Secrets (Lords of the City)

by Alice Ward

  Derek wasn’t friends with Evie. He didn’t even know Cristiano existed. The chance of him having something to do with or knowing something about their disappearances was extremely slim.

  But that still meant it was a chance worth taking.

  “Hello?” I answered.

  “Blaire,” he sighed in what sounded like relief. “How are you?”

  “Derek,” I nearly snapped. “Is this important?”

  “What? I, uh…”

  “Look, I’m not trying to be rude, but I don’t have the time right now.”

  “God, that’s kind of harsh. I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

  “I can’t do this right now. We need to talk another time.”

  “Really? That’s how you’re going to act when…”

  “Another time.”

  I hung up on him and put the phone back in my pocket. “Florentia!” I yelled. “Now! We need to go!”

  I stomped across the living room then went down the hallway towards her bedroom. “We have to…”

  The words died in my throat. Florentia stood in the middle of her bedroom, but she wasn’t alone. The tall bald man from the black SUV stood there, one hand pressing Florentia’s arms behind her back and the other one holding a gun to the side of her head.

  “Let her go,” I commanded, pointing Seth’s Glock at Baldie’s chest.

  A click sounded behind me. I didn’t have to turn around to know a second person stood back there, their own weapon pointed in my direction.

  “Put it down,” the gravelly voice behind me commanded.

  Slowly, I bent and set the gun on the carpet.

  “Let’s go,” the voice said again.

  I turned, making a point to not look at my attacker straight on. He might think I was trying to memorize his face, which might piss him off and cause him to act out. It was Florentia they were after. I happened to be expendable. From the corner of my eye, I could tell he was a tall and buff dark man I’d never seen. “The back door,” he commanded.

  I followed instructions, my mind racing with each step. There had to be some way out of this. There was always a way.

  But I couldn’t think of a single one.

  We passed the bathroom, its window open and the curtains lifting in the breeze.

  Damn it. Didn’t I check the lock?

  I thought I had. I thought I tried it, but maybe I just looked at it. I’d been in a rush. And then Derek called…

  Damn Derek.

  If only I could blame this all on him, but I couldn’t. I’d let myself get distracted by his pointless phone call. If only I’d been paying better attention, listening for sounds of movement in and around the house…

  The men stopped us at the back door and felt through our pockets to remove our belongings then put black hoods over our heads. Terror washed over me along with the darkness. I reminded myself the hoods might be a good thing. If our kidnappers didn’t want us to remember where we were going, then they probably planned on keeping us alive.

  I fumbled the whole way across the back yard, losing my footing and stumbling once or twice. We kept walking, on an on for what seemed like a mile but was probably not even a whole block. Where had the men hidden their vehicle? And how could it be no one saw the kidnapping party trudging around?

  My legs brushed against some scraggly bushes, telling me we walked through either an abandoned lot or a field. Please, I prayed. Somebody see us.

  Climbing into the back of what felt like a large van was even harder than walking. The man shoved me inside, and I half sat, half collapsed on the rough floor. Two loud doors slammed, sealing us in. Florentia’s quick breathing came from next to me, and her shoulder brushed against mine as the van backed up.

  I wanted to speak, to say something to the woman next to me. I needed to apologize, as paltry as that apology might be. But our captors were near. For all I knew, there was no divide between the front of the vehicle and us. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of hearing my voice crack in disappointment and fear.

  How long we drove, I couldn’t tell. Each ten minutes that passed was probably only one, but riding to an unknown fate made every moment seem so much longer.

  I counted the lefts and rights the van took, trying to commit them to memory, trying to trace a map in my mind. Eventually, there were so many turns that I lost track of which direction we were even headed in. I couldn’t tell if north or south was the destination.

  For a while, the van kept straight, telling me we were either on a highway or country road. A few more turns and the vehicle slowed down, getting onto a bumpy and unpaved driveway.

  The van came to a stop, and the back doors opened to the sound of crickets. Other than that, there was nothing. We were somewhere in the country, far from the city limits of Chicago. A rough hand grabbed my arm and led me forward. I went willingly, doing my best to keep my back straight.

  The whole ride, I worked on coming up with ways to sweet talk the captors. Since I didn’t know just what they wanted, it was hard to know what kind of offers they might bite at. I didn’t have a lot of money to offer, and if they wanted what I did have, all they needed to do was go back to Florentia’s and take my purse out of the rental car.

  My heart lurched. The rental car. How long before the police found it abandoned there? Assuming one of the goons hadn’t already taken it and lit it on fire or something.

  We stopped walking. Keys rattled in a door, and then we were ushered into a damp but warm room. My arms were let go. I fought the urge to reach up and tear the hood off my face. Footsteps hit something like wood, and a second later, another door opened and shut.

  Silence. Were we alone?

  I ripped the black hood off. The room we were in was dark, save for a thin window somewhere near the top of a wall. I squinted at the bit of moonlight coming through the glass. No, that wasn’t a wall. It was a garage door.

  “Florentia?” I asked.

  She touched my arm. “I am here.”

  “Blaire!”

  I gasped in surprise. “Evie?”

  Two new hands grabbed onto me as a form appeared in the darkness. I wrapped my arms around Evie and pulled her close. “Oh my God, Evie! I’m so sorry,” I said into her hair.

  She hugged me tight. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, we’re fine. Cristiano’s mom is here. Florentia.”

  “His mom?”

  “Where are we?” Florentia asked.

  “In a garage,” Evie explained.

  “Any idea where?” I peered at her, finally able to make out a bit of her face.

  She shook her head. “I’ve already tried looking for a way out. The door is sealed, and there’s nothing to break the glass with.”

  “Damn it,” I hissed.

  “These men came into Cristiano’s and grabbed me,” Evie explained, her voice shaking a bit. “It happened so fast.”

  “Cristiano,” I gasped. “Do you know where he is?”

  “No. Right before the men took me, he went out. He said he needed to think.”

  I clenched my teeth. “I think they got him too. You checked the door that we came in here through?”

  “Yes, and the one leading to the house.”

  “The house?”

  “Over here,” she said, her voice a little softer. “Follow me.”

  I put my hand on her back, and Florentia did the same to me. We shimmied along the concrete floor.

  “There are steps here,” Evie whispered. I bent down and felt the wooden steps I’d heard shoes clomping on. “They must go up into the house.”

  Some banging around came from the other side of the door, and the women on either side of me froze.

  “If you weren’t so fucking stupid,” a male voice said, “You would have gotten it right the first time.”

  “How was I to know?” asked a second man. “All Ken said was go into the place and get the girl. We did what he asked. No one told me what she looked like.”

  Man
Number One growled. “Then you should have thought to ask before barging in there. Now we have one extra bitch to deal with.”

  I tensed. They were talking about Evie. So the men who kidnapped her thought she was me?

  Florentia shuffled a little bit behind me, and I put my hand on her as a signal for her to be still.

  “Yeah,” the other man sullenly said. “So what are we going to do about her?”

  “Don’t worry about her. It’s your own ass you need to be concerned about. Ken will have more than a few words for you.”

  There was some more moving around and the creaking of furniture. A fridge opened then shut.

  “This is my last job anyway,” Man Number Two said after a minute. “I’m done with all of this shit.”

  Man Number One snorted. “That’s easier said than done. What makes you think you can get out so easily? Anyway, if you wanna get your cut, you better wait till the money’s in your hand to tell Ken that. He’ll hold out on you if he knows you’re leaving.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “Yeah, he would.”

  A can popped.

  “Whatever,” the other guy muttered. A chair creaked, and someone got up and left the room. I stayed frozen where I was until sounds told me the other man was leaving as well.

  Gingerly, I edged my way over to the far wall. Florentia and Evie followed.

  “It sounds like they’re planning on holding us for ransom,” I explained.

  “Yes,” Florentia agreed.

  I wrapped my arms around myself, thinking hard. Ransom wasn’t as bad as murder, not in anyone’s book.

  “Will Cristiano pay?” Evie asked.

  “We don’t know where Cristiano is,” I reminded her. “I thought he was here, with you.”

  A heaviness filled the spaces between the three of us. There seemed to be nothing left to say. With no Cristiano, there would be no one to pay whatever sum the men planned on asking for.

  Florentia spoke up, her voice small. “But where can he be?”

  I desperately wished I had an answer.

  The door to the house opened, letting in a shaft of light, and we all scrambled back. One, two, then three men came down the stairs. The first two were the ones who took Florentia and me and the third someone I’d never seen.

  “Time to go,” the one who’d jabbed the gun against my back announced.

  The new guy, standing right behind him, fumbled with the black hoods. I studied him, suspecting he was Voice Number Two. If so, he was the weaker of all three of the men. Not only was he smaller, but he seemed to be less committed to the whole heist than the other two. He would be the easiest to break, to get through to. If he had even a shred of humanity more than his ringleader, maybe he could even be convinced to help us escape. I tried to catch his eye, to show him that I, too, was a human, but he kept his gaze down and on the floor.

  “Let’s go,” Ringleader said, waving his arms at the three of us.

  “What about the hoods?” the guy behind him questioned.

  “Forget about it. We didn’t need them in the first place.”

  My stomach lurched as he stepped towards us. “Put your hands on your head.”

  My first instinct was to fight him, but I knew I couldn’t do that. No way could I take on three armed men. Instead, I did as I was told, then marched through the door to the outside with Florentia and Evie.

  They were moving us. Hopefully in a routine attempt to avoiding getting found.

  My heart beat in my ears as I remembered what they said about Evie. They’d never meant to kidnap her. Did that mean they were planning to get rid of her? What was the name of the guy they mentioned? The one who sounded like he was head honcho? Ken? Were we being taken to him so he could decide?

  Tufts of grass hit the toes of my sneakers. I squinted into the darkness, trying to figure out just where we might be. As suspected, deep country surrounded the house and dirt driveway. No streetlights. No houses. Just wide open spaces.

  The kind where no one could hear you scream.

  In front of us sat a white van, ready and willing to receive its prisoners once more. My muscles tightened, resisting going back in there. I had to think of a plan. I needed to think, think, think.

  An engine’s roar cut the night. I glanced at the front of the van, but no one had entered it and turned it on. Instead, the revving came from behind us.

  I whipped my head around just in time to see a white SUV come barreling around the side of the house. It bumped in the yard and soared towards our group of six. Instinctively, I grabbed both Florentia and Evie’s arms, barely being able to grasp my best friend in time. Pulling with all my strength, I jerked backwards, taking them out of the path of the SUV. A big thud sounded and one of the men — the dark skinned one — got sucked under the hood of the car.

  The other two men yelled and pulled out their guns. I crouched and ran, pulling the women in my hands with me. A line of trees loomed on the other side of the driveway, but they were too close. I pushed Florentia and Evie behind the white van and dove to join them.

  Gunshots were going off. The SUV’s engine still went on, gunning and getting ready for more damage. I dropped to my knees and peeked under the bottom of the van, knowing I shouldn’t do it but also needing to know what was happening. Were our kidnappers distracted enough for us to make a real break for it? In the darkness of the woods, they would have trouble finding us, especially if we found some trees to camp out in.

  Someone gasped.

  “My son!” Florentia wailed before getting up and darting around the side of the van.

  “No,” I yelled at her. I threw myself at her, but she was too quick. She rounded the van, getting closer to the line of fire.

  “Florentia,” I yelled, then took a dive and tackled her. The second my arms wrapped around her waist, something pierced the back of my shoulder. A hot burn flooded my whole back and went down my right arm. I yelled in pain as the two of us crashed into the grass.

  “No,” I croaked, grabbing hold of her shirt. I scooted along the ground, back towards the safety of the van, doing my best to pull her with me using my good arm. Gunshots still went off, and another cry joined the booms. Evie appeared next to us, grabbing hold of Florentia’s other side. Together the three of us stumbled and crawled back to the van.

  I collapsed against the rear tire, the pain in my shoulder searing. Darkness pressed in, so close and so deep. My head dropped forward. Trying my hardest, I couldn’t keep it up. Somewhere far away, Evie’s voice called my name. The dark shapes in front of me pulsed, shrinking and then growing.

  “Blaire,” a familiar voice called. “Blaire!”

  “Cristiano?” I muttered, before letting go completely and losing myself in the darkness.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  e

  Everything felt warm and cozy. Far away, something beeped. People clucked, their voices a low and steady stream sounding like the background chatter you hear in restaurant scenes in movies.

  I turned my face to the side, enjoying the softness brushing it.

  “Blaire?” Cristiano asked.

  I murmured to let him know I heard him but didn’t open my eyes. The dream was too perfect, and I wasn’t about to let go of it. I threw the back of my hand over my eyes to block the light. Just a few more minutes, and I would wake up. Until then, I would get lost in thinking everything was all right again. Where I was, I didn’t know, but it was too comfortable to be that garage, and the lights were too bright for me to be home or at Cristiano’s.

  Wait. So where was I? Panic filled my chest. I dropped my hand and sat up straight. An ache so intense it bordered on shooting pain hit my right shoulder, and I hissed.

  “Easy,” Cristiano said. “Lay back.”

  Out of nowhere, he appeared in front of me, his eyes wide and eager. “You need to rest.”

  I did as he instructed. “Where am I?” I asked, noticing for the first time just how parched my throat was.

&
nbsp; “You’re at the hospital. Here. Drink some water.”

  He reached over towards something I couldn’t see and brought back a little plastic cup filled with water. Moving it towards my face with one hand, he slipped his other hand behind my head and started to lift it for me.

  “I’m good,” I told him, taking the cup and drinking.

  His hands dropped away, and he just sat there, watching me. The hospital room we sat in had a green curtain to the left. To the right, the door was cracked open. More voices drifted into the room; none of them I recognized.

  I looked for a spot to set my empty cup down. Cristiano quickly took it from me and put it back next to a water pitcher on the table against the wall.

  “Is anyone else in here?” I asked, looking at the green curtain. My voice felt tired, like I hadn’t used it in a while, but at least it wasn’t dry anymore.

  “No. You’re the only patient in here.”

  He stared at me, a concerned look on his face. “Blaire…” He licked his lips and tried again. “I don’t know where to start.”

  I sighed. “I know.” Just how much did he know? “It was you,” I murmured, meeting is soft gaze. “Who came and saved us… but how?”

  “I followed you there from Florentia’s house. I was just pulling up when I saw the men take you two out.” He shook his head. “Two seconds earlier or later, and I wouldn’t have seen you. It was just for a moment, while they were taking you across the yard. It was a miracle. I didn’t have my phone, and there was no time for me to go find someone to call the police. I had to follow them to their van. And from there, I followed them to the house in the country. It took a while, because I had to stay kind of far behind, but it was dark, and I drove with my headlights off.”

  I absorbed the story, the whole thing blowing my mind. There were so many points in it where things could have gone wrong. Just the fact that the kidnappers hadn’t caught on to being followed was a miracle.

  I gasped, something else suddenly occurring to me. “Florentia! Evie! Are they…?”

  “They’re fine. Don’t worry. The only person who got hurt was you. Well, other than…” He let the sentence trail off as his face grew thin. “Those three men are still alive, but they’re in jail. They’ve already confessed. They sang like canaries.”