a chance at safety, if he could get there in time before he lost too much blood. And if he didn’t have any trouble on the road. And if Drea’s soldiers didn’t shoot him on sight when he came rolling up to the rebel encampment.

  She had more immediate worries, though. She’d assumed Travis lived in the Omni Hotel like the previous President had, but it looked like that assumption was wrong. She’d been taken to an opulent mansion that was old, hundreds of years old. It was likely a museum before D-Day with how well all the woodwork had been preserved, but Travis had taken it over as his personal residence.

  He didn’t throw Sophia in another closet like she might have expected.

  No, he gave her a spacious room upstairs with a view of the city. It was beautiful. She’d only been to Fort Worth once before but then, like now, it was astounding to see an entire city with electricity to spare. They’d managed to restore the electrical grid several years ago. It was powered using solar energy and the extensive wind farms mostly in the Panhandle.

  A guard and ‘lady’s maid’ stayed inside the room at all times so escaping wasn’t exactly an option. Plus, though these weren’t exactly the circumstances she’d imagined, she couldn’t get closer to Travis than living in his house. She’d just wait for her opportunity. So far he wasn’t even binding her hands.

  He’s that confident you’re no threat.

  Well, she’d prove him wrong. She’d prove everyone who’d ever underestimated her wrong.

  She’d learned upon waking that Travis required her presence at breakfasts and dinners, no exceptions.

  He’d also laid out lingerie and a skimpy dress for her to wear. She put on the underwear but refused to touch the rest of it.

  “Please, Miss,” the maid kept asking. “It’ll put him in a terrible mood if you don’t do what he says.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass if he’s in a bad mood.”

  “No, you don’t understand—”

  “I’m not putting that on,” Sophia said coldly. “If you want to try to wrestle me into it, you’re welcome to try.”

  The woman just sighed then nervously bit her lips and looked downstairs.

  Sophia did go downstairs for breakfast but only so she could get a sense of the mansion and look for anything she could use as a weapon.

  To her dismay, there were only butter knives set out. The sharpest thing on the table were the forks.

  Travis glowered at her as soon as she sat down. He, naturally, sat at the head of the ornately laid table. Flower arrangements in crystal vases lined the center of the table.

  Servers came in with plates of steaming omelets and orange juice in fancy wine-glasses, big globes on small, delicate stems.

  Travis threw his napkin in his lap impatiently. “Why haven’t you showered or changed into the clothes I sent up for you?”

  Sophia glared right back at him, lifting her chin. “I’m not your fucking puppet to dress and dance at your say so.”

  “Oh but you are,” he snapped. “At dinner you’ll wear exactly what I have my girls lay out for you. And you’ll eat every single morsel set in front of you.”

  “Fuck you,” Sophia spat. She could only remember saying the curse word a handful of times in her life but it made her feel the tiniest bit of power now, when she felt otherwise terrifyingly powerless.

  The cold smile that touched Travis’s lips was not reassuring, though. It sent a chill down Sophia’s spine.

  “No,” he said, standing and walking around the table. “I think I’ll fuck…” He looked around the room. “Which of you was it that was supposed to dress her this morning?”

  There were four women standing at different points along the wall and they looked back and forth amongst themselves before the girl who’d attended Sophia that morning stepped forward. “Me, s- sir,” she said shakily.

  “Did I or did I not instruct you to dress her for breakfast in the clothes I sent up?”

  “You did, sir, but she wouldn’t—”

  “Did I stutter?” he roared.

  “N-no sir.”

  “Over the table. Right in front of Miss Wolford. If she’s too good to wear my clothes and eat my food, maybe she’ll appreciate a show instead.”

  “No,” Sophia tried to say, suddenly terrified of where this was all going.

  “Too late now. Actions have consequences. Maybe your daddy shielded you from that basic fact of life, locked away in your ivory tower in that township of his, but this is the real world. So wake the fuck up.”

  Then he looked to the terrified girl still huddled at the wall and shouted, “Now!” He pointed to the table and she ran to Sophia’s side.

  The woman started to bend over, face down, but apparently she wasn’t fast enough. Travis took two strides and slammed her into the table by the back of her neck. He did it so violently, without any care for the table setting that Sophia’s glass of orange juice went flying, shattering the globe and leaving only the stem behind.

  The woman didn’t fight his force, though. Not even when blood dripped down her face from the glass cuts, staining the white tablecloth below.

  Travis grabbed her thin dress and ripped it down the middle, exposing her back.

  Sophia gasped at the barely healed over marks she saw there, up and down the woman’s back. And she was even more horrified to see Travis pulling his belt off.

  “Stop it,” Sophia screamed when he began to beat the woman with it. Fresh red welts appeared everywhere the belt struck.

  She had to stop him. Her eyes darted around the table, and not really thinking it through, she grabbed the broken stem of the orange juice goblet and swung it toward Travis’s exposed neck after he landed an especially brutal hit.

  Surprised flickered in his eyes only a moment before his arm came up to deflect Sophia’s swing.

  Sophia cried out in frustration and she grabbed the only thing left to her—a fork. She pretended like she was going to go for his neck again. When he went to block her, she jabbed downwards with all her might, stabbing the
fork into his thigh as far as the tines would go.

  He roared in fury and Sophia grabbed her glass, heavy with water, and threw it at his face.

  He blocked it with his arm and then lunged for her.

  Sophia screamed and tried to jump backwards, around the table to keep a barrier between them, but two of the women who’d been hovering along the wall moved into her path to block her.

  Travis collided with all of them, knocking them to the floor.

  The next thing Sophia knew, she was being dragged off the floor by a brutal hand around her throat.

  Ow. God! Couldn’t breathe— Couldn’t—

  Once Sophia was on her feet, Travis finally let go of her throat, only to grab her by her arm.

  He jerked her back around the table and shoved her facedown on it like he had the other woman.

  His grip disappeared for a moment and Sophia scrambled to get up. But the next second he was back, jamming her face sideways onto the glass shards that littered the tablecloth.

  Sophia was right beside the other woman, so close she could hear the pained little whimpers the woman was obviously trying to stifle.

  “You wanted to stab me with this?” Travis shouted, spittle spraying Sophia’s cheek as he leaned over her from behind.

  “I think its time to return to the lesson I was trying to teach you.” He lifted Sophia’s face and then slammed it into the table again. “Actions. Have. Consequences.”

  Then he took the broken stemware and jammed it into the weeping woman’s throat. The spray of arterial blood covered Sophia’s face and mouth as she screamed in horror.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ERIC

  Four Days Later

  The first thing Eric thought when they yanked the black bag off his head was, oh fuck, this isn’t the Omni.

  “Dad!”

  Eric’s head jerked up as Travis dragged Sophia into the room. It was dark in the foyer that opened to a grand sitting room. Where the hell were they? It definitely wasn’t the downtown hotel. When Jagger gained consciousness, they’d questioned him extensively about where Travis had been holding Sophia. The Omni made sense. It was where the former President used to live.

  All their plans had hinged on this going down at the Omni.

  What the fuck were they going to do now?

  “No, Dad,” Sophia cried, “why did you come?”

  “Soph, it’s okay. I’m here now. It’s all gonna be okay.” He tried to take a step toward her but the two guards holding him kept him in place.

  Oh Jesus, his little Sophia. He felt kicked in the gut even just looking at her. She had bruises and cuts on her face.

  “You said you wouldn’t touch her!” he shouted at Travis, finally looking at the man standing behind her. It was so fucking stupid—he’d seen the video—but somehow, he couldn’t actually believe that his best friend Arnie was really capable of hurting his little girl.

  “I wouldn’t have if she hadn’t tried to stab me with my own glassware,” Travis growled.

  Eric could only shake his head in disbelief. “Let her go, Arnie. She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “Don’t fucking call me that,” Travis shouted, pulling out a gun and leveling it at Sophia’s temple.

  Eric’s knees almost buckled. “Ok, ok, I’m sorry. Travis, President Travis, please. Please. I’m sorry. I’m here. Within the allotted time. So please. I’m here to trade myself for her. Take me instead. Please.”

  Travis just laughed. “Always so heroic. So willing to sacrifice yourself. That was your problem, wasn’t it? You always had to come off as the Boy Scout. God forbid anyone think you were an actual flesh and blood man. You had to be perfect. Such a nice wholesome, American upbringing. Then of course you pick the perfect girl to marry, pop out a kid, then go selflessly off to serve your country.”

  “What do you want from me?” Eric would have thrown his hands in the air if they weren’t tied behind his back. “I just did what I thought was right.”

  Travis shook his head bitterly. “You loved the way people looked at you. And you looked down on me every day of my life for not being as perfect as you.”

  “What the—”

  “At first you tricked me. I thought you saw me as an equal. You invited me into your home. Shared your room with me. Fuck, you even shared your clothes and spent all your time with me. You called me your brother. It wasn’t until college that I realized I’d been just another charity case to you.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? We were brothers.”

  Travis scoffed. “Maybe. At least till I got inconvenient. You made a new family and didn’t have any more time for me.”

  Was this really what he’d— “I got married,” Eric said incredulously. “That’s how it works. There’s the family you grow up with and then you get married, and yeah sometimes there’s a little bit of added distance, but I never shut you out. Jesus, Arnie, you’re Sophia’s godfather.” Eric’s voice almost broke on the words, watching the man he’d once loved as a brother holding a gun on his daughter.

  But maybe if he could just keep him talking, reminding him of the old times—maybe it would be enough time for Drea’s men to infiltrate the city through the old abandoned underground tunnels they’d dug out. It was why he’d waited almost the full five days to come, even though it killed him—to give them time to finish digging them out.

  But you aren’t at the Omni. There won’t be anyone banging down the doors or coming to save the day.

  Eric had to try to talk his way out of this.

  “I loved and trusted you enough to want you to look after my daughter if something happened to me. You were my family. I was closer to you than my own parents. And when we shipped out together for basic, we were closer than ever.”

  “Yeah, for as long as that lasted. But then I started getting promoted ahead of you and you couldn’t stand it.”

  Eric’s mouth dropped open. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “After our first tour when I got promoted and moved out of Africa, you think I don’t know you turned down the chance to come with me?”

  Eric looked down, but just for a moment. “I knew you were stealing cashes of weapons from supply and selling them to locals. I didn’t want to be a part of it.”

  “So you chose your precious morality over your so-called brother. How convenient. Let’s tell the truth, though. You just couldn’t stand that for once in our lives, I was the one being promoted while you were being overlooked. Because I was willing to do what was required to play the game. I always had the survival skills you lacked.”

  He was fucking delusional. He thought Eric had been jealous? No, Eric just had a little thing called a moral compass. He knew if he’d gone with Arnie back then, Arnie would have wanted to draw him into the smuggling operations and Eric figured the best way to avoid confrontation was just to stay behind in Africa for his second tour.

  Not that putting off the eventual confrontation helped much.

  It just made it all the worse that day when everything came to a head.

  “And then again,” Travis said, “you had another chance to come with me in San Antonio after I broke you out of that prison transport. I gave you a second chance. You had the opportunity to choose your brother, but you couldn’t stand to see me as your equal. You were only ever happy when I was under your bootheel.”

  “That’s not fucking true and you know it,” Eric growled, fighting futilely against the guards holding him. “I loved you. But I couldn’t stand by while you hurt innocent people.”

  “Oh bull shit,” Travis said, taking a step forward and shoving Sophia forward with him. “You think I don’t know about all the people you hurt and killed to protect her?”

  Sophia’s eyes shot to Eric’s and he spoke quickly. “Not innocents. Never innocents.”

  “And who made you judge, jury, and executioner, huh? Fuck, you’re such a hypocrite.” Travis shook his head.

  “Fine, I’
m a hypocrite,” Eric said. “Is that what you want? What do you want here? I’ll do or say whatever you want. Just let her go.”

  “You think I want your fucking condescension? I’m the fucking President of the Republic of Texas, the last functioning Republic left in the United territories. I don’t need anything from you. I fucking won. You’re nothing to me. You’re a mosquito and I’m a giant. I just wanted you to see that, once and for all.”

  “Because I’ve been running you like a marionette on strings for years, so you’ll forgive me if I want to spend a minute or two boasting.” Travis grinned. “When you reported on your superior officer for raping that villager, I encouraged him to flip the story and press charges against you so you’d be court-marshalled instead.”

  “Then I paid off officials at every step along the way back home. Xterminate was really hitting its stride and I thought it’d be a great opportunity for us to get back to the way we were. You know, how we’d been back in high school. But I knew a wife and kid would slow us down, so I called up the local militia whipping up riots in the area.”

  No. Eric reeled from all that he was hearing. “Arnie,” Eric breathed out in one last attempt to stop him from what was coming, but Arnold Jason Travis finished just like Eric had been afraid he would.

  “And I sent them straight to your house for some hot pussy.”

  “You fucking bastard, you killed my mother!” Sophia struggled in Travis’s grip but shrieked when he pulled her arm back awkwardly behind her, immobilizing her.

  “That’s right,” he shouted, looking Eric’s way. “And I’m going to kill you, too, little girl, while your daddy watches. For once and for all, you’re going to learn I’m not someone you can look down your perfect nose at.”

  “But you promised,” Eric shouted. “If I came, you promised you’d let her go.”

  Travis laughed. “Don’t you get it? I’m a god. And God can do whatever the fuck he wants. Now God’s going to show you what it feels like to think you have family and then have it ripped away, right in front of your eyes.”