by Winters, KB
In an effort to intimidate me, I guessed, he pulled out three different guns, one from his ankle, his waistband and one holstered by his ribs. Then, as calmly as you please, he sat at a table by the window and began to clean them.
I snorted at him. “Then you have a higher opinion of women than I do of men because nothing any of you motherfuckers do can ever surprise me.”
The latest shock was Dad and his secret life that involved the mob or the mafia—what was the difference anyway?
“Really?” He snorted his disbelief. “Because I saw you two this morning outside your apartment and to me, you looked like two people falling in love.”
“Like you know what love is.”
He frowned and took a break from cleaning his guns. “Don’t judge me by my work. We all have to make a living lady.”
Who was this guy kidding? I rolled my eyes and leaned back, trying to get comfortable tied to a chair with my head throbbing along with my cheek.
“I’m sorry Mr. Kidnapper and Abuser of Women. Please tell me your philosophies on love.”
He smiled again. “I like you, blondie. And I will tell you because you need to hear it.”
“Really, I don’t. Love isn’t my thing.”
“Bullshit.”
The grin he wore took the sting off his words. “I saw you two this morning, and I heard the way he clenched his teeth over the phone, hard enough to turn them to dust. And if you really didn’t mean a thing to him, he woulda hung up right away.”
What the hell had happened to my life that I was taking relationship advice from a thug cleaning his guns while I was tied to a chair?
“Why bother giving me false hope if you’re only going to kill me?”
I was done with talking to this asshole. I was done with talking period. I turned my head away from him and stared at a crack in the wall, wondering how many other people had been tied to chairs here. How many other people had stared at that crack without realizing it was the last thing they’d ever see?
“Don’t ignore me, Layla.”
“Stop saying my name like you know me. You don’t.”
“Oh, but I do.” He grinned and went back to his guns. “You think you’re gonna be the woman who changes Eamon.”
“Wrong.”
“I’ve seen plenty of women like you over the years,” he said again and shook his head. “Guys like him don’t change.”
“Good, because I’m not trying to change anyone.” It wasn’t my job to change anyone, least of all someone so entrenched in this life. He was who he was, and I fell for him anyway, dummy that I was.
“You don’t strike me as a good time girl.”
“I’m not,” I told him angrily because there was no way in hell I would tell him what I was actually doing with Eamon. “But I am a sucker for a beautiful man so I figured a guy like Eamon was perfect.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because my heart was never in any danger with a player like him.”
If only I realized that a lot sooner.
“If you say so.” Bright red eyebrows arched in disbelief and I shrugged.
“I don’t need you to believe me, not when I’ll be dead soon anyway.” There, I’d said it out loud, the thing I feared the most. The thing that was looking more and more inevitable and I’d just blurted it out like an idiot.
“I might not kill you.”
I didn’t bother looking at him because I knew he was lying. I just wondered if he’d kill me before or after Eamon showed up.
Chapter Thirty
Eamon
Patrick sat in his usual spot behind his desk with his hands folded neatly, his eyes inscrutable. “And how exactly do you know this girl, son?” he asked me.
I nodded at him to buy some time as I gathered my thoughts. Shae, Rourke and Patrick all looked at me expectantly. “She is someone I spend time with on occasion.”
It wasn’t the whole truth and the skeptical look on Patrick’s face said he knew it.
“She’s also the daughter of Peter Michaels.” I added.
“Goddammit Eamon!” My father shouted, slapping his hand on his desk. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, when will you ever learn?”
“I know, I know. But she has nothing to do with the business. Hell, she’s not even my girlfriend.” I knew I had to walk a fine line between downplaying our relationship while also encouraging the family to help me save her.
Rourke pushed off the wall and stood beside me with both arms crossed over his chest. “If she’s not special to you, why are we even talking about her?”
Shae glared at our cousin, who had a lot more of Patrick in him than anyone wanted to admit. “I can’t believe you just said that shit. You want to let an innocent woman die for what, to show the fucking Milanos that we’re not afraid of them?”
Shae shook his head, anger transforming his boyish features to the man he was on his way to becoming. “Fuck that noise. We ought to take this opportunity to end those motherfuckers once and for all.”
Patrick rocked slowly in his chair, his movements as deliberate as his silence. “I agree with Shae but we have to be smart. This is the perfect opportunity to make an example of them.”
I agreed, but all I could think about was Layla getting caught up in the middle of our shit.
“That’s great but they’re not taking Layla to The Kinky Elephant, which is where I’m supposed to meet Rico.”
“You’re not showing up for that meeting.” Patrick’s expression was ruthless, and I didn’t argue.
“We need to find out where they’re keeping the girl,” Rourke offered quietly. “If we get her while they’re waiting on you, then we get the advantage. They’ll still think they have leverage, but we’ll know better.”
Patrick grinned his proud grin and nodded. “Exactly. How do we find out where she is?”
Shae leaned over and held his hand out to me. “Give me your phone. I have a guy who can do this for us.”
“You do? Since when does my kid brother have connections I know nothing about?”
“Hell, yeah. Can’t run an organization like ours without a couple tech geniuses in the back pocket.” I handed him the phone with a heavy sigh.
“We’ll have a hit on her location in less than five minutes,” Shae said and left the room with a whistle.
“It makes me happy to see you three boys working as a team,” Patrick said, cracking the first warm smile of the meeting. “It’s my greatest dream for the future of this family.”
His gaze swung from me to Rourke and back to me. “In the future Eamon, keep a closer eye on your women.”
“Who in the hell knew the Milanos were ready to make a move? Last I heard, they’d just set up a few gaming lounges. Recently.”
“You should always expect a little cockroach to try and become a bigger cockroach by taking out the biggest of the bunch. It is the nature of cockroaches. They want more than they deserve. More than they are capable of handling.”
Rourke nodded his agreement. “This has the younger Milanos written all over it, Uncle. They took his woman …”
“Not my woman,” I corrected unnecessarily because Rourke ignored me.
“And they didn’t even ask for terms other than a meeting. Fucking amateurs.”
“It doesn’t matter which Milano the threat comes from,” Patrick assured us. “Now they will all pay for their hubris.”
Shae strode back in with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Good news. Your girl or at least her phone is at a shitty by the hour motel about two miles away from The Kinky Elephant.”
“That was fast,” Patrick commented, sounding impressed with his youngest boy.
“The dumbass left the phone on, which made our job easy as hell. We need to keep your phone on Eamon, so we can check in to make sure it’s not on the move.”
I snapped my head and looked around the room at my family. The three men closest to me who hadn’t hesitated to jump in and help me play the hero.
“Go
t it. Now, does anyone have any ideas how we get these bastards?”
Patrick cleared his throat and we all turned to him. “The goal here is two-fold. We get the girl first and then we end the Milano family. We end them,” he reiterated. “Got it?”
“Got it,” we all said at the same time
“Good. Now I expect you three to come up with a plan to save the girl and put this Milano headache to rest.”
Patrick’s heavy gaze landed on each of us, the weight of his expectation heavy on our shoulders. “Come back when you have a plan that can work.”
We had our orders and left Patrick alone in his office and ended up in our favorite room in the house, the game room, to plan. We all headed straight for the felt-covered pool table, where I racked the balls while Rourke and Shae prepared their sticks. It had been the same since we were kids who didn’t have the strength to put a ball into a pocket.
Shae spoke up first. “Hear me out before you say no,” he said with caution. Before saying anything else, he bent over the pool table and hit the cue ball with a deafening crack. “I’ll go in and get, what’s her name?”
“Layla,” I offered reluctantly because the thought of anyone else putting their hands on Layla, rescuing her, left a bad taste in my mouth.
“Right. I’ll go in and get Layla while E-money meets with Rico as though nothing is wrong. We’ll have a few guys in place as backup for you because there is no fucking way in hell there won’t be a Milano or two hanging around.”
I glanced at my watch. Ten fifteen, which meant we had a little more than an hour to get our shit together. Rourke sighed. “And what the hell am I supposed to do, Shae? Stay here and work on some spreadsheets?”
Shae barked out a laugh and easily sank his final green ball and then the black one before he rolled his pool stick onto the table and crossed his arms. “Not unless you have some quarterly reports or some shit to take care of. I was thinking you’d be our logistics guy. Watch the motel from a strategic angle and let us know what’s going on so we can act accordingly.”
“Shit, that’s brilliant,” I said. Relief poured out of me in a loud exhale. “Let’s work it out now and then take it to Patrick.” With a plan in place, my anxiety had abated. Some.
Chapter Thirty-One
Layla
Considering that I’d been kidnapped, tied to a chair, and beaten, I felt surprisingly calm. Fearless almost, in fact. Maybe it was because I’d spent the past hour thinking about my own mortality, about how much lower Dad would sink once I was gone. About the fact that I’d be dead in the morning and by evening Eamon would likely have someone else sucking his dick.
Neither thought was very helpful as I sat alone in the dark motel room, but as far as I’d come in my life, it turned out, I was no different than generations of women who cared about the men in their lives more than they did about themselves.
It was a pathetic thing to figure out about myself when I had less than an hour to live, but at least I wouldn’t die lying to myself.
The knob on the outside door turned and I dropped my head so it hung limp like I was sleeping. If the sweaty goon meant to do more than kill me, I’d have to catch him by surprise if I stood a chance in hell of getting out of this mess alive. A chance that grew slimmer by the minute.
“Wake up!” he barked.
I stayed where I was, slowly counting to four on every inhale and exhale to mimic the deep breathing associated with being asleep.
“Hey, I said wake up!”
He kicked my chair and I couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped at the impact.
Another laugh sounded, from a new voice.
“Damn, that Eamon Connelly has excellent taste in women, she is one fine piece of ass.”
“Hands off, Angelo. Remember Lorenzo’s orders.”
“Chill, Rico. I’m just having a little fun. You havin’ fun sweetheart?”
The other guy sounded slick and arrogant, like someone who rarely had to face the consequences of his action.
“I’m talking to you, bitch,” he said and his voice filled me with revulsion.
“There’s only one bitch in here and I’m looking right at him.” Okay, it wasn’t my smartest move but at that point I didn’t have much to lose anyway.
The other man, Angelo, lunged forward but the sweaty guy, Rico, grabbed at him and his thick black hair fell over one eye.
“Just give me five minutes alone with this bitch, Rico. Five minutes and I’ll teach her how she’s supposed to talk to a man.”
I snorted a laugh. “If you find any men let me know.” Okay, now I’d gone batshit nuts.
Angelo slipped free of Rico’s sweaty grasp, raised his hand and lowered a backhand on the same damn cheek Rico had hit earlier. It hurt like a son of a bitch but I only let out a small groan, refusing to give him the satisfaction.
“Good thing you’re wearing your mother’s best jewelry or I might have thought it was a bitch hitting me.”
He lunged again but Rico stepped between us, which I was grateful for since a small stream of blood trickled down the side of my throbbing face.
“Cool it, Angelo,” Rico hissed, “or I’ll knock you the fuck out.”
“Yeah on whose authority?”
Rico’s shoulders straightened and he spit out, “Lorenzo’s. He has a plan so don’t fuck it up. Or do and you’ll be the one paying the price, not me.”
The phone in Rico’s hand, my phone, rang, startling us all. But it ended the fight when Angelo snatched it away.
“Eamon Connelly, what a surprise.”
Eamon? Why was he calling when he was supposed to show up in twenty or thirty minutes? The answer stared me right in the face even as I refused to believe it. He wasn’t coming and I was definitely going to die tonight.
My eyes were glued to Angelo’s frowning face in search of any information I could get about my fate.
“What the fuck do you mean you’re not coming? You don’t show up and your bitch is dead.”
Whatever he said, I couldn’t hear and for that much I was glad.
“No, meet us at The Kinky Elephant.”
The rest of the conversation was lost to me and I hadn’t decided if it was good or bad when Angelo tossed my phone across the room.
“That motherfucker! If he thinks he can disrespect me and my family, he’s got another fucking thing coming!”
“Think.”
Angelo glared at me. “What the fuck did you just say to me, bitch?”
“I said think. The phrase is ‘another think coming’, not another thing, Einstein.”
He lunged again and Rico was there once again.
“Enough, Angelo! What did he say?”
“The fucker said he wasn’t coming. That he’d catch up with you another time.”
Angelo peeked around Rico and grinned. “Too bad for you sweetheart, because I’ve got serious plans for that hot little body.”
“Fuck!” Rico said and he began to pace, acting as a barrier between me and Angelo the psychopath.
“We’ll just have to dump her body, bloody and beaten, on his fucking doorstep,” Angelo suggested with a disgusting sneer.
“No. He’s coming, I know it.” Rico stopped pacing and looked from me to Angelo. “He’s coming here.”
Eamon was coming here? For me?
Angelo laughed. “Even better. With all the men we have, he’ll be dead before he even makes it to the door. You weren’t dumb enough to tell him where you are, were you?”
Rico gave him a dirty look. “I’m not the fuckup here, Angelo so no, I didn’t tell him a goddamn thing.”
“Then why are you so sure he’s coming here?”
Angelo’s expression went from laughing and carefree to deadly serious. “You’re not trying to screw over my family are you? Because you know what we do to rats.”
“I don’t owe your family a fucking thing, Angelo. You pay for a service and I provide it. Letting you and your fucking nephew tag along wasn’t part of the dea
l, so next time you threaten me, I’ll drive a nail through both of your fucking eyes.”
A long tense moment passed between the men, a silent pissing contest where Rico seemed to emerge as the winner.
“Whatever,” Angelo grumbled and stormed out of the motel room, slamming the door behind him.
Rico let out a sigh and turned to face me, pointing a big meaty finger at my face. “Don’t try to kick or bite me. I won’t kill you but I will make you hurt. Got it?”
I nodded, my mouth instantly dry.
“Good.”
When Rico stepped behind me and hoisted me and the chair in the air, I took the opportunity to look around the room in search of a weapon or another escape. My gaze fell on a plain white shower curtain. So I’d found the bathroom.
“Kind of hard to go to the bathroom with my arms tied to the chair.”
Rico grunted a laugh. “If you have to piss, hold it or don’t, but you’re not getting out of that chair.”
He gave me one last angry look, turned out the light and slammed the door behind him.
A second too late I found my voice. “Hey! Where are you going? You can’t leave me in…” the sound of another door opening and shutting, taking the last of my hope with it. “… here.”
Then I heard voices outside. Male voices. Talking so quietly I couldn’t make out the words.
Wait. What was that? A window sliding open? A startled gasp flew out of me, because Rico had left me in darkness. What now? Or more likely, who now? I wanted to call out for help, but fear had lodged in my throat and stopped me. What if Angelo had decided he didn’t care what Rico’s orders were and had come back for me? I decided to stay as quiet as possible, trying to hear what was happening.
I held my breath, listening carefully as wood scraped against wood and the bathroom window opened, letting more night sounds inside.
Then a grunt, along with a crashing noise came from behind the closed shower curtain, and I sucked in a silent scream and waited for my fate to unfold.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Eamon
“All right guys, Rico just exited room 119. Bottom floor, corner room.” Rourke’s voice rang out clear and crisp in my ear piece, doing fuck all to calm my nerves.
