Hawk (Sex and Bullets Book 2)

by Jo Raven

  Think, Layla. You said it yourself: you know this place like the palm of your hand. There has to be another way out.

  Someone else walks into the line of vision, brandishing something in his hand. “Boss,” he calls out. “Check this out. Found it in the bathroom upstairs, by the sink.”

  “A bracelet?” the scarred guy asks.

  “Looks like a woman’s bracelet. I wonder which of you ladies forgot it.” He grins, then lifts the item in question and goes cross-eyed looking at it. “A fine thing, too. I swear to God, Boss, it wasn’t there yesterday.”

  I grip my wrist, where my bracelet is supposed to be.

  Nothing.

  My blood runs cold.

  “Someone else is here,” the Boss says. “A woman.”

  “I’ll find her,” the thug says.

  Hawk takes a step forward. He doesn’t know I’m still here, but I see doubt in his eyes. He’s not sure.

  After all, every time I promised to leave, I came right back.

  The Boss’s goon moves around the basement, checking between rows of containers, and I keep very still.

  “What did we say about trust, Jamie Fleming?” The Boss taps something on his cell phone. “No transaction, no trust. And a girl in here? Tsk.”

  “There’s nobody else here,” Hawk grinds out.

  “Let’s see, shall we?” He draws a gun from the small of his back and aims it straight at Hawk’s head. “Let’s see if she comes out now.”

  Holy shit. It is a gun, a gun pointed at Hawk’s forehead, and black spots dance in front of my eyes.

  He won’t do it.

  The Boss clicks the safety off his gun, the click loud like a gunshot to my ears.

  Shit. Sweat trickles between my shoulder blades. I start unzipping my purse to get to my phone. If I send an SOS to Dodo, would she get it and come find me? I did tell her initially I was spying on my dad, and she knows the company warehouse.

  I just need to get to my phone. I tug harder on the zipper, and it moves, inch by inch, snick, snick, snick, as my eyes dart back and forth along the row where I’m hiding.

  Come on. Just a few more seconds. Just a few more.

  The moment my hand fits through the opening, I thrust it inside and rummage for my phone. My panic is rising as my fingers tangle with loose receipts and random things, like the case of my sunglasses, my wallet, my lipstick, my card holder. A tampon, a pack of chewing gum.

  Crap. Why can I never find anything in my purse when I urgently need it? Where are you, phone? Come on, come o—

  “Hello there.” A huge hand curls around my arm and hauls me to my feet. I sway, hit by a wave of dizziness, and look up into the thug’s scarred face.

  Then I bend over and throw up all over his pants and shoes.

  Ugh. Gross.

  But hey, who says only Hawk can make a statement? He pissed on them. I threw up.

  I’m pretty sure I win, hands down.

  ***

  Hawk says nothing when he sees me dragged into the open by Scarface. A muscle is jumping under his eye, though, and his face is deathly pale.

  I failed him. Failed us both. Now I can’t call, can’t leave, can’t help him.

  My face is too hot as I stumble in the thug’s hold. So stupid, Layla. Hawk was right, you should have left. He depended on you.

  And you stayed, as if you can fight off these people and save him, keep him from getting more hurt.

  God, what a joke.

  “Do we know her?” Sandivar asks indifferently. “Does she look familiar?”

  “Hawk sleeps with her,” the thug says, throwing me down, at Hawk’s feet. “Seen pictures of him with her.”

  “The little girlfriend, then. I wonder how she got in here.” He frowns. “How did she get in?”

  “The bathroom window wasn’t locked. She could have fit through.”

  “I see.”

  Hawk gathers me in his arms, lifts me to my feet, and I cling to him, terrified, breathing in his scent of male spice and blood.

  “Let her go,” he says. “She only wanted to see me.”

  “Only wanted to see you,” he mocks. “And how did she know where you are? Do others know?” Sandivar stands in front of us, cold and angry. “Did she call and tell her friends, or the police?”

  “I didn’t,” I say, my voice steadier than I thought it would be. “Didn’t tell anyone.”

  Sandivar’s gaze would freeze a glacier. “Check her phone.”

  Scarface digs through my purse and finds my phone on the first try.

  So not fair.

  He clicks through my call history, then my messages, and I’m too exhausted and scared to even care about that violation.

  “She called someone called Dodo this morning. And before that a call to the police.”

  Oh crap.

  Sandivar nods, his expression grim. “The police wouldn’t believe her. They think he’s on a business trip.” He glares at me. “Lock them up. Lock the door to the stairs. Don’t leave them any escape route.”

  “What about the prisoners?”

  “Prepare to move them elsewhere. Bring the van. And keep checking with the bank for that transaction, although I’m quite damn sure Mr. Fleming here thought he could play us for fools. He’s about to find out that doesn’t fly with the Organization. He’s made the biggest mistake of his life.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Hawk

  “Dodo?” I mutter, sitting on the floor for a change, my back to the pillar, Layla in my arms. She’s dozing, her head on my shoulder. “Like the bird?”

  Or thinking. She’s so quiet.

  She stirs now. “My friend, Dorothy. I had to talk to her, but I didn’t tell her anything. You said I shouldn’t.”

  “I also said you should leave, but did you? Nah.”

  But I’m not upset. Scared for her, sure. And okay, I was so fucking pissed when I realized she really was here after all, but now that anger has faded.

  We need to get out of here.

  “You called the police,” I say, a statement, not a question. “About me?”

  She shrugs, a tight roll of her shoulders. “It was when I first saw you down here, tied up. I tried. Sandivar is right. They didn’t believe me.”

  I bet. Between the Organization’s machinations and my own game of deception, even if the cop she talked to knew what was going on, he’d have pleaded ignorance.

  “Are you all right?” I ask her, stroking her hair. “You threw up on that guy. Best move ever, gotta say, but are you feeling okay?”

  She sighs against my shoulder. “I’m fine. Too much stress. Couldn’t bear seeing them hit you again.”

  Something unclenches in my chest. I don’t know what to say to that. It feels good, knowing she couldn’t bear seeing me in pain.

  Regroup. “You don’t happen to know another way out of here?”

  “I’m trying to think of one. Hey…” She rubs her face on my shirt, like a cat, and mumbles something.

  “What?” Dammit, I hate that I didn’t hear what she said, that I need to see her lips, or have her speak louder, because maybe she won’t open up again like this, when she’s whispering things against my shirt.

  She lifts her head, looks at me. “I said, ‘Sorry I got caught.’”

  “But not for staying?”

  “No, not for staying. I don’t regret it.”

  A grin spreads on my face, even though I fight it, because hell, she put herself in grave danger, but I can’t deny anymore that having her here, beside me, makes everything seem possible somehow.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I tell her gruffly, and she presses herself to me.

  Which gives my dick ideas, and I tell it to suck it.

  We need to get out before we get moved God knows where. Before my bluff with the lawyers is fully revealed, the damage irreversible.

  If he hadn’t smashed my watch, we’d be getting rescued right now.

  And if she hadn’t lost her bracelet in the bat
hroom while I fucked her on the counter, we’d still have a phone to call for help.

  The way I see it, this is all my fault. “You need to get out of here,” I whisper in her ear.

  “They’ll be guarding the bathroom like it’s Alcatraz. No way can I get out the way I came in.

  “My grandpa always said there are more ways to do something than the ones you see at first glance.”

  “You never talked about your grandpa before.”

  I chew on the inside of my cheek. “That’s right, I haven’t.”

  “You don’t tell me things.”

  She sounds like she’s pouting, and it should annoy me, but it makes me smile. Like it’s cute. Damn. “That’s the point. I don’t tell things to anyone.”

  But for some reason, I wanna tell her about my grandpa. Even though I should be letting her think of a way out. Even though I should be going around the basement, checking every possible exit, or thinking up a clever plan.

  Even if I haven’t told anyone about him before, not even Rook and Storm.

  Fuck it. I’m gonna tell her. I need five minutes of rest anyway. My head throbs, my body aches, and she’s in my arms.

  “My grandfather was a huge man. Old Norwegian family, from my mother’s side. Whalers and sailors, apparently. He was in the military. Tough guy. When I was first sent there, I moped and threw a hissy fit. Broke everything in the room I was assigned. He came, saw that and threw me against the wall.”

  She lifts her head and frowns. “He hurt you.”

  “He put me in my place. Nobody had ever done that. Nobody had ever touched me like that, with such disregard for who I was in the world—for how much money I was to inherit. He slapped me around, then set me down and talked to me.”

  “Hawk, come on. He hurt you, admit it.”

  “Nah.” I swallow hard, because this is something I can’t sort out in my head yet. Can’t talk about it. “He saw me.”

  But nobody ever really touched me until you.

  And this is not the time for sappy thoughts, I think as I disentangle the warm, exhausted girl from my side.

  But I stop again because she looks miserable.

  “What is it?” I stroke her smooth cheek. “I was just gonna check the exits, see if I find a way out. We can’t afford to be moved from here. At least here we know where we are.”

  She shakes her head. “My dad. He knows about this. He allowed it.” She bites her lip, and I lick my own, fucking obsessed. “I hate him.”

  Fuck, how can I focus on getting out of here when everything she does sends all my blood to my dick? When she’s talking about her fucking dad, and I get a hard-on just because she’s right here, with me?

  I need to move. “So we’re going for Plan F.” I rub the crease between my brows, willing the maddening headache away.

  Plan A was my watch. Plan B was Layla’s phone. And yeah, we’ve jumped to F in one fucking second of back luck.

  “That’s F for fail?” she whispers.

  “Nah. F for Fuck it. Time to escape. Any ideas where I could look?”

  She pushes herself to her feet, and I grip her arm to help her.

  Which brings us flush together.

  Hell.

  “You should have left, Layla. If you get hurt, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Kill them all, for one. Then resurrect them and kill them again.”

  That earns me a ghost of a smile. “You’re crazy. But look. You said you’re responsible because your parents were part of it. Well, my dad is part of it too, and that makes me responsible.”

  God, I like her. I realize now I never really knew her. Never tried to get to know her, what with keeping my distance and shit.

  But it was also that I never thought I’d like her. When I first met her I thought she was pretty, but that was it. Guess this makes me sound like a self-righteous prick, but I thought she was shallow and boring. I thought she only cared for some fun and for her next pedicure appointment.

  As time passed, she grew on me, and now… Never thought I’d be happy just to talk to her, to hold her. That we’d think alike, and put ourselves in danger alike.

  That she’s so brave, and crazy at the same time, and that she might understand me so well.

  “I need to do this, Layla.” I cup her face, meet her gaze full-on, letting her see I’m being honest with her, one hundred percent transparent. “Need to set things right. In my dreams, my grandpa asks me who he raised me to be. And I can come up with only one answer: he didn’t raise me to be a coward and a selfish bastard, someone who values his life above that of others. He raised me to be fair and… I dunno. He died two years ago, but I owe it to him to try. I owe it to the people the Organization destroyed. To the future. Is it too corny if I say I owe it to the future generations?”

  She smiles. “Not corny at all.”

  And we set out to check this fucking basement for a way out, hand in hand.

  Together.

  Never once has this hand-holding, togetherness thing felt so right before, and damn if that isn’t scarier than the mess we’re in.

  ***

  “Once this is over,” she whispers, “what will you do? Will you go out of town, or out of the country, until things calm down?”

  “I might.”

  I don’t wanna admit to her that for the first time since I concocted this crazy plan, I’m not sure I will get out. We’re checked the doors leading to the stairwell. I can’t see how to pick the lock or break it.

  And it pisses me off, because I need to get her out of here, and I can’t.

  Suddenly, I’m hit with the need to tell her more, to tell her everything, not just about my grandpa, but about how I feel. How I’ve discovered I feel when she’s around. The things I discovered I want for the future.

  But I haven’t even opened my mouth to spill my guts to her, when she gasps and slaps her forehead.

  “Of course. The seats.”

  “What seats?”

  “The metal boxes. By the double doors.”

  I give her a concerned look. “I know I asked this before, but are you feeling okay?” I lift my free hand to touch her forehead.

  She bats my hand away. “I’m fine. Come on.” She tugs me toward the double doors. “We can’t get out on our own, right?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “We can’t get out until they come to get us, until they unlock the doors.”

  “Yes, but that’s—”

  “So we need to hide when they do. They walk inside, start looking for us. We get out of the boxes, go through the door and lock it, then go up and leave.”

  I stop and stare at her as if seeing her for the first time. “That’s… fucking clever, Hot Body.”

  “Layla,” she says automatically.

  I grin. “My Layla, then.”

  A flush suffuses her cheeks, and fuck, I wanna kiss her, but she turns away and tugs on my hand once more.

  “Let’s check if we fit inside.”

  “I’m so hard right now, I’m not sure I’ll fit.” I waggle my brows at her.

  “Stop it.” But her mouth quirks. “You’re so full of yourself.”

  “Nah, but you’d be so full of me, if I fit.”

  “Jesus, Hawk.” She shakes her head. “Nothing ever puts you down, does it?”

  “You gave me courage,” I admit as we reach the boxes. “I’d lost my wits at some point, and you showing up…” I shrug and wince. “You reminded me what I’m fighting for.”

  “For the future generations?” she asks, and there’s a sadness in her eyes.

  I remember then she said she can’t have children, and I wish I knew how to comfort her. Let her know that it doesn’t matter to me.

  I grip her chin, turn her face toward me. “Layla, if we get out of this alive… Would you go out with me?”

  “Go out… Like a real date?” Her eyes sparkle, and I can’t tell if it’s excitement or unshed tears.

  “Like a very real date. Official date,” I clarify, becaus
e we’ve done the dinner and kissing and wild sex afterward, but it meant nothing then.

  It does now.

  She nods, smiling faintly, and I kiss her quickly on the mouth.

  “Let’s do this.”

  Yeah, let’s fucking do it and to hell with doubting and fear.

  ***

  The boxes are open, and we do fit in. We quickly settle inside one each and close the lids over our heads.

  It’s stifling. It’s cramped. Try folding a six-foot-four frame into a metal box. I feel like a sushi roll, and all my bruises are screaming at me.

  And then there’s the wait. God, I hope they come soon, or we’ll die of lack of oxygen in here.

  Maybe slowing down my breathing might help. My heart is pounding with adrenaline. Sweat is trickling down my back, down my face.

  I hope Layla is okay in the box next to mine.

  I go over our quick plan in my mind, trying to calm the fuck down. I’ve turned it into a checklist, and I start checking items.

  Listen out for our captors—Layla will do that, since I’m half deaf. She will open the lid of my box.

  I get out and close the lid again.

  We creep out of the basement.

  We close and lock the doors.

  We creep up the stairs.

  We check for guards, and make our way out.

  Stalk out of the compound.

  Find transportation.

  Book it outta here.

  Sounds simple enough. I bet it won’t be that fucking simple, and I don’t care, as long as it works.

  Christ, talk about sensory deprivation. If it was bad with the blindfold and without my hearing aid, now it’s hell. Add to it the way my muscles are cramping over my bruised ribs, and this is pure white-hot agony.

  It’s all I can do not to push the lid up and straighten, betray us in case Sandivar and his goons are back.

  Seconds turn to minutes, minutes into a fucking hour. The hour turns into two—or so it feels. There is not enough oxygen. My lungs are burning. My folded legs tremble. My chest hurts like hell.

  Will they fucking never come?

  Three eternities later, the lid of my container rattles. I hesitate for exactly one second—and then shove upward with my back until air fills my lungs, and I see Layla’s face.