Shattered Lives

by Alexis Noelle

  “There is only one way for you to get her back. You make the case that you created go away, and you return my fucking money. I will not go down, however, if I do I’m taking her with me. You have exactly forty-eight hours from now to make it happen. When you do, you call this number. If I don’t hear from you by then I will leave the country and you can expect to start receiving packages daily until we send every piece of her back to you.”

  The line goes dead and I feel like I’m going to be sick. I slump forward in my car and my forehead bangs against the steering wheel. I have been working on my case against the Acardi family for years and I am the only one that has ever even come close to nailing them for something. I don’t know how I can even do what he is asking. If I show up at the precinct the captain will probably have me forcibly put on a plane. Not only that, but there is the small problem of everyone thinking I’m dead.

  As much as it will kill me, I am willing to sink this case. I would do anything for Jessie including making myself enemy number one. If I do this, I will have to leave the country, go somewhere without extradition before anyone realizes what has happened. I only hope this time that I might be able to convince Jessie to come with me.

  Chapter 9

  Jessie

  I can hear muffled voices around me. I can’t make sense of what they are saying but they do not sound happy. I try to open my eyes but they feel so heavy and my body won’t respond to me trying to move. The one thing that is very clear is my pounding headache.

  What the hell happened to me? I remember going to meet Damon but anything after that is a blur. I feel myself starting to slowly wake up, the voices around me are becoming clearer, and my body seems to be losing its numbness. One of the voices seems so familiar but I can’t place it.

  I have a hope that maybe I am safe and with people who don’t intend to do me any harm. However, I am almost positive that isn’t true. I know that this has to be connected to Damon and the reason he had to leave the country. Which means that I’m probably leverage against him, and they think by holding me they will force him into doing something. Little do they know that he walked away from me. He was leaving me. Shit, he’s probably on a plane right now. They can try all they want but I doubt he will care enough to come back. If I’m being honest, I got excited when I thought the note was from Damon. Now that I know it wasn’t, I realize he really did leave.

  After a few minutes pass by, I am starting to be able to voluntarily move my body, so I try my eyes again. When I open them, I look up at a ceiling. I try to tilt my head to the side and look around me but I get a huge pain in my head, causing me to wince. Baby steps, Jessie. I close my eyes not wanting whoever is in the room to know I’m awake until I can fully control myself. The voices seem clearer now.

  “The boss said we can’t touch her, so keep your fucking hands to yourself.” Thank God.

  “He wouldn’t even need to know. He isn’t going to be here until that dumb ass cop shows up anyway.” My stomach drops. I can hear the perversion and evil in his voice.

  “I fucking said no, Randy. Now just do what the fuck you are supposed to and shut the fuck up.” Randy? My breath hitches as my whole body freezes up. No. It couldn’t be.

  I tilt my head to the side while keeping my eyes closed. The pain is still there but it is manageable. I slightly open my eyes and I confirm my realization. I see creepy Randy sitting in a chair in the middle of the room. I quickly close my eyes before he can see me. My heart rate accelerates as I take in the gravity of my situation. I can’t believe this, whoever these people are they have been watching me since September. They must have just been waiting for Damon to show up.

  I hear footsteps and they sound as if they are coming close to me. I freeze not even trusting myself to breathe. Hot breath spreads over the side of my face, and I try not to grimace at the disgusting smell of it.

  “I know you’re awake. That shit doesn’t knock you out for that long.” I still refuse to move I don’t want him to know for sure I am up. “Guess if you’re passed out I can have a little fun.” When his hand skims over my stomach my eyes fly open. He laughs as he looks at me. The sound makes my stomach coil and I have to concentrate on not throwing up. “Surprised to see me?”

  I don’t answer him. I need to detach myself from the situation right now. I won’t make it through otherwise. His fingers roughly grasp my face as he pulls my head to face him.

  “I asked you a fucking question,” he spits at me. “Now I’ll ask it one more time and if you ignore me again, you’ll regret it. Surprised to see me?”

  I nod my head. His fingers squeeze tighter making me feel like my jaw might snap. “Yes.” I fight to get the word out of my mouth because of the immense pressure he is putting on me.

  When he releases me, my head hits the cement underneath me and I wince at the contact. Randy leans down close to me. “I kind of hope that you misbehave. I would love to teach your ass a lesson.” His lips press against mine and I fight the urge to bite the shit out of him. I know right now that would not be a good idea. Instead, I lay here limply, waiting for the assault to be over. The feel of his lips against mine causes bile to rise to the back of my throat.

  As he walks away from me, I roll onto my side, keeping my back to him. A tear slips from my eye but I know I can’t let them out here. I can’t let him see how effected I am by all of this. I just need to hope that Damon comes for me, and that he doesn’t get himself killed in the process.

  Nicholas

  I have been racking my brain trying to figure out how the hell I am going to do this. I need to find some way to destroy the evidence against the Acardi’s without getting caught in the process. It’s going to kill me because of all the work I’ve put into this. Not to mention the fact that I’m helping killers and members of organized crime get set free. It goes against every fiber in my being to do this, but I can’t risk Jessie’s life. And these guys don’t bluff.

  I need to find a way to get into the damn evidence room. No one at that precinct really knows me so I am not worried about getting spotted as the lead detective that tragically died. I just need to get myself access to the damn room and I need to figure it out fast. The deadline is looming over me and it feels as if it is about to crush me entirely.

  The Philadelphia precinct is wild and I have heard more than a few stories about what goes on down here. I head toward the local bar that so many stories have stemmed from. I have no idea what I will do once I get there, but it’s a start. I just need the inside scoop.

  I can’t stop thinking about Jessie. I’m hyper aware of each second that ticks by, and it’s torture not knowing where she is and what they’re doing. Is she hurt? Is she scared? Does she know that I am doing everything I can to get her back? I hope she does. I hope she understands how much I love her, and how much I would sacrifice just to make sure she is okay. I want to call the damn number back and demand to speak to her. I want to tell them all what useless pieces of shit they are, and how pathetic they are for taking Jessie. If I did that they would probably take it out on her, and I can’t take that chance. She is already in danger because of me. I’m not going to cause any more problems for her.

  When I get to the bar it isn’t really crowded but I can tell just from the vibe that most of the patrons are cops. Being a detective I’ve been trained to read people and I can usually make pretty safe assumptions, except when it came to Jessie. She was nothing like I expected her to be, and I think that’s what drew me to her. She was always surprising me, and was never predictable. I walk up to the bar and order a beer when the bartender approaches me.

  When he sets it in front of me I give him a ten and tell him to keep the change. Grabbing my beer I turn around in my bar stool and take in my surroundings. Most of the chairs and booths look worn, and the people in the bar are not looking at me but examining me at the same time. I am a stranger that has invaded their world and now they are trying to assess whether I am a friend or a foe.

  “Hey there
, stranger.” I look to my left and see that a woman has sat down next to me. She is about my height sitting down, and has long blonde hair. For all intensive purposes, she is pretty, but it doesn’t matter to me because she isn’t Jessie.

  I nod my head at her, she may be someone I can use but I can’t seem too eager to get close too her. I also know that the guys in her precinct probably don’t treat her as an equal. Not only is she a woman, but to all of them she is probably a wet dream. I decide that I can use this to my advantage, I just need to play it right.

  I look over to her and lean my elbows back onto the bar. “So you here with one of the officers?”

  She rolls her eyes at me. “I am an officer.” Judging by her annoyed tone I know that my assumptions of her were correct. “I run the evidence room and am trusted with more security then half of the dumbasses I work with.”

  Bingo. This is the first bit of luck I have had in forever. What are the odds that the easy, drunk woman in the bar happens to work in the room I need to get access to? It makes me wonder if the big guy upstairs is looking out for me because I’m on a major deadline to make this shit happen. “I’m sorry. You usually don’t see many female officers.” Her face is still hard with irritation as she looks at me. What I am about to say is turning my stomach. “I’ve definitely never seen one as sexy as you are.” I give her a cocky grin, playing the part. I feel horrible. I feel like I am betraying Jessie all over again.

  She smiles at me before flipping her hair and taking a sip of the panty-dropping drink she ordered. We all used to call those fruity drinks “panty droppers.” As soon as a girl has a couple, they will drop them for you with little hesitation. “Mmmm, you’re pretty damn sexy yourself.” Her fingers trail up my arm and I want to rip them off. It feels so wrong to have her hands on me, but right now it’s a necessity. “So what are you doing here? I would have remembered seeing you before.”

  “I’m visiting family. My brother told me about this bar.” Her head nods but I can tell she is losing control of her movements, she seems almost like a bobble head.

  “Maybe you’ll have to visit me instead of your brother tonight.” She bites her lip as she looks up at me through her eyelashes. I hate her forwardness. Whatever happened to a girl playing hard to get? It was one of the many things that turned me on about Jess. She resisted me at every turn.

  I force a smile at her. “Sounds like an offer that I can’t refuse.” She smiles at me and it turns my stomach. I buy her two more drinks hoping to make sure that her senses are dulled and she is not as alert as she may normally be. We make small talk, and I realize that another reason her fellow officers probably don’t respect her is that she acts like a slut and gets sloppy drunk.

  “I am gonna head to the bathroom, sexy.” I get up but after two steps turn back toward her. “Don’t you think of following me.” I wink at her before turning away then set a timer on my phone to go off in ten minutes.

  When I walk into the bathroom I stand at the sink and stare at myself in the reflection. You can do this. You have to do this. This is for Jessie. As I expected, the door opens and in walks my prey.

  “I can’t wait till we leave to have you.” Her hands press against my chest and she pushes me back into one of the few stalls. Once we are both inside she locks the door and then backs me against the side of the stall. “You look like a man who knows how to make a lady scream.”

  Her mouth crashes against mine. I want to throw up. Her lips are hard and rough and her mouth tastes disgusting, like stale cigarettes and booze. I want to push her off of me and tell her she repulses me. I definitely want to tell her there is no way in hell she could ever be classified as a lady. Her mouth detaches from mine and she moves to my neck slowly unbuttoning my shirt. In my opinion she is moving so slow because she is lacking ninety percent of her coordination.

  I have no idea what to do with my hands. I definitely don’t want to touch her but I need to keep up the act that I am attracted to her.

  “Why aren’t you touching me?” She annoyingly whines and slurs at the same time.

  I really want to tell her because she makes me sick, but I can’t. I take my one hand and move it down to her ass. I squeeze it while trying to maintain a face that doesn’t look like I’m about to puke. She goes back to “pleasuring” me, and I go back to pretending that I can stand her being this close to me.

  “Take off our pants baby. I can’t wait to suck your dick.”

  I swear to fucking God, I dry heave right then. When my phone goes off I let out an enormous sigh of relief. That was the longest ten minutes of my fucking life. I pull it out of my pocket, making sure to shield the screen from her.

  “Hello?” You would think she would let up a little at this point, but not this one. “Shit, really?” I pause, pretending to listen to whoever is on the other line. “Yeah, no problem. I’ll be right there.” I stick the phone back into my pocket. “Hey, I need to go. That was my brother and he is in trouble.”

  “Noooo, just fuck me first. It will be quick, I promise.” She starts to rip her shirt over her head.

  “I can’t, I’m sorry. I’ll call you when I’m done though.” I unlock the door and back out of the stall.

  “Okayyy, I’ll be waiting for you, sexy man.” She stumbles and falls against the wall of the stall.

  I walk out of the bathroom unbelievably happy to have space in between us. I swear if my alarm hadn’t gone off, I don’t think I would have made it another minute. I feel so damn guilty. I know I did this for her, and essentially I didn’t do anything wrong, but I still feel like shit.

  Chapter 11

  Jessie

  I don’t know how long I have been here, all of the seconds, minutes, hours are running together. I lay here staring at the ceiling praying that a miracle will happen and I will somehow make it out of this unscathed. The room is completely barren except for the dirty mattress that I refuse to lay on. God knows what or who has been on that thing. I have been alone for so long, but I would rather be alone than be with any of the monsters that have me.

  My mind drifts off to Damon, to the last time that I saw him. I turned him away rather than chance myself getting hurt by him once again. I can’t trust him, and I can’t just go back to the way we were. Maybe if we had had more time together, I could have taken the leap with him, but to leave everything behind and risk it again was something I couldn’t do. I know I didn’t try for long but I know in my heart that Damon Shaw and I were done the moment that he stepped into that interrogation room. Maybe that’s my problem with accepting him as Nicholas, I still think of him as Damon, my Damon. He isn’t though. I don’t know if Damon was ever mine. He was always someone who I had a completely separate life from me. I need to let Damon Shaw and every memory of him die. I can’t pretend anymore like something could work between us.

  The only wild card in all of this is Nicholas. Could I love him? Do I love him? Maybe if I let the memory of Damon die, I could move on with Nicholas. Damon is attached to all my pain, and if I want to disassociate Nicholas from that, I need to separate the two in my mind. Damon hurt me and lost my trust, but maybe there is a place for Nicholas to mend the broken pieces where we can start fresh. When I am near him, it’s like my heart is on speed. It beats so fast that it hurts. I can’t think straight when he is near me, and I can’t think of anything when he isn’t. I hold out hope that he never left like I told him to, that he is still here. Maybe he is fighting to get me back. I can see his face in my mind and I smile. If I get out of here I am going to try to let him in, a part of him is already there but my walls are keeping the rest out. I think it’s time to bring down the walls and stop fighting what my heart knows it wants. What it needs.

  One thing I have come to terms with throughout all of this is that time is precious. You can never recover a wasted minute, so you might as well make the most of every second. So many people push things off until tomorrow, but what happens when tomorrow never comes?

  The door creaks ope
n and I sit up to see who my visitor is. Randy. My stomach turns every time I see him. As he walks toward me with a tray of food he looks at me as if I’m his next meal. My skin crawls and I fight the bile threatening to spill out.

  “Even dirty, you still make my dick hard.” His tongue darts out licking his top lip. I look away, not able to stand the sight of him. His fingers grip my chin as he turns my face toward him “Do not be a disrespectful little bitch, I’m not afraid to put you in your fucking place.”

  I don’t say a word. I won’t give him the satisfaction of my response or my fear. Before I can shield myself, his free hand connects with my cheek, the force of the blow sending me flat onto the floor. The metallic taste of blood invades my mouth, and my head hurts from hitting the hard concrete.

  Randy forces me onto my back and leans down over me. “Next time I fucking speak to you, I will get a response. Do you understand me, whore?”

  I nod my head. His boot smashes into my ribs and I scream in agony. My entire side is on fire. It hurts when I breathe and I can’t take a full breath.

  “Now let’s try this again.” He is towering over me. “Next time I fucking speak to you, I will get a response. Do you understand me whore?”

  “Yes.” I barely manage to get the word out. It hurts so bad that I squeeze my eye shut and try to breathe through it. I hear footsteps and then the door slams shut. I can’t believe that fucking bastard did that. I seriously underestimated him, and now I’m scared that the longer I stay here the less chance I have of making it out alive.