He swung her around to face him, which is exactly what she wanted. But when she was face-to-face with her attacker she froze. He wasn’t some college kid out to get his rocks off, he didn’t look like some peeping Tom pervert either. No, this man was big and mean-looking, completely outside of anyone she’d ever met. He looked Latino with darkly tanned skin, black hair and blazing dark brown eyes. Before she’d had a good look at him she had been only pissed off that someone would try to grab her, now she was utterly terrified. What did a man like this want with someone like her?
“You need to calm the fuck down, chica,” he snarled, his hands hard on her arms. “You’re coming with me. Up to you if you do it dignified and nice or knocked out and tied up.”
“You expect me to go along with my own assault? Not fucking likely!” Raina raised the can of bear spray and took aim.
Before she could deploy the painful mist into his face, he moved, so fast she couldn’t understand what he was doing until her feet were swept out from under her and she was falling backward onto the pavement. She let out a yelp and cringed, knowing she was about to hit the ground hard. But she didn’t. Her attacker controlled her fall, coming down on top of her, making sure she had a soft landing. His grip on her wrist was not as soft though. He had her in a crushing hold, her arm over her head.
He landed on top of her, straddling her waist, his legs pinning hers, his hand over her mouth. He lifted her arm and slammed it into the pavement until her hand opened and she lost the bear spray. She was stunned that he bested her. She thought her karate skills should protect her from would-be attackers. She was fit, strong-ish and thought she was pretty fucking good in hand to hand combat. But this guy made her feel like a baby kitten going up against a tiger.
A chill shiver ran through her body as she was forced to lay immobile, staring up at her captor. How many times had he done this? Was she about to become the victim of a serial killer? Another in a long line of women that disappeared, never to be seen alive again?
Hell no, she was not! And with that thought she began fighting again, twisting, struggling until her legs were free then slamming her knees into his back. He might be big, he might be solid, he might be better than her in combat situations, but he wasn’t small and wiry, with a deep thirst to hurt those that hurt her. Raina had never been one to take sleights lightly. She had a mouth on her and wasn’t afraid to tell people what was what, call a spade a spade. She was the first to participate in rallies, shout her political opinions at the top of her lungs. She was especially passionate about women’s rights and freedoms. And she was definitely anti-kidnapping.
She quickly became aware that he wasn’t trying to hurt her. In fact, he was actively trying to do the opposite. Make sure she didn’t bruise herself too much in the fight. What the fuck kind of a serial killer-rapist was she dealing with? Didn’t matter, his ‘gently subdue the girl’ approach was going to work to her advantage. As soon as she had a hand free she went for his eyes. He moved his head, dropping it against her chest so her nails raked down the side of his neck. She was gratified to hear him grunt in pain.
Then he decided to get serious. He used his legs to pin her flailing limbs, gripped her hands together in one of his and slammed them over her head. He twisted her face to the side, a large hand wrapped around her jaw, and he leaned in until his lips were just over her ear.
“You need to stop fighting me, Raina. Right. Fucking. Now.”
His use of her name immobilized her better than anything else he’d done or said. He knew her name. He fucking knew her name! So, this wasn’t just some random kidnapping. She was his intended victim. Somehow, that thought made her situation even scarier. Had this been a random attack, a crime of opportunity, then he truly wasn’t invested in her. Maybe she could’ve fought until she escaped and found a security guard. Instead she was being held in the arms of a man who knew her name, knew she would be walking home alone tonight. A man who seemed determined to take her. He was invested in her kidnapping.
Once she quit fighting he eased his grip on her chin.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, trying to make her voice a hard demand, but it sounded more breathless and frightened.
“I was charged with finding and acquiring you,” he said, shifting until they were both sitting. He moved her hands to the front of her body, still clasped in his hard grip. “My boss wants you where he can keep an eye on you, baby.”
She stared at him like he was insane. “I’m not going anywhere with you! I have midterms next week.”
“I think,” he drawled, his dark eyes gleaming under the dim campus lighting, “you’ll have to take a pass. In fact, probably best to take the year off. I suspect you won’t be back for awhile.”
“Like fucking hell!” she snapped and tried to kick out at him. He shoved himself between her legs and yanked her up against his chest, holding her in an unbreakable embrace. She went with her last resort, the death glare.
He opened his mouth to say something, his fingers tightening around her when a voice interrupted them. “Hey! You okay over there?” She twisted around to see, thought it might be one of the security guards, but the man holding her yanked her fully against his chest. He pulled something from his jacket and pressed it against her side. Not into her body, but pointing away, toward the person who was striding toward them.
Then he kissed her. Full on the mouth, lips pressed against hers. She gasped, accidentally breathing in his scent, a mix of spicy cigar and man. She was too shocked to push back or struggle. She lay frozen against him, accepting the strange moment for what it was. Her first kiss. She wasn’t like other girls. Hadn’t had a chance to grow up normal. Though she loved to do normal stuff like everyone else, her illness had stopped her. As a result she’d become sheltered as a child, overprotected by well-meaning parents.
Before her brain could fully engage and tell her she needed to snap back to reality, the stranger kissing her lifted his lips a fraction of an inch from hers and whispered, his warm breath rushing over her, “If you say anything, I will kill him. Do you understand, Raina?”
She stared at him in dazed fascination. Who was he? Where was he from? And why were some serial killers so damn attractive?
Apparently she didn’t answer him quick enough, because he gave her a little shake, tightened his already hard grip on her arms and said, “I have killed before, chica, many times. You want the death of this man on your conscience?”
His words snapped her back to reality, made her realize the severity of her situation. He’d killed before! The thought made her heart thunder against her ribcage and another surge of adrenaline to rush through her. She shook her head in a quick, no.
“Then you need to follow my lead. I was walking you back to your dormitory when we got carried away. Nothing else, understand?”
She nodded and held her breath as he leaned in to kiss her again. She felt the press of his gun against her as the guard approached. Her eyes filled with tears as she fought the desperate need to cry out for help. But she couldn’t. She didn’t want to be the cause of anyone getting hurt. Gripping her hair tightly, as though to warn her, the man turned to the guard, his entire demeanor changing from sinister to lovestruck.
“Good evening officer. Was just walking my girl back to her dorm when we started messing around. Sorry to bother you!” His voice took on a flawless American accent, losing his smooth Latin accent. She barely registered what the security guard said in response. Something about moving along. He nodded, his hair brushing her forehead, his grip still painfully tight. “Of course, sir. I’ll just see her back to her room safe and sound and be on my way.”
The guard said goodnight and moved away. Raina let out a choked sob as she watched her hope of rescue stride quickly away from them and disappear around the side of a dormitory. Her captor eased his grip and maneuvered her face away from his.
His eyes were hot on her face when he spoke. “Now, you want to stop fighting me, baby girl, or do we do th
is the hard way?”
She thought about her options, thought about the various possibilities involved in her kidnapping. “Fuck you!” she hissed angrily.
He chuckled and ran his thumb down her arm, where he held her. “You are just like your mother, aren’t you?”
She knew her eyes were bugging at his words. Not for one second did she think he meant her adoptive mom. No, he was talking about the woman that birthed and abandoned her. The woman Raina had spent years trying to track down. How did he know her mother? Was he going to take her to the woman?
Before Raina could ask these vitally important questions he stabbed something into her neck. “Ouch!” She reached up to touch the spot. “What did you do?”
He stood, pulling her to her feet. She swayed as dark floaties swarmed her vision. He held her tight against him, his arms wrapped around her back. Her brain was becoming fuzzy and she was starting to feel like she was floating. He turned them around and began walking, too swift for her to keep up.
“But seriously dude, what did you give me?” she asked, her voice drifting through the night. She giggled as she realized how odd her voice sounded when it was coming through a tunnel. Slurred and garbled. She doubted he even knew what she tried to say.
She stumbled against him and reached out to grab his leather jacket. He held her against his side, protectively, she thought. Which was a stupid thought. He was kidnapping her, which was hurting her to begin with. Why would he want to protect her? She tripped over a curb as they entered a parking lot and he caught her before she could fall, swinging her legs out from beneath her and holding her in his arms. She reached out to grip his shoulders, hold onto something solid and stop the spinning, but she accidentally clipped him in the jaw.
She thought he might get mad, but when he looked down at her he was grinning broadly. Both of his heads floating in her vision were smiling.
“You’re going to be a handful, aren’t you princess?”
She sighed heavily and allowed her eyelids to close, shutting out the weird floaties and his scarily handsome face. “Probably,” she whispered before passing out.
Chapter Thirteen
Vee shivered under her blanket, curling tighter against herself. It didn’t matter what she did, she couldn’t seem to get warm. As far as she was concerned Canadians were insane for embracing their frigid cold environment. She saw them, out and about, doing their daily business and playing outdoor winter sports. Packed into fluffy snow outfits like sausages. If she’d had a choice, Canada would probably not have been on her list of places to flee. At least not during the winter months.
But her choices were slim. Cuba would have been her first choice. She’d had good relations there, with Tony’s former countrymen. They hadn’t blamed her for his death. In fact, they had seen Tony as a weak leader, a man prone to vices, an embarrassment to the underworld. But she stood out in Cuba and the island wasn’t big enough for someone like her to get lost indefinitely. She couldn’t go to Mexico, at least not quickly. Not without getting in touch with one of her former contacts, someone not connected with Domingo. And she couldn’t fly out of the US, not without leaving a paper trail that she had no doubt Sotza could easily follow.
So she’d crossed the border into Canada using a fake passport and was in the process of trying to blend. It wasn’t easy laying low in a small town, a few hundred kilometres outside of St. John’s, New Brunswick. There was absolutely nothing sexy about layers but she’d quickly learned that they were essential to survival. She stood out in the town, people knowing immediately that she didn’t belong. But they greeted her friendly enough. One of the townspeople even suggested she trade in her stiletto boots for something a little hardier. She thought he was making fun of her but then he gave her directions to a store and suggested a few brands. She was pretty sure Canadians were insane, but she liked them. The ones she met so far anyway. Even the guy she rented her little cabin from came out to chop wood for her fireplace and check on her a few times a week.
It'd been two weeks since she left Miami. The only contact she made back home was with Danny. She’d begged him to come with her, or to go somewhere else. To leave the city that was now unsafe for both of them. He’d politely refused, and she’d understood. Danny’s whole life was in Florida. He was born and raised there, had a mom and sisters. A sweetheart he’d been dating for awhile. He wasn’t prepared to cut and run.
When she talked to him yesterday, Danny had given her a desperate picture of her home town. “Sotza has everyone under his control. He’s placed someone new at the top, but everyone knows that Sotza’s pulling the strings. He had Grant Shaw taken out. From the condition of the body, I’d say The Butcher did it himself.”
“Shaw isn’t exactly a loss to the world.” Vee had replied of the dead neo-Nazi, though she shuddered at the destruction Sotza was causing.
“No, Shaw was a piece of work, but Steve Cruz will be a loss.”
“What happened to Cruz?” Her stomach twisted. Cruz had been a go-with-the-flow sort of guy. A man whose loyalty floated on the breeze, toward whoever paid better and hurt less. Sotza probably picked him up on the streets, put him to work and then got rid of him when he realized Cruz was pretty useless. He’d been an incompetent idiot whenever she had to deal with him, but he hadn’t deserved to die.
“You don’t want to know,” Danny said grimly.
She inhaled sharply. No, she really didn’t want to know.
“What about you?” she asked. “I hate that I had to leave you behind. I really wish you’d reconsider coming up here to Canada. Bring your family, bring your girl. Whatever you need. But please, get out of the line of fire.”
She didn’t think she could stand to lose Danny on top of everything else. He’d been a good friend, her closest associate. A second-in-command, but also a self-appointed bodyguard. If Sotza got to Danny, Vee didn’t know what she would do.
“I’m okay,” he reiterated for about the 50th time since she’d gone into hiding. “Pretty sure The Butcher knows exactly where I am and where to find me. Hasn’t stopped by for a chat though. Which is a cause for concern.”
Vee frowned. “Why is that? If he’s leaving you alone, shouldn’t you be happy about it? No one wants a face-to-face with that guy.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about, boss. If he’s not here asking me about your whereabouts then that tells me he probably knows exactly where you are. Or at least how to find you. My guess is it’s just a matter of time before he heads up your way.”
“No,” Vee whispered.
“You need to think about your next move. Get out of there, find someplace else more remote. Someplace that no one knows about… not even me. If he gets to me I’ll try to hold out, but we’ve both seen what he’s capable of. He has ways of getting all the information he needs before sending his victims to hell.”
Tears stung her eyes. She didn’t want to lose the one connection to home she had left. The one friend who would do whatever it took to keep her safe. If, in her bid for freedom, she let Danny go, then she would be truly alone.
She swallowed and said, “I’m not ready for that yet. If he knows where to find me, why hasn’t he made a move yet? No, I’m not ready to cut ties yet.”
Danny didn’t say anything for several long minutes. She could feel his need to argue with her, but all he said was, “Just take care of yourself, boss. Keep your head up, eyes open and weapon close.”
“Always,” she promised.
“Call me tomorrow night,” he said sternly. “Mandatory check ins until you feel ready to go to ground for good.”
“Yes, boss,” she replied with a small smile.
His voice still held a note of worry. “Goodnight, Vee.”
“Goodnight, Danny. Hi to the family.”
After she ended the call, Vee stared into the darkness of the room, seeing nothing. It was always pitch black here at night unless she had the fireplace running or turned on a light. She felt bad for worrying Danny. He rea
lly was the closest thing to a best friend that she had. Besides Casey. The two women had become close in the past year, but distance kept them from seeing each other more than a few times. Perhaps she would call Danny back in the morning and let him know she was going to disappear. It would ease his mind.
She crammed one of the pillows against her stomach, tucked a hand underneath her head and drifted to sleep feeling a little safer knowing she would set a more permanent escape plan in motion.
* * *
Firelight flickered behind her closed lids, warming her chilled body. The crackling of burning wood drifted through her subconscious. She sighed, feeling more content, more comfortable than she had in a long time. As she swam gently toward wakefulness her dream world gradually melted away. She’d been dreaming that she was at lunch with Casey and the rest of their Tuesday crew. She’d hated the entire bunch of hypocritical, cynical bitches, until she got to know Casey and found a woman as damaged as herself. She’d taken the younger woman under her wing, as much as she could at the time. She would miss Casey when it came time to flee for good. But Casey was loyal to her husband, Vee couldn’t divulge her whereabouts without the information making its way back to Sotza.
As she slowly became aware it occurred to her that she hadn’t started a fire the evening before. She’d wanted to save the last of her wood for an upcoming cold snap. Her eyes flew open and she sat up in the bed, lunging for her gun on the nightstand. She searched for it, squinting at the shadows, nearly knocking over a glass of water in her frantic scramble. It was gone. Of course.
Queen’s Move: Book Two of The Queens Page 7
