by T L Swan
Sugar momma.
We stand for a moment and watch. “Thirty-two,” she asserts and claps her hands together in excitement as it spins. The ball goes around and around, and I hold my breath as we wait for it to land. The ball bounces a few times and then finally lands on number eleven. The table all laugh and sigh and she snaps her fingers in disappointment. “Again.” She smiles to the dealer.
My eyes drop to the pile of betting chips in front of her and I count. Twenty. Holy shit. She is betting with two hundred thousand dollars.
What is wrong with these people?
I am brought back to the present as Stace squeezes my hand, and I drop my head and smile bashfully. I wonder what my facial expression just revealed to everyone surrounding us. This is so far from the life I had, some days I couldn’t even afford credit on my phone and would have to wait until payday to top it up. She goes again and Stace puts two chips on the table amongst the others. Oh crap, now I have to do it. Stace wraps his arm around me and smiles as he kisses my temple from behind. He knows damn well that I’m disgusted at this money wastage.
Stace points over to the corner with his chin and pretends to kiss my ear.
“There he is,” he whispers.
I glance over to the lounges in the corner and see a man who is sitting with a woman. I try to hide my smile, but I can’t. He is just as I imagined. Red hair and geeky, but dressed in cool rap clothes that don’t suit him at all.
“Back in a sec,” Stace whispers in my ear with a kiss to my cheek.
I nod, distracted by sugar momma and her boy scout who just had a huge tongue kiss in front of everyone when she won.
Ew, God, some people are such show ponies.
I watch Stace approach the man across the club. He shakes his hand and they begin talking. My concentration goes back to the table and I watch as sugar momma loses a cool fifty grand. Another man seems to be cleaning up, though.
A waiter approaches and she smiles as she takes the champagne from his tray. “I’m out.” She smiles in her toffee accent.
The dealer nods to me.
Huh, me? Oh crap. “Okay.” I smile as I pretend to know what the hell I’m doing. Umm. I nervously look around at the numbers. What the heck number should I pick?
“Umm.”
The table all wait for my answer. Oh shit.
“Ten, please,” I announce.
My heart starts to race and I watch the wheel spin around and around until, unbelievably, it lands on ten.
“You win.” The dealer smiles.
Really?
I jump up and down in excitement and clap my hands like a child. “Again.” I laugh. I put my chip on number eight.
The dealers have to do a shift change, and as we wait, Stace comes up and wraps his arm around me as I sit on the stool. “Hope you have your vows written?” he whispers in my ear.
My eyes flicker up to him over my shoulder.
He smiles sexily. “Let’s find that chapel, Mrs. Mac. I don’t think I want to wait for another day.”
My eyes search his and he grins and shrugs.
“Won’t hurt to have two weddings, I suppose.”
“Oh my God.” My anxious eyes flicker back to the dealer as a stupid smile covers my face. Hurry up woman! Is he serious? She spins the wheel, but my mind is far from stupid Roulette. It goes around and around for forever as we wait and then bounces onto twenty.
“I’m sorry.” The dealer smiles. “Again?” she asks the table.
“No, thanks,” I reply. I couldn’t care less about this stupid game.
I’m getting married. Tonight!
Stace takes me by the hand and we walk straight out of the high rollers room without looking back. “What happened?” I whisper.
“We have to be at his office first thing in the morning. He can have them done by 2pm. He was actually a decent guy.”
My eyes widen as we get into the elevator. “Oh my God, that’s fantastic,” I whisper excitedly.
He kisses me and his lips hover over mine. “This time tomorrow night, we’ll be on our way out of here.”
I smile against his lips, knowing things are going work out.
“Are you sure you want to get married now?” I ask as he wraps his large arms around me.
“Uh-huh.” He smiles as my hand wraps around his shoulders.
“Why tonight?” I ask. “What’s different?”
“Because who knows what tomorrow holds,” he whispers. “Live in the moment, remember? Sometimes I forget to.”
He smiles down on me and, at this moment, I know he wants this as much as I do. “We have to go back and get our passports from the room. We need three pieces of identification.”
“Okay.” The elevator enters onto the main floor and we walk through the area and then catch another elevator up to our room. Stace has my pinned to the wall with his pelvis and my arms held over my head.
“Stop it.” I giggle. “I don’t want you to have a raging hard on in my wedding photos.”
“Why not? It’s a promise of what’s to come.” He smirks.
We walk down the corridor and see a commotion way up ahead in the hallway with a few men coming in and out of a room. Stace’s face drops.
“What?” I frown.
“That’s our room.”
“Huh?”
I glance up and see the door just open, and one of Stace’s shoes holding the door open.
“Who is in our room?” I whisper.
A man appears in a dark suit distracted as he talks to another man and they stop in the doorway for a moment to discuss something. They seem to be talking to someone else in the room.
Oh my God, they’ve found us.
Stace turns us and we start to speed walk down the corridor in the opposite direction.
“Hey, you!” a man calls. “Stop right there!”
23
“Don’t run, keep walking,” Stace replies calmly. “Just keep walking.”
My heart is hammering in my chest as we quickly walk down the corridor.
“Don’t look back.” He growls.
Thankfully, the corridor turns a corner, and for a moment we are shielded. I’m not sure if they are coming after us, but damn, we are doing a bloody good job of acting like we don’t have a care in the world. We start to run.
We pass by a cleaning cart parked in the hallway. The maid is in the adjacent room with the door propped open and a lanyard with a card key is hanging from the top of her tea and coffee tray. Stace casually picks it off and we continue up the corridor a bit and he swipes the key and the door unlocks. We scramble inside and he closes the door quietly. He immediately looks through the security peephole.
“Fuck, that was close?” he whispers.
I stand still for a moment, in shock. “Stace. They… they are in our room and they have our things,” I stammer. I put my hands on top of my head as I try to grasp the situation.
He continues to look through the hole. “It’s definitely them,” he whispers and he moves back from the hole to let me see. I stand on my tiptoes and peer through the small glass hole and see the three men walking down the hall looking for us.
“It’s one of the men from Bogota that was outside the bank,” Stace whispers.
“Shit.” I look around the room and, thankfully, it doesn’t appear to have anyone staying here. The room smells of cleaning fluid and has obviously just been turned over by the maids.
“What are we going to do?” I whisper. “All of our money, our clothes.” My eyes widen. “Our fucking passports are in that room.”
“Where are the diamonds?” he asks.
“I unscrewed the light fitting in the room and hid them in there. Nobody should find them.”
“We get new passports tomorrow and you still have four chips, right?”
“Yes.” I scramble through my bag and retrieve the four chips and hold them up to him.
I start to pace as Stace continues to stare through the peephole. My heart is hammering. �
��What if someone checks into the room?”
“Then we’re fucked,” he snaps.
“Holy shit.” I drop my head into my hands.
“How did they find us?”
“Vernon.”
I shake my head. “Fucking Vernon.” I continue pacing with my fingers on my temples. “I fucking hate that guy. I knew I hated that guy.”
* * *
For the next hour, Stace watches through the peephole as the men walk up and down the corridor looking for us.
I’m nearly in a fetal position on the bed.
“They’re not leaving, in fact, more and more are arriving. They are all waiting in and around the room for us to return.”
A heavy sense of dread hangs over me. Like mice, we are trapped. “Stace, what are we going to do?” I whisper in despair.
His eyes hold mine for a moment and I know he feels as desperate as I do. “Just turn the television on and try to rest for a bit while I think of something.” He walks over and brushes my hair back from my face. “Just try and rest, baby.” He gently kisses my lips. “It will be okay. Try not to worry.”
With a deep exhale, I go to the mini bar and take out a can of Coke and a chocolate bar. I need to try and fill my stomach. I feel sick I’m so hungry. This is supposed to be my wedding night, but no… my prick of a father had to ruin that, too. I lie back on the bed and try to calm myself down as I flick through the channels. Suddenly, a face I know all too well comes across the screen with the headline.
Breaking News:
My mouth drops open. Oh my God. “Stace,” I whisper with wide unbelieving eyes. “You might want to come and watch this, honey.”
He turns from his pacing and walks into the bedroom, his face falls as I turn up the television.
Breaking news in the Roshelle Myers kidnapping case.
Key suspect Joel McIntyre has been sighted in security footage from Las Vegas airport on Tuesday night where he landed on a plane from Columbia. He was travelling with a female passenger who is believed to be Roshelle Myers. She may have been under the influence of drugs and grave concerns are held for her safety.
Joel, who goes under the alias Mac, kidnapped Roshelle at gun point in the middle of the night 31 days ago from a nightclub parking lot. The ground search for her body has been extensive.
It is believed he is on the Las Vegas strip and police are combing the area. If seen, do not approach the suspect. He is armed and extremely dangerous. Please call 911 immediately for police assistance if sighted.
The newsflash ends but we both still staring at the screen, bewildered by what we have just watched. My mouth hangs open and my eyes flicker to him. His face is solemn with no expression.
I shake my head. “Stace,” I whisper. “How did they know about the kidnapping?” I shake my head. “They’ve been looking for me this whole time?”
He storms past me into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him and I put my head into my hands.
This is a nightmare that just keeps on giving out nightmares.
* * *
It’s 3am, and Stace and I lay facing each other on the bed. We can both sense the end is near. The corridor outside the room is buzzing with Vikinos’s men, there is no air-conditioning vent large enough for us to get out of. There is no exit from this Hell. The men are guarding the lift doors, probably on every level as they wait for us to arrive back to the room. If we do get out, we have no money and we can’t even cash our chips in because the police are probably combing the casino floor. They would have watched the CCTV footage by now. They know we have chips that need to be cashed.
Stace brings his hand up, cups my face, and kisses me tenderly. My eyes fill with tears. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry you got caught up in this.”
He holds me close to his chest. “I was already in it. It’s me who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you back here.”
“Some wedding night, hey?” I smile sadly.
His face falls and I know what he’s thinking. I shake my head. “Don’t think that.”
“Shh.” He tries to calm me.
“We will get married,” I whisper. “Promise me, we will get married.”
“Rosh.” He pauses and the emotion in his eyes breaks my heart.
“No,” I whisper.
“I need to hand you into the police, babe.”
The tears break the dam and run down my face toward the pillow. “No.”
“You will be safe with them.”
“And you will be dead. If you go to prison, you will be killed immediately. We both know how many men are on his payroll.”
“I can’t protect you,” he whispers.
“And who will protect you?” I cry. “I will not leave you out here where they will kill you.”
“But you will be safe. That’s all I care about.”
I put my head into his chest as the lump blocks my throat. “There’s another way, Stace. We just have to think of it. Stop thinking like this.” I kiss him softly through my tears and he holds me tight.
“Rosh.” He shakes me awake. I squint as I try to focus, and I glance at the clock. It’s 5am. “The coast is clear. I’m going to go and see what’s going on.”
I sit up. “No. What?” I try to make my brain wake up.
“I will be back soon.”
I frown. “Where are you going?”
“I just want to go and see where the fire stair exits are so we can get out of here. I will be back, but you need to stay here.”
I grab his arm. “No.” I shake my head frantically. “I’m not staying here without you.”
He grabs my face in his two hands. “Listen to me. Let me go and see if I can find an exit. We are more of a target together.” He kisses me as he holds my face in his two hands. “I love you.”
I watch him through tear filled eyes. “I love you, too,” I whisper.
“If I don’t come back, stay in the room and call the police.”
I screw up my face in tears. “No, Stace, don’t go.” I try to grab hold of his arm to make him stay where he is safe, but with one last long look he disappears from my sight. I hear the latch on the door quietly click shut.
He’s gone.
* * *
Stace
I glance down the hallway toward our original room. Silence. The men are still down there. I just went and checked as Rosh slept. Waiting men are at the elevators and the bottom of the fire stair exit. Only one door opens on a fire door exit. The ground floor, and they know that… everybody knows that. I’m under no illusion that the ground floor won’t be crawling. There is no getting out of here undetected.
After thinking on this all night, I know more than ever I need to ensure her safety.
That’s all I care about now.
Unfortunately, there is only one way to do that. I creep along the hallway until I get to the fire stairs, and I know if I go in I will probably never see my Rosh again. They will put her back into witness protection, and if I am able to fight my way out of this mess with Vikinos’s men, I will be a wanted man from the police. I won’t be able to find her. My chest constricts at the thought of never holding her in my arms, of never touching her again. His men will be waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.
But she will be safe.
I slowly open the door and walk in and shut it behind me. It clicks with a cold heartbreaking click.
I retrieve my phone from my pocket and dial 911.
“Police, Fire, or Ambulance,” the receptionist answers.
“Police.”
“Putting you through.”
“Hello, Police,” the policeman on the other end answers.
I frown and pinch the bridge of my nose. We were getting married tonight. Emotion overcomes me and my throat constricts. I take a deep breath and force the words from my mouth on autopilot. “This is Joel McIntyre. I kidnapped Roshelle Myers from Carpenter parking lot at gunpoint and held her captive for thirty-one days. She is in room 3590 of the Vene
tian in Las Vegas.”
“Are you armed?” the policeman asks.
“No, I’m no longer with her.”
“Is she alive?”
“Barely. She needs medical attention. You should hurry.” I hang up and shakily sit down on the steps underneath me as I am overcome with emotion.
Thanks, babe.
That was the best month of my life.
* * *
Roshelle
I lie in the silent darkness and stare at the ceiling. My mind is ticking and I have sick feeling in my gut. Stace has gone looking for an exit, but something else is bothering me.
His mother.
She hasn’t called and yet his face has been plastered all over every news station.
Why hasn’t she called?
Stop thinking the worst, I chastise myself. I close my eyes as I try to block out the vision of my own beloved mother dying.
Stop it, just stop thinking about it.
I get out of bed, make myself cup of tea, and walk over to the window to peer through the crack in the curtain. The sun is rising. A new day. A new opportunity.
How did my life come to this?
What did I ever do in my last life that was so bad that it warranted this kind of torture?
Stace. My beautiful Stace. My face screws up in pain as I walk to the door and look through the peephole. Do they have him now?
Please, no. Please, God, protect him. Please, please, please.
I begin to pace back and forth in the fading darkness.
Why hasn’t she called?
For ten minutes, I pace, so filled with fear for my love that I can hardly stand up.
Crippled at the thought of what they might do if they catch him.
It’s me they want.
Stace, where are you?
I begin to go over the times when Stace’s mom has called. She calls him every few days. If he was on national television as a wanted man, she would call him. I know she would.
But then… I frown. I don’t even know what’s going on anymore. Am I imagining this? Maybe it just seems magnified because I am here in the middle of it, and what if she just hasn’t seen the damn news?
