by Anne Jolin
“There’s a black sedan outside the gate. Get to it. You have three minutes.”
I can feel my heart beating in my throat now and my knees are shaking. The world around me seems to slow down, like the way things move under water. My brain searching every option before my feet start to move.
“And, Beth?”
“Yes?” I gasp.
“I know that piece-of-shit Irish asshole is there. If I even think you’ve told him, I slit her fucking throat,” he promises before the line goes dead.
Standing there, looking into the living room of people, I shed a tear. Only one.
Forty seconds.
I check my watch again, my legs going numb underneath me as my bare feet pound the pavement.
Thirty seconds.
I still don’t see the fucking gate.
Twenty-five seconds.
I’m going to get my fucking sister and her baby killed.
Twenty seconds.
Thank god. I round the last corner on the steep driveway and see the cast-iron gates ahead of me.
Fifteen seconds.
When I get closer, I see the black sedan idling just a few feet on the other side.
Ten seconds.
I punch the code in, and the metal swings open.
Five seconds.
Yanking on the handle to the back seat of the car, I pull it open. Empty. But as my hands close around the handle to the front door, my vision goes black.
There’s a sound. I can’t quite make out what it is, but it’s repetitive, lulling. I try to open my eyes, but my head roars in protest. I’ve never had a migraine, but I imagine this feeling is something similar. The back of my hair feels wet, but when I try to touch it, nothing happens. My arms won’t move. I shiver. Wherever I am, it’s cold. Something loud roars, drowning out the steady lull of the other sound.
Where’s Hannah? I will my brain to panic. In response, my consciousness fades into blackness again.
The lulling is back, but it’s more distinct now. Crash. Crash. Crash. I struggle to fill my lungs with air, but there’s something in my mouth choking me. When I finally manage to breathe through my nose, I’m immediately assaulted by the smell of salt, but it’s more diluted than that. Sea water.
My head is hanging, my chin resting on my chest, and my whole body is aching now. Fluttering once, twice... On the third try, my eyes finally open. I wince the second I lift my head. It feels like it’s splitting in two.
The room is dark and cold. There are fishing gear and snorkeling equipment in the far corner. Combining that with the sound of waves crashing outside, I’d guess were in a boat shed of sorts.
Surveying my situation, I swallow panic. My arms and legs are duct-taped to wood chair. My mouth is gagged by cloth that smells disgusting.
Glancing down, I check the watch on my wrist again. My vision is still blurry, but it looks like it says three fifteen. It’s still daylight and my best guess is I’ve been missing for ninety minutes.
I’ve nearly gathered my bearings, and I can finally hear soft crying coming from the chair next to me. There, on a chair just like mine, is my nine-months-pregnant baby sister.
My eyes widen when I see her, and she shakes her head when I try to mumble. It’s useless. She can’t understand anything I’m saying.
Tears stream down her beautiful, catching themselves on her gag, and I fight the bile rising in my stomach when I see the dress covering her belly. It’s soaked.
My eyes go wild with rage and I pray to God that isn’t what I think it is.
“How nice of you to join us, Betty,” I hear Kyle coo behind me as he flicks the light switch on.
I fight against my restraints, spitting fire into my gag as the anger inside me boils over.
He finally comes into my line of vision, and just seeing him sends my body into another fit. This time, my chair tips and my shoulder connects with the hard floor. It hurts like a motherfucker, and I bite down on the cloth in my mouth to keep from screaming at the pain.
My chair’s yanked up from the floor and placed back on its legs, but when I look up to see Kyle still standing in front of me, my mind whirls.
“You’re a feisty little bitch, aren’t you?” the person who lifted my chair snaps from behind me.
I know that voice. I’ve heard it before.
I fight against my memory to place it, but I don’t have to for long because he leans around from behind me and kisses my cheek. That’s all of his face I need to see to know who one of my kidnappers is.
“It’s too bad you’re such a vengeful cunt,” he hisses, trailing a finger down over the swell of my breasts. “’Cause I bet I could fuck you senseless.” He pauses. “In fact, maybe I will.”
I snap my head backwards, hearing the sound of what I imagine is his nose breaking.
“Fuck!” the man behind me roars, grabbing my throbbing skull by the hair and yanking it backwards. “For that, I’m going to fuck you while you watch your sister bleed out on the floor.”
My eyes widen, and he pushes my head forward before moving over to stand behind Hannah. I thrash around again when he swipes the hair off her neck with a knife.
“It’s too bad your pretty sister is going to die because you’re a nosy slut,” he cackles as he trails the tip of the blade down her jawline.
Nosy. Vengeful. My mind races to place situations to those words but falls short. I’ve only met him a handful of times.
“Dad, enough!” Kyle whines like a spoiled brat. “Do what you want with the pregnant whore, but she’s mine.” He points to me. “Untouched.”
Kyle Nathaniel Davis the second comes to stand beside his son before backhanding him across the face. “The only reason you have her is because of me, so shut your mouth, you ungrateful little bastard.”
I steal a sideways glance at Hannah, whose eyes are rolling back into her head.
No. No. No. Fuck.
I check the watch again. Three forty-five.
Please don’t let this be for nothing. Please.
Squatting down in front of me, Kyle Senior pulls the gag from my mouth. “Tell me what they know.”
They? What the fuck?
“Tell me, cunt!” he roars, moving the blade of his knife up the inside of my thigh. “Tell me and maybe I won’t kill you.”
He’s lying. There’s no way in hell we’re walking out of here alive if it’s up to him.
Spitting in his face, I seethe. “No wonder your son is a psychopath. It’s fucking genetic.”
Digging the blade in enough to break the skin, he leans forward before wiping his face with the sleeve of his coat. “You’ll wish it had been him when I’m done with you.”
“You’re pathetic,” I hiss.
I’m taunting him now, which is either the stupidest thing I’ve ever done or the smartest.
Just a little longer.
I glance at the watch again.
Kyle Senior’s eyes drop to the gold shining on my left wrist before dragging his eyes back to mine. The hate looking back at me is unmeasurable. He quickly moves the knife and I shut my eyes, bracing myself for impact. Instead, I hear the rip of duct tape.
“What the fuck is this?” he accuses, yanking the watch from my arm.
“It’s a watch. What the fuck does it look like?” Kyle snaps back at his dad.
Grabbing his son by the throat, he waves the watch in his face. “Did you happen to notice that is two sizes bigger than her fucking wrist, you idiot?”
Dropping the watch to the floor, Kyle Senior slams the heel of his boot down on it before picking it up again, and his son’s eyes widen when he’s sees the still-flashing light.
“You can’t do fucking anything right!” the older man shouts, gripping his sons throat tighter.
Kyle’s lips are starting to go blue as he claws at his father’s hands. He finally lands a sloppy punch to his dad’s stomach.
I scramble with my free hand to remove the tape from my other wrist, but it’s not working. The
n I look at my sister again. She’s completely comatose now, only the rise and fall of her chest letting me know she’s still alive.
The two men are struggling with each other, shouting and cursing as they stumble around the shed. Kyle charges his father, his arms swinging as he tries to land another punch, and as he gets closer, I see his mistake. Just as his fist collides with its intended target, his father’s knife slices into his abdomen.
I scream.
It’s like one of those screams you have in a nightmare. The kind where you can’t even hear it.
Kyle’s body slides to the floor, his hands covering the wound as his shirt soaks in blood.
“Fuck!” his dad hisses, kicking over the table beside him. “You fucking idiot!” he yells over the stilling form of his son.
“You killed him,” I whisper out loud.
The volatile man turns his body, which is now covered in the blood of his son, towards me. “You!” he snaps, pointing the knife at me. “This is all your fault.” He’s completely unhinged. Tears are streaming down his face, his eyes void of anything by homicidal rage. “You just couldn’t walk away, could you? Vengeful bitch!” He twirls the knife around in the air. “You couldn’t have my son, so you thought you’d take us all down with you?”
My mind is racing, but still, I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“I’ll lose everything!” he shouts, kicking over my chair.
I land on the same shoulder as before and cry out.
“And now, so will you,” he grins, lifting the knife above his head.
I close my eyes.
This is it.
“Motherfucker!” Brax roars from out of nowhere.
My eyes spring open in time to see him tackle Kyle Senior to the floor. He smashes the hand with the knife in it repeatedly against the floor until the blade skitters away.
I claw at the tape on my other wrist and thrash on the floor as I watch them.
“I got you, love,” Frank says, kneeling down beside me.
This is when I notice the other men in the room. Aside from Brax and Frank, there are the three men who helped me move and Greyson.
“Hannah!” I gasp as I watch Greyson working on her on the floor.
The sound of glass breaking causes my attention to ripple back to Brax. He’s on top of the other man, his fist cracking into his face over and over again. He’s morphed fully into the devil inside himself and he won’t stop.
The hands that were once gripping Brax’s shirt fall limply to the floor. He rears his fist back again and I scramble over the glass, grabbing on to his arm with everything I have.
“Brax, no! Please!” I plead with him.
He stills at my voice, wild, grey eyes moving from the still man on the floor to me.
“These are the hands that will hold our children someday,” I choke out. “You don’t want to hold our babies with hands that will have his blood on them.” I kiss each of his knuckles just like I did after his last fight. “Brax, please. Don’t do it.”
His whole body is convulsing, his fist still vibrating in my hands.
“I love you,” I sob. “I can’t live without you.”
That’s it. The moment he comes back to me.
After rolling off Kyle Senior’s body, he pulls me into his lap on the floor, cupping my face in his hands as the faint sound of sirens fills the background.
“Are you okay, babe?”
Crashing my lips onto his, I wrap my arms around his neck, pouring everything I have into our kiss before resting my forehead on his. “I am now.”
“I love you,” he says as if it’s more of a promise, the aftershocks of his rage still rippling through his body.
“Thank you for saving me, Cinderella.”
“Always.”
“ARE YOU READY to give your statement, Miss Rhodes?” the detective in front of me asks.
I nod and Brax’s arms tighten around me.
Hannah was taken by medevac to Vancouver General Hospital. Her water had broken from the stress, and they were now prepping her for an emergency C-section. I sit curled in Brax’s lap. I haven’t left his arms since they found us in the hospital waiting room along with all of our friends.
The detective leads us to an empty room, gesturing for us to sit as he closed the door. Brax sinks into the chair before allowing me to resume my position in his lap.
“Whenever you’re ready,” the man says gently.
Swallowing my nerves, I do my best to recount today’s events. I explain getting the phone call. “He said I had three minutes and that, if I alerted Frank, he would slit Hannah’s throat. I didn’t have a lot of time. The gate is almost halfway down the driveway, but I also knew there was a good chance he’d kill us.” I pause when I feel Brax start to shake underneath me. Slipping my hand into his, I squeeze to let him know I’m okay. “Frank, Braxton’s driver, is ex-military, special weapons. He joked one night that he’d never need a shoe to find Cinderella.”
The detective furrows his brow.
“Braxton,” I correct. “Because he had something better. It was shiny like a shoe but twice as expensive and far more effective—a watch. It had been programmed with GPS so that, at large functions, Frank would be able to track Brax’s whereabouts without having to be next to him at all times. I took the chance after the call and bolted upstairs to find the watch. I almost didn’t make it to the gate in time.”
The detective scribbles onto his notepad before nodding. “That was incredibly smart of you, miss. I know this is hard, but please proceed when you’re ready.”
It takes me another half hour to explain, in detail, the subsequent hours following my abduction. Then the police fill me in on the missing details.
The driver of the car service Brax hired to pick up Hannah was assaulted outside his home. Kyle Senior, posing as the driver, picked up Hannah from her house, bringing her via a short boat ride to the shed, where we were found on Sea Sechelt. He then placed the call to the house phone, luring me outside.
Kyle Junior was the one to hit me over the head with a crowbar and deliver me to the boat shed.
Turns out, while my ex-boyfriend had been the one stalking me with love notes, it’s his father who had broken into my house. Unbeknownst to me, Brax and Frank had been looking into the Davis family in an attempt to find proof that would keep Kyle Junior behind bars. What they didn’t know was that Kyle Senior had been using his investment company to siphon money from his clients. When he was alerted to the men poking around in his financials, he panicked.
He was working under some deranged conclusion that I had a personal vendetta against his family because his son ‘didn’t want me’ anymore. That I was working in cahoots with a local millionaire just to bring him down. That, coupled with his already unstable mental capacity, is what led him to the kidnapping.
The police confirm that they believe he had no intention of letting us go. He manipulated his son’s obsession with me to get him to agree to help.
The evidence is insurmountable against Kyle Senior, especially with Hannah’s and my eye witness statements. Kyle Junior, however, was unable to corroborate anything. Although he was breathing when paramedics arrived on scene, he was pronounced DOA en route to the hospital due to excessive blood loss.
They imagine that the death of her son at the hands of her husband will encourage Mrs. Davis to testify against her husband in court.
Brax broke nearly a dozen bones in Kyle Senior’s face, but no criminal charges will be pressed against him.
As I had hoped, upon realizing I was missing, Frank checked every available avenue and, eventually, the watch’s GPS. When he alerted the authorities, his team of three men, along with Greyson and Braxton, mobilized immediately. After commandeering a local fishing boat off the pier, they were able to find us.
Promising that they would be in touch if they need anything else, the detective assures us that it is a ‘slam dunk’ case. And Kyle Nathanial Davis the second will be spending
the remainder of his life in prison, serving for multiple charges, not the least of which is the murder of his own son.
“I was so scared,” Brax whispers, burying his head into my neck. “I can’t lose you.”
Lifting my arm, bandaged wrists and all, I run my fingers through his hair. “You won’t. It’s over.”
“He deserves to die,” he growls.
Lifting his head, I cradle is between my hands. “Not at the expense of your life,” I say sternly. “Not at the expense of our life together. He won’t run that moment for us.”
He smiles as I repeat one of his lines from our first week together. Then he hangs his head again. “I feel like this is all my fault.”
Looking into his grey eyes, I show him all the love behind mine. “As terrifying as it was, I wouldn’t trade a single moment of what I went through with Kyle for anything in the world.”
He looks pissed, so I press a finger to his lips so he’ll allow me to finish.
“If I’d never met the villain in my fairytale, I’d have never found my Prince Charming.”
“Babe, I’m hardly a Prince Charming,” he argues.
“No, that’s right,” I grin at him. “You’re the princess in this story, and I wouldn’t trade you for the world, Cinderella.”
One of the worst days of our lives quickly becomes one of the best. At eight eleven in the night, we welcome baby Addison Bethany Holt to the world. She weighs in at seven pounds, thirteen ounces, and she’s the most precious thing I’ve ever held.
Greyson proposes to Hannah right there in the middle of the hospital room, with their sweet baby girl in his arms. She is still frozen from the neck down when he slides the ring on her finger, but there isn’t a dry eye in the house.
We’ve all been to hell and back today, but sometimes it’s easiest to see the light when you’ve just come from the dark.
We are whole. We are safe.
There isn’t anything else I could possibly want. Well, on second thought, maybe there is one thing.
As I walk through the front door to our house, my eyes skitter over the forgotten baby shower decorations that litter nearly the entire downstairs.
