Tragedy and Desire: An Adult Romance

by Locker, Nicole R.

  “Sure. Just a moment,” she said, and then more music.

  Several minutes passed before Jax came on the line.

  “This is Jax,” he answered brusquely.

  JAX

  “I believe I have something in my possession of value to you, Mr. Maddox. I’m curious to know how much you’re willing to pay to get her back,” Richard Sullivan’s voice taunted.

  I froze, looking up at Holden.

  “Who is this?” I asked in a controlled voice.

  “No need for introductions just yet. If you want your girlfriend back in one piece, you’ll do exactly as I say.”

  I paused, hoping the longer I had him on the line, the better the chance was to get a trace on the call. “Name your price,” I said, all business.

  “Twenty million dollars. I want it wired to an offshore account by four this afternoon, or I cut the string on your Pearl necklace.”

  Fear and anger flared at the implied threat, and I had to contain the impulse to yell violent obscenities at the piece of shit on the other end of the line.

  “What are the routing and account numbers?” I forced through gritted teeth. I looked back up to Holden who was shaking his head to indicate he wasn’t getting a trace. Fucking burner phone. That wouldn’t stop us from getting a ping from the number on the nearest cell towers, which gave me the slightest resemblance of hope. I gave Holden the number the call was coming in from.

  “I’m a businessman, sir.” I wasn’t about to let on that I knew who he was. I needed him to believe he still had the cloak of anonymity. “Surely you know I don’t make deals without a certain amount of negotiation. I’ll wire the money, but you won’t see a penny of it until I have Perla, safe and unharmed.”

  Sullivan clicked his tongue in reprimand. “I thought you were smarter than that, Maddox. Four o’clock,” he said, and the line went dead.

  Damn it!

  “What do we have?” I asked Holden as I walked around to see the computer he was working from.

  Holden pulled up a map, showing three towers that were pinging from the call. “This isn’t even in the same vicinity as the property in Corsicana… We could be moving in the wrong direction, but my instinct tells me he’s trying to throw us off his trail.”

  “What did he say?” asked Amelie, as she and Lisette walked toward us from where they had been standing by the door.

  “He wants twenty-million dollars wired to an off-shore account by four o’clock,” I answered.

  Both girls gasped, and I wasn’t sure if it was their shock at the amount or the fact that our situation had just gone from bad to worse. Neither spoke, but I watched as they looked between each other, sharing fearful glances, before I turned my attention back to Holden.

  “Do we involve the police?” I asked.

  Holden shook his head. “If we do, we run the risk of Sullivan being tipped off by police scanners if he’s listening in on them.”

  “So we think he’s taking her to the hunting property?” I asked. “I say we tip off Deputy Mitchell to the area we captured from the phone towers while we head toward the property in Corsicana.”

  Holden nodded. “Let’s go.”

  “Ladies, thanks for the tip. We’ll let you know something as soon as we can,” I told them, and then Holden and I were off.

  In the car, I decided to call Deputy Mitchell using the number from the card he had left with me before he left earlier. I got his voice mail.

  “Mitchell, it’s Jax. Holden sent you a location we pinpointed using cell towers from an incoming call I just received. Holden and I are on our way to check out a property that the Sullivans own. We’ll let you know if we see anything.” I left the message and hung up.

  EIGHTEEN

  The Truth Will Out

  GRAYSON

  When I got to the station, I pulled up what I could find on Richard Sullivan. His criminal record was clear, so that was no help. Phone records didn’t indicate anything suspicious. Credit card history showed nothing that stood out at the moment. When I skimmed the property records and noticed the hunting property the Sullivans owned in Navarro County, I had a hunch that was where he was taking her.

  Navarro County was out of my jurisdiction as a sheriff’s deputy, but my shift was ending in ten minutes, so I went ahead and booked it out the door. I wasn’t going to give Jax Maddox or the others the new information. I didn’t want them getting in my way, but most of all, I wanted to be the one to come to Perla’s rescue. If it was me instead of her fresh-faced, billionaire boyfriend who showed up to save her, maybe she would drop all this nonsense and come back to me.

  As I pulled out onto I-45 heading South, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, so I hit the ignore button, sending the call to voicemail, and tossed my phone in the console as I stepped on the gas, making my way toward Corsicana.

  It took me less than an hour to get there, and when I found the property, I parked my truck out of sight so I wouldn’t give away that I was here. I creeped toward a shed I saw located toward the back of the grounds that lay hidden amongst a grove of trees and brush. As I approached, I heard another vehicle coming up on my six, so I crouched down and watched as a black Tahoe drove up and parked next to the shed.

  I watched silently from my hiding place as the man I now knew to be Richard Sullivan exited the driver’s side and walked around the back of the Tahoe. He opened the rear-passenger door, leaned in, and pulled an unconscious Perla out, picking her up, and then carrying her inside.

  Once the door was closed behind them, I decided to go ahead and call for back-up since I had confirmed he was, in fact, here with her. I put a call in to the local county sheriff’s department and notified the dispatcher of the location of a missing person being held hostage. Being this far out in the country, I knew it would take them some time to arrive, but I wasn’t about to wait on them.

  I raised from my crouch and moved to get a closer look at the shed, which was a good distance away from where I had been hiding. I heard the door opening, so I immediately fell to the ground to take cover amongst the tall weeds.

  PERLA

  I awoke in a panic and found myself somehow bound to a wooden chair. My head throbbed in pain, but I was unable to bring a hand up to touch the spot that ached.

  Looking around the room, I searched for any sign that I wasn’t alone. My heart felt like it might punch right through the wall of my chest.

  Silence.

  My eyes scanned the dark room. Not even a room, it looked more like a shed of some sort, with a cement floor. A small amount of light escaped through a singular, dirt-covered window over which some threadbare, camouflaged curtains hung. I could barely make out trees and forest beyond the window. Wherever I was, it definitely wasn’t Dallas.

  Most concerning of all was what covered the walls and was stored on every surface. There were rifles of various shapes and sizes, metal animal traps, knives, axes, and even a crossbow. There were deer antlers laying here and there, and two deer heads mounted on the walls that seemed to look down on me in mockery, like I were next. I was obviously in some type of hunting shed.

  I tried not to think of any of the weapons being used on me, or being laid out and gutted like a deer at the hands of Richard Sullivan, but dear heavens, what did I think he was going to do with me?

  I didn’t even know where I was, or how long I’d be out. The chances of anyone finding me and somehow getting me out of this mess were basically zero. I wondered if anyone had even noticed I was gone.

  Maybe Vandergild, Amelie, and Lisette would wonder why I hadn’t shown up for work on the first day of our trial. Maybe.

  But funny enough, as excited as I had been about it, the trial didn’t seem important anymore as I now stared certain death in the face. No, it wasn’t work at all that weighed heavy on my heart in what I knew to be my final moments.

  It was Jada, my beautiful, happy, eternally optimistic sister and her unwavering zeal for life. It was Uncle Dante, the rock of our fami
ly, his laughter, his drive that had gotten us through so many hard times.

  And damn it if wasn’t Jax Maddox. His strength, his persistence, his take-charge attitude, and the way he always kissed me like it was the best kiss he’d ever shared. It was the way he could take control of a situation to take care of me. He had no idea how much I needed that. It was the way he held me like his arms were the safest place in the world. What I wouldn’t give to feel his arms around me one more time.

  It was almost funny now, thinking of all the reasons I had pushed him away, especially realizing now that it hadn’t been my parents’ money that had gotten them murdered.

  I’d always heard people say that the biggest regrets in life are not the mistakes we make, but the chances we don’t take. Sitting here now, tied to a chair in a dark room, God only knew where, surrounded by a hundred different things that could potentially be the tool that ended my life, I regretted not giving Jax a chance. Because, let’s face it, I never really gave him a chance.

  But if I could go back and do it all again, I would. Sure, there was always the possibility that love could be a mistake, but I finally realized now that it was a mistake worth making.

  My head hung down to my chest, and I cried a soul-wrenching cry that I have only cried one other time in my life. The cry that mourned the loss of something – no, someone – that I loved with all the depths of my soul.

  When I heard a movement coming from the door, I wasn’t even fazed. I didn’t fear, didn’t care anymore, as though I had somehow become resigned to my fate. This was it. All I could hope for now was for the people I loved the most to know how much they meant to me.

  Jada would know. Uncle Dante would know. Jax, well… I guessed two out of three wasn’t bad.

  Suddenly, the door crashed open as though someone had kicked it with a wrecking force. The dust stirred as the sunlight poured through the now opened doorway, and I squinted as I watched the shape of a man walk through.

  “Grayson?” I croaked in surprise.

  “Perla, you’re okay!” he called out as he rushed over to me.

  “How did you find me? Where is Richard Sullivan?” I asked, fearing we were now both in danger, though it was a small relief that Grayson had shown up in uniform with his gun holstered at his side. He was trained for these types of situations, after all, but the fear was hard to shake.

  “I saw him drive off a few minutes ago, but he could come back at any time. We’ve got to get you out of here,” he answered.

  He grabbed a hunting knife from a nearby cabinet top and released my hands from where they had been zip-tied to the chair behind my back.

  “How did you find me?” I asked him, wondering how he, of all people, even knew I was missing, much less where I was.

  “I’ll explain once we get out of here. Are you okay to walk?” he said in a rush.

  “Yes, I’m okay. It’s just my head that hurts. I can walk.” Or run, as the case may be, I thought to myself.

  But just as we turned toward the door, a shadow moved across the light of the doorway, and Richard Sullivan stood like an ominous barrier, blocking our escape.

  “Well, well, well. What have we here?” Sullivan said in a saccharine voice.

  JAX

  Holden pulled up to the edge of the property and we rushed out of the vehicle to make our way up to where we could see a shed peeking from behind the trees.

  As we approached, we could see Richard Sullivan getting out of his Tahoe, wearing the same hooded shirt, ball-cap, and sunglasses he’d been wearing in the surveillance video we’d seen earlier.

  We found her! She had to be here, I could feel it in my gut. I could only hope we weren’t too late, and if he’d harmed a hair on her head, there would be more hell to pay than he already had coming.

  Once we got up to the shed, Holden motioned for me to follow him around the side where we could see through a window to survey what we might be walking in on before we barged our way inside. We peered through the window, and it was hard to see anything in the dim lighting inside, but we could make out not two, but three figures.

  Grayson, that bastard, had figured it out and made it here before we did. I wouldn’t have minded, had it not been for the handgun he had pointed at Richard Sullivan, and the one Sullivan had pointed at Perla. Without another thought, I bolted for the door to get to Perla. I’d be damned if I got this far, only to be too late.

  PERLA

  When Sullivan entered the shed and found Grayson there unexpectedly, as well as me having escaped my binding, he drew out a pistol and aimed it at me once again. Grayson immediately drew his pistol and aimed it at Sullivan.

  “Put the gun down or she’s dead,” Sullivan yelled, looking at Grayson, his aim unwavering.

  “The show is over, Sullivan. Drop the gun and everybody walks out of here alive,” Grayson responded in a slow, calm voice.

  “Please,” I begged, though I didn’t really know what I was asking. For Sullivan to drop his gun? For Grayson to shoot the bastard? For this all to be just a seriously disturbing nightmare?

  “I swear to God, I’ll shoot her,” Sullivan yelled. Sweat beaded on his forehead, but he made no move to wipe it off. His gun stayed focused, but shaky, in his grasp.

  I glanced between Sullivan and Grayson. I observed as Grayson’s hand tightened around his gun, and I wondered who would be a quicker shot, him or Sullivan. This was it.

  That was the moment time stood still and sped up all at once. I stood, frozen, as I heard the angelic voice of Jax, crying out my name.

  “Perla, NO!” he cried, as he tackled Sullivan from behind. They both fell to the cement floor, and Sullivan struggled free of his grasp, grabbing for his gun that had fallen a few feet from him across the floor. Both men stood, and Jax charged for Sullivan once again.

  Had Sullivan had time to grab his gun? I couldn’t see. I didn’t know what was happening before…

  The sound of a gun fired.

  Everything went silent.

  Everything went still.

  Lightheaded, I fell to my knees.

  “No!” I screamed. Who was shot? Who was shot? Who was shot?

  NINETEEN

  The Aftermath

  JAX

  The shot was fired, and everything went still. Sullivan was no longer fighting me, and my eyes caught on Perla, the horrified expression on her face. That was when she fell to her knees.

  “No!” she screamed.

  Was she shot? Did he shoot her?

  I ran to her, crouching down to her and grabbing her by the shoulders.

  “Perla? Tell me you’re okay. Tell me you’re not hurt,” I yelled, cupping her face, trying to draw her empty stare back to me.

  Behind me, I heard Sullivan drop to the floor. I turned to look. He clutched his chest, and as he pulled his hands away from the dark fabric of his shirt, they were covered in blood.

  I looked back at the doorway and saw Holden still holding the gun he had just fired. I was more than lucky he was a damn good shot. Officer Mitchell wouldn’t have taken that shot with me that close, but I knew good and well Holden was confident enough to take it, and he had.

  Holden rushed forward and kicked the gun away from Sullivan’s reach as my attention turned back to the beautiful woman whose face I still held in my hands.

  “It was Sullivan,” she whispered, barely audible, as her eyes finally met mine.

  “You’re okay now. You’re okay.” I let go of her face and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close to me.

  PERLA

  I thought I would never feel those arms around me again. I held him close to me, clinging to him for dear life, sobbing into him and shaking as the shock of the whole situation finally set in.

  I pulled back to look into his beautiful face once more, and I kissed him with violent surrender, thankful he was here, thankful we were safe and alive. I didn’t care that Grayson was still standing in the room, watching. I had spent too much time pushing Jax away, and now that I
had a second chance, I wasn’t going to let him go for anyone. I wasn’t going to let another moment go by without him knowing how I truly felt about him.

  Jax’s hands brushed tenderly through my hair as he returned my kiss, meeting my passion, and I could almost forget we weren’t alone in the room, alone in the world.

  When the kiss broke, he stood and helped me up off the floor. He turned to Holden and thanked him, then thanked Grayson as well.

  “Don’t mention it,” Grayson replied, then excused himself to report what had happened to the local authorities.

  We all left the shed, leaving the body of Richard Sullivan bleeding out on the cement. Holden pulled his car up, as did Grayson, and when the police arrived, we all gave our statements.

  After what seemed like hours, the police were starting to thin out, the coroner’s office had hauled away Richard Sullivan, and Grayson came over to where Jax and I were sitting in the back seat of Jax’s SUV.

  “Perla, do you mind if I talk to you?” he asked.

  I looked over at Jax. “Do you mind if I have a minute?” I asked him.

  Jax nodded and got out of the vehicle, walking over to where Holden stood, still talking to one of the officers on the scene.

  Grayson stood by my open car door and looked down at his feet before taking in a deep breath and letting it out. Then he looked up at me as he spoke.

  “Look, I hate myself for what I did to end our relationship. You were the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he began.

  “Grayson,” I shook my head, afraid of where he was going with this.

  “I get it. I know I ruined everything, and for a long time I thought maybe I could somehow win you back. But I see now that you’ve moved on, and that Jax is a good guy who really cares about you,” he continued.