“Antoine, honey?” I whispered, my voice terrified. “I’m a friend of your daddy’s. Are you in there? We can get you out; we just need to know you’re in there, honey.”
“I’m going to shoot off the lock,” he said.
“They’ll hear us!” I said, pointing up.
“They already know we’re here,” he said. “It’s our only shot. Antoine, stand away from the door, do you hear me? I’m going to shoot it off! Stand back! One, two, three…”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice from behind us startled us both. We whirled around and there stood Mavin Toller. Thought now, I knew him as Manuel Brown. “You blow a hole in that door, and you blow us all to kingdom come.”
“Where’s the boy?” Julian asked.
“Oh he’s long gone,” Manuel said. “I can’t believe you thought you’d just be able to sneak in the back door and grab him. That is what you thought, didn’t you?” He smiled, or, what he meant to be a smile; a spreading of his lips to expose brown, broken teeth.
“Where’s Antoine?” I yelled. “And where’s Brad? What did you do with them?”
Julian held me back as I lunged toward Manuel. Manuel took a step back.
“Control her, Julian,” he said.
“Shut up,” Julian said, “or he’ll kill us both.” He whispered in my ear, tense, just as scared as I was.
“Yes, that’s right, calm her,” Manuel laughed. “Gorge!” he called upstairs. “Come down here and show our new friends some hospitality.” A large man came bumbling down the stairs, carrying rope, tape, and an AK-47.
“You’re too late,” Manuel said. “Once I caught word of your little plan, I moved Antoine to a safer location. He’s happier, there, actually. This will be a very nice place for the two of you to live out your final days.”
“Where’s Brad?” I asked.
“Mr. White is incapacitated for the time being, but, don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll be on his way to find you soon. Hopefully, he’ll be able to find his way here in time.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Goodbye, Ms. Young. Goodbye, Agent Boran.” Manuel walked up the stairs and shut the door.
“What did he mean?” I asked Julian.
Julian frowned as Gorge began to tie us together with the ropes.
“He means, there’s a bomb.”
***
I stared at Julian; he stared grimly back at me. Manuel Brown’s words echoed in my mind. This will be a very nice place for the two of you to live out your final days. Hopefully, he’ll be able to find his way here in time. And Julian’s response to my confusion:
“He means, there’s a bomb.”
“You’re very smart,” Gorge said, sneering at Julian. “You must have been straight A student.” His accent was thick, but it wasn’t one I could place. I looked meaningfully at Julian, trying to figure out what our next step was. He wasn’t resisting Gorge tying us up, so I wasn’t resisting either, though, by my count, we should be resisting mightily. Gorge was huge, but surely, between the two of us, Julian and I could take him down.
I tugged on one of the ropes and locked eyes with Julian, trying to signal my thoughts.
“Hey!” Gorge said. “Stop that, you fucking bitch.”
Julian shook his head at me with the slightest movement. I began to mouth my objection, but he slid his eyes toward the door that had the padlock on it. It was the door we’d been ready to shoot open, thinking Antoine was behind it, until Manuel Brown had discovered us. Or, more correctly, Manuel Brown had let us know that he had discovered us.
I stopped. I let my body go slack to indicate I wasn’t going to put up any further resistance.
“That’s better,” Gorge said, picking up his pace with wrapping Julian and me together. By the time he was finished, Julian and I were bound together, face to face, with our hands tied behind our backs. I couldn’t see Julian’s hands, but mine were crossed at the wrists and, each time I tried to pull my wrists apart, like a Chinese finger trap, the ropes got tighter and dug into my arms.
“Stop pulling on the ropes,” Julian whispered as Gorge stepped back, looking at us with his AK-47 in hand. He nodded in satisfaction as he admired his work. Then, he began to walk up the stairs.
“Where are you going?” I yelled. “You can’t leave us here!”
“Bomb soon,” Gorge said. “I’m outta here.” He made the sign of the cross and nodded at us, as if he was giving a final blessing. Then, he walked up the stairs, his heavy frame making each step creak as he trudged up each one. When he reached the top of the stairs, I heard the door open and close. There was the sound of men’s voices, a barrage of them, and then another door slammed and the house was silent.
I looked up and into Julian’s face, less than two inches from my own. If I was taller, or if Julian was shorter, we would have been in a near lip lock.
“So, this is awkward,” I said. It was no time to be funny, I knew, but I couldn’t help at least trying. Why Gorge had bound us facing each other and not back to back, I had no idea. But, Julian knew exactly why he had done it that way.
“He bound us front to front so that he could manipulate the ropes in a certain way. If you pull your wrists tighter, the ropes on my wrists loosen slightly, enough to make me feel like I could maybe get loose—if I didn’t know better. The trick is, though, when I try to pull my hands free, the ropes will tighten harder on you. Hard enough to cut off the circulation to your hands, if I force it. If we trade and you try to get loose, the same thing will happen to me.”
I winced as he demonstrated. I could see his shoulders moving, and, as they did, my wrists began to burn and my hands pulsed with the blood pressure locking into them.
“I get it,” I said. “So, how do we get free? If they’re right and there’s a fucking bomb down here, we need to get the fuck out.”
“Agreed,” he said, but he didn’t move.
“Well?” I demanded.
He pulled his neck back and glared down at me, his chin jutting back. “Well what?” he said. “Why do I have to have all the ideas here?”
“Do I really need to answer that?” I asked. “Aren’t you a fucking cop?”
He sighed. “Yes. And you’re a nosy journalist who had absolutely no business getting involved in this situation in the first place, and was, I believe, warned by at least three people to stay away and insisted on involving herself anyway.”
“And lucky for you,” I snapped, “or they probably would have shot you on the spot.”
Julian shook his head. I had him, and he knew it. The trouble was none of that mattered. I glanced at the padlocked door and a bolt of fear ran through me. He felt it, and his eyes softened.
“We can’t argue with each other,” he said. “We don’t have time, and it’s liable to get us killed. Did you happen to notice if Gorge had anything other than the rope in his hands at any time while he was tying us up?”
“I didn’t notice,” I said, knowing my voice was testier than I meant for it to be. “I was too busy, you know, being tied up.” I added, when I saw the look on his face, “Why?”
“It’s likely that the detonator for the bomb is in one of three places. It’s either on the padlock, like Manuel Brown suggested, or it could be on a remote control.”
“And the third option?” I asked, hearing dread in my voice. I knew where he was going.
“It’s also possible that he attached the detonator to one of us while he was tying us up. So that, if we did end up getting free, we would blow ourselves up in the process.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. I could feel sweat dripping between my breasts. I looked at Julian’s temples and saw beads of sweat there as well. At once, I had the ludicrous thought that the bomb might be able to be set off by beads of sweat, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from bursting out laughing. “No, that’s not possible. We would have noticed.”
“The trouble is,” Julian said, “there’s no way to know for sure until we’re freed. We
can free ourselves fairly easily, but… we may not be alive long enough to see ourselves actually untied.”
“What do you mean we can do it easily?” I asked.
Julian nodded toward me, but his gaze was fixed on something over my shoulder. I craned my neck to see what he was looking at.
The basement had been a work room of some sort, and there was a carpenter’s table in the corner with a fluorescent light over it, providing the majority of light in the room that wasn’t coming from a squat window near the ceiling of the other side of the room. On the table sat a number of tools, any one of which, I realized, could be used to fray or cut the rope enough that we would be able to, though painfully, separate ourselves from one another.
“Well, that was stupid of them,” I said, “leaving all of those tools there.”
“Or it’s bait,” he said, his mouth set in an ugly frown. “They’re there so that we have this exact conversation, and think we’re just going to cut ourselves loose and be on our way.”
“Why not just kill us?” I said. “If that’s Manuel Brown’s intention, why go through the mind game of letting us think we’re going to get away? Why take the chance that we actually could get away? I mean,” I continued, my stomach filling with dread as I heard the words in my mind before I said them out loud, “you’re basically saying we’re dead right now. That there’s a bomb detonator on one of us, and the only reason we’re alive right now is because we’ve been talking and not escaping.”
“He didn’t kill us because he likes the mind game,” Julian said in a flat voice. “Why do you think he kept Brad’s son for so long? He doesn’t like to kill people because he doesn’t want blood on his hands, but, more than that, he likes to fuck with people. He lives to fuck with people.”
I felt a drop of sweat fall from Julian’s cheek onto my collarbone. I tried to shrug it off as it tickled my shoulder, watching Julian’s eyes watching it move.
“We have to try,” I said. “We… just have to try.”
“I agree,” Julian said. His arms were already wrapped around me, but he tightened them and I felt the ropes loosen on my wrists. “Space your feet so that one is between mine and the other is on the outside. Let’s move slowly; no sense blowing up before we need to.”
I looked at him sharply.
“What,” he said, “you’re the only one allowed to make a joke?”
“That wasn’t funny,” I said. I looked at his chin because looking into his eyes was far too intimate, far too charged, especially in our current situation. We began to move, and I imagined that if anyone saw us from the outside, we would look like a couple very into one another slow dancing in our basement.
We found a rhythm and moved toward the table. I scanned the table looking for something like a saw, but, of course, it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“There’s an ax,” Julian observed, nodding over my shoulder.
“You want to chop us apart?” I asked. “Without detonating a bomb that may be attached to us?”
“Well, do you have a better idea?” he shot back.
I looked at the tools on the table. “There’s a flat head screwdriver,” I said. “We could use it to fray the rope bits apart.”
“And, if we had a week, that would be a great idea. My guess is we’re on something of a time limit here, though I don’t know how long.”
I nodded, my stomach sinking. He was right, of course. “If you use the ax, how are you going to use it?” I asked.
He thought for a moment, and I watched his eyes as the thoughts moved across them.
“We’re going to hope it’s incredibly sharp,” he said. “And, hopefully, we won’t need to actually chop anything; we’ll be able to slide the blade through. If the detonator isn’t being held by our stomachs or our wrists, we should break apart quickly.”
“And if it’s dull? Or the detonator is on us?” I asked.
He shrugged, giving me the look that said I knew exactly the answer to that question. And, I did. If the detonator was on us, we wouldn’t know if the blade on the ax was dull or not. Not for more than a second.
“Okay,” he said, grabbing the ax. “Are you ready?”
I held my breath, closed my eyes, and nodded.
Brad
My brain re-engaged with a surge of panic before I could even open my eyes. When I did open them, all I saw was blurry shapes that, while they looked familiar, had no place in my memories. I shook my head and spikes of pain moved through my neck and head; I closed my eyes again as nausea rolled through me.
I tried to bring my hand to my head; I felt like holding my temples in my hands might somehow help. But, I couldn’t move my hands. I strained and tugged, but they were stuck at my sides. I took some deep breaths, then tried again, using more strength. I growled out loud, a growl that turned into a frustrated yell as I couldn’t get loose from whatever was holding me down. I collapsed back.
I opened my eyes again and, this time, waited for things to clear in spite of the pounding, sickening pain in my skull. I focused on one object at a time until it became a little more clear. Then I moved onto another, then another. I saw a rug on what appeared to be a hardwood floor. I saw a sectional couch. Gradually, I began to realize I was home. Not at my house, but at my suite at London Legacy. When I had an idea of where I was, the images began to sharpen faster. I looked down at myself. I was tied down to one of my dining room chairs, my forearms bound to the chair arms, and my legs bound to the front two legs of the chair. My ribs were bound to the back, explaining why even the deep breaths I thought I was taking weren’t helping me much.
I turned my head toward the door and, once again, pain splintered through my head. I had a concussion, almost certainly. The question was, who had done this? And, more importantly, was that person still in my suite? This thought sent my heart into a pounding dance and I held my breath, listening for any sound, trying to feel for any sensation, anything that didn’t belong in my room. The place sounded empty, deserted.
Cassie. Her name shot into my mind, and I remembered everything. The failed raid, the UC that had stood in Cassie’s place. How everything had fallen apart when we realized Manuel Brown had seen us coming a mile away and had taken Antoine… at the thought of my son’s name, my stomach rolled with nausea again. We were right back where we’d started, except I was tied up in my home and Cassie was… Where was Cassie?
I looked toward my bedroom and knew that I had to get to that room, specifically, though it was the furthest space from where I was. I looked around for my cell phone, but somewhere in my gut I knew my phone was long gone. Smashed to bits, probably, by a lackey of Manuel Brown’s.
The chair I’d been tied to was no joke; it was one of the heavier moveable chairs in the suite. I remembered ordering them. Yes, I wanted solid oak, the heavier the better, and yes, I wanted captain’s chairs. Of course the fabric should be heavy, durable, and luxurious. The chair weighed well over a hundred pounds.
Still, I knew I needed to move in the chair to the bedroom where the panic button was hidden, under a lamp, on the side of the bed I typically slept on. I cursed myself for thinking that I’d be able to use my hands in the event of needing to push the button. All sorts of thoughts for modifications, greater safety, voice activation, pushed through my mind and I had to push them back out. Survival first, then technology.
I began to inch my way across the floor. It was slow going, and each centimeter I moved sent shooting pains from my feet to the top of my head. I began to assess my injuries as I moved. A concussion was a given, and possibly an even more significant head injury. The pain in my shoulder suggested a cracked collarbone. The pain each breath caused me meant almost certainly at least one broken rib.
I was sweating, and twice I stopped because I was sure I was going to vomit, but I kept going. Centimeter by centimeter, angry with myself for not being able to move faster, yet feeling like if I did, I might actually die from the efforts. I imagined Cassie or Simon finding me, tipped ov
er on the floor, dead. I shook my head and redoubled my efforts; I couldn’t let that happen.
Hours went by in the time it took me to cross the living room. I could tell by the way the sunlight shifted in the sky. I smiled ruefully as I realized the sun was actually moving faster than I was. As late afternoon arrived, I made it to the bedroom door. I’d thought about tipping myself over and sliding my way over, but I didn’t think I’d be able to get the traction I needed. Still, now, the bedroom presented a new challenge: carpet. I blinked my eyes closed in pure anger and frustration. Small tears mixed with the sweat pouring down my face.
You have to do this, Bradley White. You do not have a choice. You have a son. You’ve done nothing but survive for him since the day he was born, and you will not give up now. Do you hear me? You will not give up. Get your ass moving. It’s carpet, not poisonous snakes. Be the man you are—the leader, the CEO, the billionaire—be everything you are that no one else can be, and get to that button.
Do it now.
I gave myself the usual pep talk I gave myself before walking into mergers, meetings with Manuel Brown, or any other stressful situation in my life, only, this time, I heard it in Cassie’s voice. I saw her passionate, burning eyes, her hair flaring around her shoulders as she waved her hands, punctuating each sentence.
I took a deep breath and moved. If I’d been going a centimeter across the hardwood floor, against the carpet, I moved a millimeter. Sometimes I wasn’t even sure I was moving, but I kept my eyes trained on the lamp. I was sure that I was building enough energy I’d almost be able to push the lamp over with my mind when I got there. My anger turned aggressive and I pushed myself forward hard on the chair. I felt it tip… and I went over on to my left side, landing on my left shoulder with a sharp, painful thud. I heard a snap as my collarbone broke fully, and I saw stars of pain. I laid there until the sun finished moving across the sky and began to set.
Move!
Cassie’s voice, again, sounded in my brain. I opened my eyes and began to, somehow, slither my way across the floor. I shut the pain out, it was so intense, and focused my eyes on Antoine, imagined him sitting on the floor right by the lamp. Telling me that if I could get to him, he would reach up and hit the button and all would be well. We would be together again.
Billionaire Romance Box Set: The Billionaire's Legacy: An Alpha Billionaire Romance Box Set Page 26
