by Cassia Leo
“Hello?”
“Cash, it’s Knox. I’m out in front of the hotel,” says Knox Savage in his deep New York wise guy accent.
“How did you know?”
“I was in California when Hector called a few hours ago to tell me about Benny. I’ve dealt with him before, so I didn’t hesitate. This isn’t the kind of threat you wait out. Come on, kid. We gotta get movin’.”
“I’m in the parking garage, on the third floor, but I can hear sirens coming from the lower level.”
“Take the emergency stairwell on the south side of the garage down to street level, and meet me at the entrance to Via Bel Canto,” he replies without hesitation.
“Got it.”
I disappear into the concrete stairwell just as the first police car arrives on the third level. Racing down the steps, I rush out into the cool Las Vegas night, running across the sandy desert landscaping toward the black SUV idling at the entrance to Via Bel Canto. The back door swings open when I’m nearly there, allowing me climb inside and slam the door shut as the SUV begins moving.
The guy in the back seat isn’t Knox Savage, but he’s definitely there to break some heads and take some names. His head is a block of granite sitting atop a fucking quarry, with a tattoo of the word “Devil” carved into his thick neck. He’s busy loading a gun in his lap.
I nod at him. “Cash.”
He nods without looking at me. “Bruno.”
“Sven,” says a blond guy in the third row seat, who’s busy typing on a laptop, which sits securely inside a steel hard case.
“Jimmy,” says a dark-haired guy next to Sven.
Jimmy is also loading a weapon. He’s almost as huge as Bruno, but his blue eyes are even colder. This man will do whatever needs to be done without hesitation. That much is obvious.
Hector is driving the SUV while Knox Savage sits in the front passenger seat loading another pistol. This must be the team that was with Knox when Hector called him a few hours ago.
“Hector, if you’re here, who’s guarding Kurt?”
Knox responds for Hector. “I have a couple guys guarding them. They’re fine.”
My heart pounds as I have to stop myself from declaring that they’re not fucking fine. “They sent me some photos in a text—”
“Give me your phone,” Sven cuts me off.
I glance toward Knox and he nods. Handing over the phone, I feel as if I’ve given over control of this operation, which makes me feel powerless. I need to be able to do something or the rage will consume me.
Sven connects my phone to his laptop and continues typing. “Ping info should come through in ninety seconds.” He stares at the screen unblinking, his fingers poised over the keyboard. “They’re headed toward downtown.”
Just like that, they already have these fucking amateurs’ location.
“I want them all dead.”
Knox turns in his seat to look me in the eye. “The blood-thirst is good, but it will only help if you don’t let it get in the way. You ever shoot a gun?”
I nod as I recall skeet shooting and quail hunting with my dad in my teens. “Only rifles.”
“I’ll give you a lesson with this .38, but you gotta remember the rules of engagement or I’ll fuckin’ kneecap you. You’re only useful to me if you listen. Got it?”
I swallow my pride and throw him a curt nod. “Got it.”
“Your phone’s ringing,” Sven declares. “Unknown number. Give me ten seconds for the trace.”
“Answer the fucking phone!” I shout, ready to climb into the third row.
“Don’t fucking think about it,” Bruno warns me, pressing the muzzle of his gun to my head.
My muscles tense as I’m frozen in place. “Okay, okay,” I say, slowly moving back into my seat.
He slowly pulls the gun back just as Sven declares the call is coming from a landline before he answers the call by putting it on speaker.
“Who’s this?” Sven asks.
“Who’s this? Where’s my son?” my father shouts into the phone.
“Dad! I’m here!” I shout back. “Where are you? Where are you calling from?”
“I don’t know where I am,” he replies. “I think I’m — are we downtown?”
He seems to be talking to someone who’s there with him. My heart soars as I pray it’s Kara. The text I received implied they might release my father and Kara together.
“Kara! Are you there?” I call out.
“Kara’s not with me, son,” my father replies, dashing my hopes. “They dumped me on the street. This kind Samaritan allowed me to use his phone. I’m at the AutoZone on Eastern and Fremont.”
“Stay there,” Sven replies before I can. “Are you injured?”
“A little roughed up, but I’m fine.”
“No possibility of internal injuries?” Sven asks.
“I’m fine,” my father insists.
“Good,” Sven replies. “Ask if they can hide you in the stockroom. We’ll send someone to pick you up in twenty minutes.”
“No!” my father shouts. “You will come and pick me up. I’m not going to sit back and take it while these thugs abduct my future daughter-in-law. You will pick me up, and I mean now!”
Jesus Christ. My father has no chill.
I look to Knox, and he and Sven seem to be engaged in a telepathic conversation. Finally, Knox nods and Sven shakes his head.
“We’ll be there in a few minutes. Sit tight,” he tells my father before ending the call.
18
Kara
I wake with a blinding headache and a serious case of cotton mouth. Licking my lips, I taste the familiar metallic tang of blood mixed with the bitter flavor of dried vomit. As my eyelids flutter open, my surroundings slowly come into focus.
I’m in the corner of a dingy office, tied to an old wooden swivel chair, but all five casters have been removed from the base so it no longer rolls. A metal desk with chipped gray paint sits in the center of the concrete floor. On top of the desk are multiple stacks of hundred dollar bills, each stack is at least six inches high. Next to the money is my phone and a collection of tools — a hammer, hand saw, pliers, tire iron, and hedge clippers — which I assume will be used to torture me.
The door opens and the sound makes me physically flinch. My heart races and vision blurs as a man in a beige suit walks in with two musclemen behind him. It’s Benny Bagarov. I recognize him from the articles I’ve read.
“Kara Langley. Fancy meeting you here,” he says in a smooth voice. “I thought you might never wake up, and I’d have to throw you into a barrel of acid. Good to see you’re still fighting.”
His Russian accent isn’t as thick as the man who abducted me and roughed me up in the back of the van. But the words he speaks, the easy way he walks, and the sinister smile on his face make me fear him even more. My body trembles as he draws closer with every step he takes.
“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 out 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.”
