Full Force Fatherhood

by Tyler Anne Snell

  “He found an error in judgment. One I made and refuse ever to pay for.” He massaged from the bridge to the top of his nose before opening his eyes again. “I’m afraid I’m not answering your questions to the best of my ability, am I? Well, too bad. It’s time for you to answer me some questions. For starters, who all have you talked to about your theories? How many people have you shown the journal to? I need to know exactly how many loose ends I need to tend to.”

  Kelli set her jaw. “If I tell you, will you let us go?” she asked.

  Hector laughed. “Let you go? Oh, no, we’re way past that,” he sneered. “I don’t like loose ends and you definitely need to be tied up.”

  Another series of shivers danced up Kelli’s spine.

  “Then why would I answer any of your questions?”

  “Simple.” He moved over to stand in front of her before bending down so his eyes were level with hers. “This—all of what’s about to happen to you—will be a demonstration of what I will do to your daughter if you don’t answer every single question to my satisfaction. Is that clear?”

  She had no time to answer—no time to let the words or anger or absolute, all-consuming fear to sink in—before a distant bang made all three of them look toward the door.

  “What the—” Hector was up and at the door in a flash. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, dialed a number and put it to his ear. Whoever picked up, it was fast. “What’s going on out there?” There was a man on the other end, but Kelli couldn’t make out what he was saying. She chanced a glance at Lynn. Her eyes were wide with fear. “Your incompetence is outstanding,” Hector practically yelled. “Take care of it. I’ll send you backup, but I’m leaving.” He ended the call with force. “It looks like no torture tonight,” Hector said, obviously upset.

  Another bang echoed in the distance.

  “Or at least, I won’t be the one to do it.”

  Without another word, Hector opened the door and left, closing it behind him.

  “Those were gunshots, Kel,” Lynn said. Her voice was low, terrified.

  “I know.”

  They waited for another shot to sound. It didn’t. After a moment, Lynn spoke again.

  “Again, remember Marcie Diggle’s fifteenth birthday party?” Surprised at the question, Kelli looked at her friend. Her eyebrow rose, but she nodded. “This isn’t as bad. Unless they—whoever ‘they’ are—suggest we play spin the bottle with Gordon Taylor again, we’ll be okay.” Lynn gave her a smile. It was small and weak, but it was a smile nonetheless. “Despite our current situation, all I can think about is that boy’s excess saliva. Yeah, this has nothing on that nightmare.”

  Kelli couldn’t help the laugh that escaped. It was also weak. The world had become horribly complicated in the past few days. “We’ve sure been through a lot.”

  Lynn nodded. “Whatever happens to us, Grace will be fine,” Lynn assured her.

  Kelli felt tears start to prick behind her eyes. She jerked her head to say she agreed. An image of the little girl smiling back at her filled her head.

  “I love you, Lynn,” Kelli choked out, her composure cracking.

  “I love you, too, Kel.” Lynn’s voice wavered.

  It hurt Kelli’s heart.

  “Now, let’s agree on something,” Kelli said, trying to tamp out the tears.

  “Okay.”

  Kelli cleared her throat. “We fight like hell when they come for us.”

  * * *

  MARK KICKED THE door clear off its hinges with the idea that practice makes perfect. Connie Cooper would not be happy on Monday.

  “We don’t have a gun,” he said to Dennis, walking away from the downed door. His leg was slightly sore, but the pain wasn’t anything alarming. He was happy to know he had done it without any issues—that he was strong enough to do it on his own. “And we don’t have another way out.”

  He moved back to the door that led to the hallway. No thundering footsteps, but Craig was still coming their way.

  “Do you know if the girls are up here?” Mark whispered.

  Dennis stood in the bathroom doorway, a hand towel pressed against his bullet wound. He was growing more and more pale.

  “Yes, but I don’t know which room.”

  That was all Mark needed. He unclenched his fist, still holding the phone from his call to Jonathan, and tossed it to Dennis.

  “Call the cops. Then call the contact named Jonathan Carmichael. Tell him everything you know,” he ordered. “Got it?”

  Dennis caught the phone with his free hand and nodded. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “I’m going to save Kelli.”

  There was no time to elaborate. The doorknob started to turn. Mark took up position.

  “Why don’t we get this over with M—” Craig started. Mark didn’t let him finish. Praying the man wouldn’t shoot, the bodyguard reared back. He kicked the door for all he was worth. Instead of coming off its hinges as easily as the last—his practice door—this one largely splintered. Mark pushed forward, using the top half of the door as a projectile aimed right at the gunman’s head. It caught Craig off guard, giving Mark enough time to kick the bottom half of the door out of the way. He launched forward and kept the top half against Craig, forcing him down to the ground.

  Mark rolled to the side once the dust settled, ready to fight the man for his life. But Craig wasn’t moving. Mark scanned the wreckage for the gun. He spotted it on the other side of Craig, inches from his open palm. The bodyguard didn’t waste time in grabbing it.

  Training his new weapon on the man at his feet, Mark kicked off the piece of the door. Craig had thrown his mask away already, confirming exactly who he was and how much damage he’d just taken. With a busted nose matching Dennis’s, he also had a busted eyebrow and cheek. Mark had hit him with a lot more force than he’d originally thought.

  Craig moved his head to both sides before opening his eyes. They looked enraged.

  “What? Going to shoot me, neighbor?” he seethed.

  Mark put his shoe on the man’s chest to keep him from jumping up. “Where are they?” Mark ground out.

  The downed man chuckled. “Even if I told you, would it matter? It’s not like I came alone.”

  Mark’s eyebrow rose, silently questioning him, when footsteps sounded in the corridor Craig had come from. Mark wasn’t going to catch a break.

  Two men popped around the corner, and Craig yelled what clearly was an order at them.

  “Kill Kelli Crane!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  When the men came for them, Kelli and Lynn were both on the floor, having tipped their chairs over toward each other in a fruitless attempt to escape.

  Now, staring up into the faces of two strangers in suits, Kelli understood that fighting wasn’t an option either woman had.

  “Watch the door,” said the man closest to Kelli. His partner nodded and went back outside. The first man pulled a gun from beneath his jacket and pointed it down at her. Grace is safe, Kelli thought, closing her eyes. Lynn started to yell at the man, tears in her throat.

  Bang! Bang!

  Kelli’s eyelids flew open. The man outside the door dropped, his upper body falling in the middle of the doorway. The man above Kelli redirected his aim.

  “Who’s out there?” he called.

  Like a savior descending from the sky, Mark Tranton answered.

  He ducked around the door frame and shot.

  The bullet hit the man’s arm, forcing him to drop his gun.

  “Move and I’ll shoot again,” Mark warned. But the man didn’t listen. He let out a guttural growl and charged the bodyguard. Mark had lied. Instead of shooting him again, he stepped back when the man was close enough and clocked him a good one upside the head.

&n
bsp; The man crumpled to the ground.

  “Kelli? Lynn? Are you okay?” he asked, rushing inside. He knelt by Kelli and began to work on the rope around her wrists.

  “We’re a thousand times better now that you’re here,” Kelli almost cried, relief coursing through her veins.

  “Man, do you know how to make an entrance,” Lynn added, just as clearly overjoyed at his timing.

  “It’s Hector Mendez, Mark,” Kelli said after he freed her hands. He set her right side up and then moved to Lynn while Kelli started to work on freeing her legs.

  “The publicist?”

  “Yes. He wouldn’t tell us why he’s doing this, but he definitely seems to be the mastermind.”

  Mark untied Lynn’s hands just as Kelli freed her legs. Her head was still swimming, but she managed to help Mark right Lynn and untie her legs.

  “A different man grabbed me, though,” Kelli said.

  Mark nodded, disgust showing in his face. “He’s my neighbor. I’ve already had a run-in with him.”

  “Does that mean we’re at the apartment complex?” Kelli realized she still didn’t know.

  With Lynn’s restraints off, the three stood.

  “No, we’re still at Bowman. On the third floor.”

  “What about Grace? Is she okay?” Kelli found all of her hope riding on the outcome of his answer. She wasn’t disappointed.

  “I talked to Jonathan. He said she’s safe with Nikki and the cops.” Kelli was enveloped by a hug from Lynn.

  “Thank God she’s okay,” Lynn cried.

  Mark reached out over her friend’s shoulder and took Kelli’s chin in his hand.

  “I agree.”

  Kelli felt her lips pull up into a small smile. Mark mimicked the sentiment before dropping his hand.

  “Now let’s get out of here.”

  They stepped over the two still men, following the bodyguard closely. Kelli knew that what she’d heard earlier were gunshots and she’d even seen Mark shoot the man in the room with them, but still she wouldn’t look at their bodies to confirm if they were dead or not. Knowing, she guessed, would welcome in even more panic at their situation.

  “Are we going to take the stairs?” Kelli whispered. She didn’t think they’d be able to get out of the building undetected if they took the stairs that split the building in half. There was no telling how many people wanted their silence. They needed to get out of Bowman and fast.

  “Yes, but the service stairs,” Mark said, picking up on her concern. “We need to make a quick pit stop first.”

  The two women didn’t question him.

  They hurried down the length of a small hallway, past offices and a lounge, until it turned right. Mark came to a stop before they rounded the corner. He motioned for them to stay back and pulled the gun up, ready.

  He peeked out.

  Kelli tensed in worry.

  “Son of a—”

  Lynn grabbed at Kelli’s hand while Kelli fisted the other. She hadn’t been ready for the man in black earlier, but now there was no question about how far these people would go. If Mark hadn’t come in when he did...

  She squared her shoulders.

  Now she was ready.

  * * *

  “HE’S GONE.”

  Kelli gave Mark a look split between confusion and fear. Lynn met his words with an equal amount of both. Seeing the two of them look up to him, count on his words and his protection, filled him with a determination so fierce that he doubted he’d need the gun to get them out of the building.

  “Who?” Kelli whispered. There was blood dried near her scalp. She’d been hit there hard.

  “Craig,” he answered, looking back down the empty hallway. “Stay behind me,” he reiterated. No one complained.

  Slowly, yet not too slowly because he had no idea how many people were working with Hector, the three crept down the hallway to the debris pile. Mark spotted blood on the carpet, but there was no way to tell where Craig had gone from there.

  “What happened to him?” Lynn asked, eyeing the splintered pieces of wood.

  “I threw the door at him.”

  “You threw the door at him?”

  Mark didn’t have time to explain further. He held his hand out to get the women to stop. Peering around the empty door frame, he looked into the office for the man in black.

  It was empty.

  “Dennis?” he called, still trying to keep his voice low.

  “Dennis?” Kelli asked, voice not low. It made Mark turn back to her.

  “He’s on our side.”

  Kelli’s eyebrows went sky-high. If Lynn hadn’t had one of her hands, he was sure she would have put them on her hips.

  “And how the hell do we know that?”

  Movement out of the corner of his eye pulled his attention back into the room. The closed bathroom door in the office opened. Dennis met his gaze and gave a weak smile.

  “Because Craig shot him.”

  Mark moved the party into the small room and took his phone back from the wounded man. Even though the bodyguard hadn’t been gone long, Dennis’s condition had undoubtedly worsened. Pale and covered in sweat, he kept his hand and the towel beneath it pressed firmly to his side.

  When he saw Kelli and Lynn, Mark saw relief wash over him.

  “I don’t understand any of this,” Kelli said to the room. Her expression had softened at Dennis’s obvious pain. But not by much.

  “We need to leave, now,” Dennis said, ignoring her and talking straight to Mark.

  “What we need are answers,” Kelli persisted. She detached from Lynn and walked around Mark. Her anger—her frustration—was running over. Shoulders straight, jaw set, eyes unblinking. Mark wanted answers. Kelli needed them.

  Now.

  Dennis let out a long, shuddering breath. It made him wince. He refocused on the woman in front of him.

  “In short, Hector Mendez has been using the foundation as a cover for drug running. Even shorter—half of the organization is in on it, which means that half of this building probably wants to kill us.” He turned to Mark. “Which, again, is why we need to leave. Right. Now.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence. One that Mark was guilty of partaking in. The Bowman Foundation was a cover for drug running? Who was privy to that knowledge? Who was working for Hector?

  The situation, although already on the bad side of the scale, seemed much more dire.

  Mark grabbed Kelli’s hand.

  “Did you do what I said?” he asked Dennis.

  “Yes. I called the cops as well as that Jonathan guy. I told him the short truth but then had to hang up.” He looked past them to the door debris. “I heard him moving.” Dennis looked apologetic. “I didn’t want to get shot again.”

  Lynn, who had fallen back to the door, let out a weird squeak.

  “Guys, hear that?” she asked, eyes wide.

  Mark listened.

  The footsteps were heavy and loud. At least two men were running down the hallway they’d just come from. No doubt thanks to Craig.

  “Someone’s coming,” he said. “We need to get out of this damn building!” Mark pictured waves and waves of men with guns spreading through the building like a virus, trying to find the four of them. At best he had three bullets left. Even if they decided to hide until the cops came, there wasn’t any insurance that they would be safe. They were in Hector’s territory, not his.

  “The only way out is down the service stairs,” Dennis pointed out.

  Mark nodded. He didn’t want to have a standoff now and waste bullets that he might need later. Plus, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to recreate his Hulk smash through the door. “Let’s go!”

  Mark ran into the stairwell through the still
open door. Quickly scanning the concrete steps and listening, he deemed them a much better option than where they currently were. He motioned to his flock to move inside the stairwell and start descending. Kelli and Lynn were fast. Surprisingly, Dennis wasn’t too bad, either.

  Mark shut the door and reestablished himself as the leader.

  He needed to be on point if he wanted to protect them.

  To protect Kelli.

  They managed to clatter all the way past the second-floor door when the third opened with a bang.

  “Stop,” a deep voice bellowed above them. The space between the stairs was wide enough that Mark could see two faces—two new faces—peering over the railing. He could also see a gun pointed down.

  “Go, go, go,” Mark yelled.

  Loud cursing from above filled the air as their small group was steps away from the door to the first floor. Mark reached out, ready to open it, when a bullet hit the concrete a step away from him. He recoiled and redirected his feet down the rest of the stairs to the last landing, out of view of their pursuers. The door was labeled Basement, Employees Only.

  Mark flung the door open and ushered Kelli, Lynn and Dennis inside.

  The basement—a floor he hadn’t thought existed—was the complete opposite of the building that stood above. It was cold concrete with dim lighting. Mark bet that not many of the Bowman Foundation employees ventured to this uninviting place. Also unlike the rest of the building, this floor didn’t seem to have long parallel hallways. Instead, everything was disjointed—more doors than seemed necessary chopped up every walkway.

  Mark went to the left and started to navigate through the layout until he was comfortable there were enough doors between them and their hunters to talk.

  “I don’t think the elevators reach this level, so I’d have to hope there’s a second set of service stairs,” he said, slowing to look around another turn before making it. “We reach it, get to the lobby and get the hell out of here.”

  Mark glanced back at his motley crew. All three were out of breath, but Dennis was panting. Bent over slightly, he put his hand against the wall when they paused.

  Kelli didn’t miss Mark’s summarizing look.