by Zoey Parker
Our conversation stalled. I didn’t feel threatened by the biker. Annoyed maybe, because I was tied to a damn chair when I should have been on my way to Elissa’s so I could crash with her while I figured my life out, but whatever. We were both on the run from my father, so even though I was supposed to be his victim, we were sort of in the same boat.
And I got the feeling neither one of us really wanted to be in that boat, much less together.
“I’ll take that ibuprofen and water now, if the offer still stands,” I said after a moment. My neck and head were hurting so much I was starting to feel sick.
“Of course. Give me just a second though.” He walked into the kitchen and came back with one of those straws that bends near the top to make it easier to use.
I wanted to laugh, but I wasn’t sure how stable he was. After all, he had just kidnapped his boss’s daughter and was being incredibly polite to her in a cabin, probably in the middle of nowhere.
I was just waiting to hear the dueling banjos. Any minute now.
“I figure this will make it easier,” he said, putting the straw in the water. “Pills or water first?”
“Pills,” I said, stifling my amusement.
The water was nice and cool. I made him hold it until I drank the whole glass. It wasn’t much, but I felt like it was an awfully nice gesture.
“Now, this isn’t going to kill me, is it?” I asked, joking with him.
“I’ll let you know in a minute,” he said with a wink.
“You asshole,” I said, laughing.
He set the glass down and sat on the couch. “So, why’d you quit?” he asked.
“This can’t be happening,” I blurted out.
“Why not?”
“You’re supposed to be kidnapping me and holding me for ransom, not sitting here on the couch in front of your fireplace holding a perfectly normal conversation with me,” I explained. “It’s not right. It’s not the natural order of things, Mickey.”
“Well, it’s not an entirely normal conversation,” he reminded me. “You’re still tied to the chair, and I’m still going to present your father with the ransom notice demanding that he pay to have you safely returned. I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do if he doesn’t pay the ransom. I mean, I can’t keep you around forever, can I?”
I was dumbfounded. I blinked at him for several moments. Surely, he wasn’t serious about what he was telling me. Surely, he was going to give up when he realized just how futile his attempt at holding me for ransom was. I didn’t know what else to tell him to make him understand that there was no point in trying to get money out of my father for me. The man had kicked me out. He was disowning me. He had abandoned me, and this rough-and-tough biker didn’t seem like he had a mean bone in his body, certainly not mean enough to do anything to me if my father didn’t comply with his wishes.
“So, why did you quit?” he asked again.
“Does it matter at this point?” I asked him. “What’s done is done, and here I am now with you. Besides, can you untie me?”
“Not yet,” he said, and he got up to leave the room.
“I’m sorry for biting you,” I called after him as he walked back into the kitchen. More of my memory was coming back. I hadn’t thought to check his arm for the bite mark and claw marks where we had fought, but I made a note to check again when he came back in.
I just hoped that in the meantime he didn’t grow a pair of balls and decide to start making good on his threats against me.
Chapter 4
Brawn
“This is Kelly,” my former boss said as he answered the phone in his office.
I realized I hadn’t thought this whole kidnapping thing through at all. I hadn’t thought about how much I was going to ask for or what I was going to say. I breathed on the phone as my thoughts raced with my heart in my chest.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” He was growing impatient.
I breathed slowly, forcing my pulse to lower, forcing my mind to focus. I knew what to do. I had participated in some of our more illicit activities over the years. I was no stranger to playing the hardened biker role.
“I’m going to hang up now,” he said, disgusted with the game he thought the caller was playing.
But he didn’t hang up. I could hear him breathing on the other end.
A smirk spread across my face as I remembered who and what I was. I had nothing to be afraid of. No one knew where I was. Besides, if he tried anything stupid, it would just take one phone call to stop him dead in his tracks.
“Lucas Kelly, I have your daughter,” I said in a stern voice.
“Okay, and who is this?” he asked.
“Don’t worry, she’s safe, for now,” I said, ignoring his question. I knew if I allowed him to engage me in conversation, I’d lose any footing I had.
“Who the hell is this? What are you talking about?” he growled into the phone.
“If you want her to stay that way, you’ll do as I say,” I said.
Kelly laughed on the other end. “You don’t realize who you’re talking to, do you, punk? You don’t threaten me. Who is this?”
I took a deep exasperated breath. I still hadn’t thought of an amount for the ransom. It had to be something he could pay easily, but enough to let him know I knew who he was and how much he was worth. Lucas Kelly was worth millions, possibly even billions if the stories of his mob connections were true. Still refusing to answer his question about my identity, I said, “I will return her safely to you for five million.”
He laughed again, harder this time. “Son, I don’t know who you think you are, or what kind of charity you think this is, but you can keep her. Good luck with her.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I yelled. “Are you saying you don’t want your daughter back, you sick, heartless bastard?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. You want her, you can have her. I’ve given up on trying to get through to her. Maybe you can talk some sense into her.” He sounded amused, like he thought this was a joke. I wanted to punch him in his throat. If I had planned this out like I should have, I would have been meeting with him face-to-face so I could beat the ransom money out of him.
“No, no, listen here, you stupid jackass, this is how it’s going to go down: you’re going to pay up. You’re going to send someone to deliver the money, or else your daughter is going to get it.”
“She’s going to get it?” he repeated with a fresh round of laughter. “You watch too many movies, kid. Go ahead, give it to her. You know you want to. You’re not a killer. The only thing you might even try putting into her is your inadequate little dick.”
My face flushed with anger. This cocky bastard was trying to call me out on the phone. I was losing my ground, and I desperately needed to regain it. I had never killed anyone. Hell, I had never even kidnapped anyone, not by myself. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t pull this off.
“Fine, if you want to play this way, I’ll give you until tomorrow to make up your mind. If not, I’m going to put a bullet through her brain. You want pictures? Or should I send you video?”
“Do whatever the hell you want, kid. This conversation’s over. Enjoy my daughter. And, seriously, good luck. You’re going to need it.”
He hung up the phone and left me standing in the middle of my workshop. I looked around at the unfinished projects standing around the large room. I had brought her out to the cabin because it was in the middle of nowhere and I didn’t want to make this an MC thing. I wanted to handle it on my own. And just like all the unfinished work surrounding me, I was starting to think I wasn’t going to be able to finish this job on my own.
I didn’t want to call for help. No one even knew where the cabin was. I flipped my phone over in the palm of my hand, debating on calling Lucas Kelly back or calling my brothers for help getting the money out of him. I laughed at myself. If I called for help, I might as well have been calling for their charity. No way.
St
ill, Lucas Kelly was making me doubt myself. I knew how to carve wood. I knew how to build things. And I knew how to charm women. Those were my talents. What the hell was I doing thinking I was going to be able to collect a ransom?
I sighed and tucked my phone away in my pocket. I walked around the corner to where I could see her in the living room. I had her chair facing the kitchen, so she couldn’t see me where I was standing, even though I had a perfect view of her from the entrance way of the cabin.
She sat in silence, probably waiting for me to return. She looked like she’d accepted her current situation. She wasn’t fighting the ropes on her wrists and ankles. She didn’t look distressed. She’d tried to warn me about her father. She knew he wasn’t going to pay up. I wondered why. I wondered what had happened between them for him to essentially abandon her with me.
Did he really think I was going to kill his daughter? The better question, I guessed, was why didn’t he care?
I sighed heavily, startling Maria in the living room. I smiled as she started to look around for me.
I walked into the room and plopped down on the couch. I looked her over, examining the job I’d done with the ropes. I could have tied her to the chair better. I tilted my head, imagining ropes around her shoulders and stomach, emphasizing the swell of her tits.
“Well?” she said impatiently.
“Well what?” I asked, pretending I was oblivious to the fact that she wanted to know how things went on the phone with her dad.
“Did you talk to my father? I assumed that was why you left the room.”
“I did,” I said, nodding nonchalantly.
“And what did he say?” she asked.
I looked right into her eyes. She wasn’t terrified in the least. She knew she was safe. She knew I wasn’t going to do anything to hurt her. I had failed so far, so I decided to have a little fun before admitting that no one was coming to save her. No one wanted her back, and I had to figure out what I was going to do, because there was no way in hell I was just going to let her run out of my cabin to tell the first person she could that I had tried to kidnap her.
“You know, I built this cabin,” I told her, stalling.
“Great. I bet you’re proud of yourself. What did my father say?”
“I stashed away some money early on when I started working for the MC. You know, once I was old enough that they actually let me get involved in what they were doing. Little by little, I saved up. As a kid, man, they paid for everything for me, so I didn’t have to worry about spending my money until I was ready,” I explained. I didn’t know why I was telling her my story, other than as a way to stall. I hoped to create a little unease with the anticipation.
“The MC? You mean the motorcycle gang?” she asked, distracted.
“The motorcycle club, yes,” I corrected her.
“Oh, that’s like the PC term for it these days, right?” She laughed. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. I could hear her father’s condescending, smug tone when he used the same word to describe us in his office.
“No, there’s a difference. You’re talking about criminal organizations who use their numbers, their muscle, and their connections as part of organized crime rings. Clubs are just groups of guys who love to ride and embrace the rebellious life of the open road.” I didn’t tell her that in a lot of MCs, the inner circle of members would sometimes still engage in illicit activities, using the riding club as a front to make it look like they weren’t up to anything. That was exactly what we were doing. Many of the guys weren’t involved in any criminal activity, but at the heart of the organization, we did whatever we had to in order to make money to support the MC.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that kidnapping your boss’s daughter was remotely criminal,” she mocked me.
“Careful. The knife is still on the table,” I warned her.
“You’re not going to do anything. You still think I’m worth more alive.”
“Do you know where we are?” I asked her, shaking my head and chuckling.
“I know we’re in a cabin you built.”
“Yes, true, but the cabin is on acres of wooded land. No one knows we’re here, not even the MC. Hell, my own brothers don’t even know this place exists.”
“Should I feel special, then? Or do you bring all the ladies here? Oh, is this how you seduce them?” She continued to mock me.
“You are the first person besides myself to set foot in this cabin.” Why was I basically confessing to her that I had never done anything like this on my own? Why was I telling her anything? She was so disarming, she was throwing me off my game.
“So, if you’ve never brought anyone else up here, and you’ve never told anyone about it, why did you build it?”
“I like to come up here and get away from everything. It helps me work,” I said, distractedly. I was starting to think about my own work and about sitting out here in the woods while I worked on furniture for myself and for the guys in the MC.
“Helps you work? I thought you worked for my father,” Maria said, keeping me grounded.
I patted the wooden arm of the couch. “This cabin is my workshop. I built all of the furniture myself. I also make furniture and do other woodwork for the guys in the MC.”
Her eyes looked around the room. “You did all of this? Why the fuck are you working for my dad, then? You could make a fortune doing this. This is what you should be doing. It’s impressive.”
“Thanks.” I drifted off, looking around the room at everything I had built for myself. Besides the cabin itself, I had built the couch, an armchair, the straight back chair Maria was in, the coffee table, the TV stand, my bedroom suit, and a few benches outside around the cabin.
The cabin had become a kind of sanctuary for me. I really never was all that interested in the illegal activities of the MC. I really just enjoyed being part of the riding club, if that. It was nice to have people to back me up when things went wrong, but that was about all. I started to realize I might have messed up royally by bringing Maria here.
This place was supposed to be separate from the dirt I did for the MC. Or, in this case, the dirt I was doing for myself.
“Want a drink?” I asked, getting up to walk into the kitchen.
“Bourbon?” she asked.
I stopped and did a double take. “I think I have some. I’ll check.”
“On the rocks,” she said.
I couldn’t fight back the smile that spread across my face. I was also starting to think I couldn’t have picked a worse person to kidnap. Things seemed to be going in a completely different direction than I had planned. How many people became friends with their victims? It seemed unlikely, but it also seemed like that was what was happening. I started to think it might have been a blessing in disguise when her father refused to pay.
Chapter 5
Maria
“He said he wasn’t going to pay, didn’t he?” I asked Mickey while he was in the kitchen fixing our drinks.
“What makes you say that?” he called back into the living room.
“Well, for one, you’ve been avoiding giving me an answer to the question, like you’re doing right now. For another, you have a shitty poker face, Mickey. I can read the disappointment in your eyes.” I almost felt bad for him. He was trying so hard, but he really had no clue what he was doing. He wasn’t a kidnapper. He wasn’t even much of a criminal, other than things he surely hadn’t had any choice in doing as a younger member of the MC.
Something wasn’t adding up, though. He was a biker. He had the tattoos and wore the clothes. He had the hard image. But he was still coming across to me as the sensitive, creative type. I’d had enough experience with people to know that everything could have been a front for someone much more menacing. After all, he’d kidnapped me and brought me out to a cabin in the middle of nowhere. This whole inept act of his could have just been a way to get me to drop my guard.
“Please, call me Brawn,” he said when he c
ame back into the living room with two glasses of bourbon over ice. One of them had a straw in it, a sign that he wasn’t untying me any time soon, which simply reinforced the notion that his kindness was an act.
He held my glass close enough for me to get the straw and take a sip, like drinking from a kid’s cup at a restaurant. Except children didn’t usually get delicious, calming bourbon. It was so smooth. He didn’t play with low-end shit.
“Thanks,” I said as he pulled the straw away. “Why Brawn?”
He looked around the room again. “Because I’m strong. I build more than I think…We all took names like that.”
“That makes sense,” I said, taking in the cabin again. It really was impressive that he’d built the whole thing and most of what was in it.
