by Amy Starling
“...'Get' her?”
“Men can balk at paying me back all they like, but when you get family involved they'll usually break down and cough up the cash like a shattered piggy bank. If he really loves his girl, he'll show his sorry face.”
I bristled. “Don't tell me you want me to kill her.”
“No. Not yet. If she's dead, we can't use her as a bargaining chip. I'd say a good old-fashioned kidnapping will do the job. Stash her away somewhere, then make our terms simple: the money in exchange for her life.”
“And what if he still doesn't pay?”
“Then she dies.”
My stomach sank. I had no problem slaughtering criminals, druggies, bad guys like myself. But to off someone's little girl? That was totally different.
“I'm sorry, but I don't think I can do that.”
Dad hated being told no. “Killing folks is what you do, Alec. That's your job, and you're damn good at it. You're the best hitman the family has.”
“This isn't like my usual hits. This is a woman you're talking about.”
“Now ain't the time to get all sentimental. You want results? Well, sometimes you gotta do drastic things to get them. You're gonna run the family one day; it'd be wise of you to get that through your head.”
“Offing this girl isn't going to get you that money back, and you know it.”
“Oh, I believe it will. Then Mr. Trenton will see that I'm very serious. He keeps choosing not to pay, it gets worse. Maybe we get his wife next. Or perhaps his house 'mysteriously' burns down one night.”
In the family, refusing a job was like a death sentence. If you couldn't take orders, you were no good to the Ciarellos. To dad, not obeying was akin to betrayal.
That meant cut ties at best. Sometimes, if the traitor was particularly greivous, he ended up at the bottom of the lake.
Dad was right. How could I ever lead this family if I was gonna be such a sap?
“Okay, out with it. Tell me what I'm doing.”
“Good boy. I'll send her photo to your phone. I believe she's a student at Taylor, but you'll need to figure her schedule out on your own. Once you've got her, take her out of town. Your usual place will do for that.”
My heart thumped a little harder. Taylor... Wasn't that the medical school where Ceci went?
I waited, trembling, for the picture of the daughter to arrive. At last it did, and I opened the file with shaking fingers.
Ceci's beautiful face stared back at me.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered to nobody at all. “Not you. Why's it gotta be you?”
Ceci was Roger's daughter. What were the odds?
More importantly, what the hell was I gonna do now? If I disobeyed dad, he'd be furious. I wouldn't have the family anymore – and they were all I knew.
Back inside my office, the guys were laughing about some video on the internet. When they saw my face, they wisely shut up.
“What's wrong, boss?”
“Roger's daughter is Ceci,” I muttered, still hardly believing it. “Dad wants me to kidnap her.”
Joey's jaw dropped. “Ain't that the girl you've been pining over?”
“What are you gonna do?”
I gazed at her picture. In it, she was smiling and happy. If I went through with this, I'd never see that smile of hers again. She'd hate me, and who could blame her?
“What else can I do? What dad says goes. Anything for the family.”
I shut off the phone, grabbed my coat, and went to my car.
I had a job to do.
Chapter 6 - Ceci
“Dead bodies freak me out.”
Adam, the doctor who was in charge of the hospital's morgue, laughed at me. I didn't think it was funny at all.
“How are you supposed to be a doctor if you can't stand dead people?”
“I got into this profession to stop people from dying. Thought I'd specialize in something with a low mortality rate, like pediatrics or obstetrics, maybe.”
The corpse on the slab stared up at me with cold, unblinking eyes. It was a Caucasian male, probably not much older than me. His skin was clammy and ghost-white. A series of bullet holes pocked his bare chest.
“Guy was dead by the time we got there,” Adam said. “Cops found him this morning under the overpass. They said it was a gang shooting.”
Right away, I thought of Alec. For all I knew, this could have been his handiwork, or someone else's from the Ciarello family.
How stupid could I have been to let him charm me? If I hadn't seen that display of violence in the alley, he'd have brought me back to his hotel and I'd have been none the wiser.
I'd have slept with a mobster. A killer. Made my skin crawl thinking about it.
Yet part of me still couldn't believe it. I was drawn to him, to the way he moved through a room with grace and power. His confidence was oddly alluring, too. And he'd made me feel so good with just a few strokes of his fingers...
“Stop zoning out,” Adam scolded me. “You gotta pay attention when doing an autopsy. Otherwise you might miss something important.”
“What is there to miss? He obviously got shot and died from organ damage and blood loss.”
“Perhaps, but there are other clues that help us see the circumstances of his death. The police rely on us for stuff like that.”
I tried to force Alec out of my mind and focus on the body. “Uh... There are these holes on his arm here,” I said. “He was shooting up. Probably heroin, given the troubles with it in this town, though we'll need a toxicology report.”
Adam nodded. “Yes, good. Anything else?”
There was a tattoo on his right shoulder. “A snake curled around a knife,” I reported.
“That's the symbol of the Giseppis. They're a nasty criminal gang in these parts.” He sighed. “We've been getting a lot of these in here lately. Mostly, nobody cares 'cause they're just thugs, but it's worrisome. What if innocent people get caught in the crossfire?”
My chest tightened. How many of these deaths were Alec's fault?
“Hey, Adam,” I said, draping the sheet over the corpse. “You know anything about the Ciarello family?”
He snorted as he scribbled something in his notebook. “You mean you didn't know? They've pretty much owned Summerset for decades now. Moved in from Italy a long time back. They're so powerful, the law won't mess with them.”
I couldn't stop thinking about the family as I scrubbed my hands clean. Despite my disgust with the horrible things they did, I was slightly curious. These wealthy criminals practically run the town from the shadows for generations, and I had been totally oblivious.
The autopsy thankfully over, I emerged from the morgue into the brightly lit hallway. It was so quiet except for the ticking of the clock on the wall.
After eleven, it said. My stomach growled. Guess I hadn't eaten all day. I'd been too busy consoling mom this morning to think of food.
She'd woken me up at dawn asking where dad was. I had to show her that note, to tell her that he'd abandoned us here because of some trouble he'd gotten into. Mom broke down in hysterics and sobbed on the couch for hours.
“What has he done?” she kept asking herself. “Wasn't it enough that he stole from our bank account? How could he leave us like this?”
I wasn't surprised. Dad was a good man at heart, but once that gambling addiction took hold of him, he was helpless to fight it.
Outside, I began the long walk back to my car. The path led me down a winding sidewalk, between buildings and across the courtyard. When I turned the final corner toward the parking lot, I paused.
Normally, the trail was lit with bright lights. Tonight, every single one of them was off, leaving the path ahead in almost total darkness except for the moon's gentle glow.
“Weird,” I muttered, clutching my bag tight to my chest.
No one else appeared to be around, yet...
I'd seen enough scary movies to know not to let my guard down. I listened for voices, footsteps, anyth
ing human, but heard nothing except chirping crickets and the whistle of the wind through tree branches.
I laughed off my fear and forced myself to move on. I'd walked this route a hundred times. Totally safe.
But then, as I stepped into the darkness, I felt something. A presence.
Someone was there with me.
If I ran, they would know I had discovered them. Maybe it was nothing, just another fellow student passing through like me.
Just act normal and they'll go away.
I picked up the pace until I was almost jogging. The parking lot was dead ahead; the glow of fluorescent lights a hazy white on the horizon.
There were no footsteps following me, but I wasn't being paranoid. Someone was out there, watching me. I felt their eyes studying my every move.
“H-hello?” I called out, not able to take the silence any longer.
No response. I turned and ran –
An arm curled around my waist, pulling me back roughly against a man's chest. Before I could open my mouth to scream, his hand clamped down, shoving a crumpled rag against my face.
Oh, God. No! What was happening? Pure terror ripped through me as I kicked and flailed, but the man had a solid grip on me and refused to let go.
A foul chemical odor filled my nostrils. My vision blurred; it grew harder and harder to gasp for breath. A fuzzy fogginess entered my head, along with swirling, confusing thoughts. One stood out among the noise.
Alec...
I was going to die.
Chapter 7 - Ceci
My head throbbed and my mouth felt full of sand. When I rolled over, the room spun as if I'd gotten completely drunk not long ago.
Wait, the room? Where the hell was I?
“I'm not dead?” I forced my eyes open. “No. I guess I'm not.”
The surface below me was soft and lumpy. Took me a moment to realize I was in a bed.
I sat up despite how my body ached and tried to remember what happened. There was that man, and then I fell unconscious; somehow I ended up here.
Wherever “here” was.
Panic would have easily overtaken me if I let it. I had to take deep breaths. Couldn't lose control or something very, very bad was going to happen to me.
I was in a pitch-black room and could barely see a thing. The only light came from a tiny window far above my head. The air was damp and chilly, and the room smelled musty, like mildew.
My wrists were bound by some kind of rope. Struggling against it was useless and seemed to make the knot even tighter.
Whoever had tied me up wanted to make very sure I couldn't get out. Oh shit, what did he plan to do to me?
“Is anyone there?” I directed my question to the darkness.
No reply. I no longer felt that creepy presence, which probably meant I was alone for now. Where had my kidnapper gone, anyway? He couldn't have been far.
I had two choices: either sit here and cry until the man came back, or try to escape. The latter seemed near impossible, but there had to be a way out of here.
A light, yeah. If I could find a light, that would make things a lot easier.
I shambled off the bed, grateful at least that my abductor didn't bind my ankles too. My feet hit cold concrete; apparently the man had removed my shoes and socks.
A cloud passed over the moon, letting a thin beam of light through the dirty window. I followed it slowly so as not to bump into anything.
If there was a switch for the lights it was probably on the wall. But which way?
Something smacked me in the face with my next step. I yelped and thought I had run into a spiderweb, but no, it was just some sort of string.
“Maybe this is for the lights,” I muttered.
Unable to pull it with my hands, I took the string in my mouth and yanked. A bulb flickered overhead, then came to life. It was dim, but just enough to see by.
“Yes! Now to get out of this rope.”
A quick look around told me I was in the basement. There was a rack of tools on the wall: wrenches, a saw, shears, and other unidentifiable things. Good for weapons – or maybe the kidnapper planned to use them on me.
Shuddering, I kept looking. To my right was a shelf, about five feet tall, loaded with junk. Cleaning supplies, sports equipment, random cardboard boxes with no identification on them.
Around the corner were the stairs leading up to the first floor. I didn't bother going up to try the door. It was definitely locked and besides, wriggling the handle would definitely attract the kidnapper.
That left my only way out as that window way up there. I couldn't possibly jump to reach it; it had to be about ten feet off the ground. It was so small, too, that I worried my ass wouldn't even fit through it.
“Think, Ceci. Think.”
First, this stupid rope. Those sharp tools on the wall would totally work for that. Trouble was, how would I cut the rope off when I couldn't hold the saw?
At the edge of the table was some kind of machine with a big, dangerous-looking saw blade sticking out of it. My heart leaped for joy. Finally, good news!
I backed up to the blade and carefully but quickly rubbed the rope against it. Didn't want to slice my wrists open – that would have probably meant certain death down here with no one to help me – but I had to hurry. Who knew when the man would come back?
At last, the rope frayed and then snapped. I rubbed my sore wrists, sighing with relief that I was finally free.
Well, not quite yet. I wouldn't be free unless I got out that window somehow.
Of course, the kidnapper hadn't left behind a ladder for me to reach it with. I'd have to improvise. Let's see... The table was too heavy to move with all the heavy tools and equipment on it. The bed was too short, even if I turned the mattress on its side and climbed up.
My gaze returned to the shelves. It was a metal rack of them that might make a good ladder – so long as it wasn't bolted to the floor.
I gave the rack a shake. It wobbled, sending much of its contents to the floor with a horrible noise. If the man was up there, he'd heard that.
I waited, but no one came downstairs. Okay, time to keep moving.
With the rest of the junk off the shelves, I pushed the rack up against the wall, right beneath the window. This wasn't very sturdy and might well collapse with me on it, but what choice did I have?
I climbed up one shelf, then two. The whole thing wobbled like it was about to tip over, but I kept on. At last, I reached the window, undid the latch, and pushed.
Nothing.
“What?” I cried. “No. This isn't right. Why won't it open?”
Was it locked? I didn't see any keyhole or padlock on the outside. Maybe it had been sealed shut some other way.
No matter. I was getting this damn window open anyway.
I clambered back down the rack to the tool table. By now, my fear had mostly gone, replaced by anger that someone dared do this to me. I had to push all those anxious thoughts aside and focus on one thing – getting out of here alive.
A hammer had been conveniently set on the table's edge. I grabbed it, went back up the shelves, and swung with all my might at the window.
“So much for being subtle,” I said as glass rained down around me. I knocked the remaining shards out of the window frame, then poked my head through.
I had no idea where I was. Gone were the city lights, replaced by nothing but blackness. Animals screeched and called loudly around me. He must have taken me to the forest outside of town.
Somehow, I managed to squeeze my shoulders out, then the rest of me. I lay there breathing hard in the dirt for a while.
But there was no time to lose. If I could get back to the city, or find someone's house who had a phone, I'd be saved.
It wouldn't be easy going with bare feet in the woods, though, and bears were said to roam around here. Still, I would rather take my chances with them than hang around a second longer.
The house he'd been holding me in wasn't very big, just a modest ca
bin with two floors. The lights were all off, and there weren't any cars parked nearby.
Thankfully, I wouldn't have to cut through the trees. There was a dirt road leading right from the house down the hill into a valley. If I just followed that, then I would be home in no time.
I started to walk, then run. Several times I stepped on rocks and sticks, ignored the pain, and kept going. The smell of blood reached my nose. I must have cut myself.
Too bad. No stopping until I was safe. Nothing mattered but that.
About halfway down the hill, I paused for a breather. Looking ahead, I figured I might have miles more of walking to do. There weren't any houses visible, no lights in the distance. Damn it!
But then, suddenly, there were lights where there had been none before. Two of them, along with the roar of a car's engine.
Oh, shit. Someone was coming!
The black car sped over the hill so fast I hardly had time to react. I jumped out of the vehicle's way just in time to avoid being run over.
Into the bushes I rolled, wincing as I landed in a thorny bush. Back on the road, tires squealed as the driver came to an abrupt stop.
A hand grabbed my arm hard, pulled me out of the bush, and onto my feet.
“Let me go,” I spat, kicking against the man's strength. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“You escaped? I'm... impressed.”
I stopped fighting. That voice, it was...
“Alec? What? I don't understand.”
He stood behind me, mostly cloaked in darkness, but it was without a doubt him. There was no hint of kindness or warmth in him anymore. Fear pierced my soul when he stared into my eyes. He squeezed my arm tightly.
“Get in the car, Ceci.”
I tried to punch him, but it was pointless. He stopped the incoming blow with ease, opened the back door of his car, and threw me in. I flailed at the handle, but the door was already locked.
As he sank into the driver's seat and revved the engine, I began to cry.
“You're the one who grabbed me back at school?”
He nodded. “That's right.”
“Why?” I screamed and kicked his seat with all my might. “What are you going to do with me? Is this why you kept trying to get in my pants – trying to get me to drop my guard so you could kidnap me?”
