Dino (Glass City Hearts Book 2)

by Desiree Lafawn

  “Not only do I know where Gabriella lives, but I also know the little hidey-hole you have her stashed in now,” David said as he licked his lips with a grin. “And now I’m going to go collect my poor, confused fiancé.” He leaned down close to my face and even though I tried to turn away from him, he used the barrel of the gun to keep me facing him. “I am going to erase every place that you touched her, by showing her who owns her over and over and over again. Right here, in front of you, so neither of you forget. Then I’ll kill you, in front of her, and everything will go back to normal.”

  The urge to vomit at what his words implicated was becoming stronger than the pain of the bullet wound in my shoulder. Or maybe adrenaline and shock were dulling the injury. I don’t know, but I did know I would rather die than let him have her again. He wouldn’t touch her, not while I lived.

  David handed the gun to Justin, who took it from him with a look of horror painted on his face. That poor numbnuts had no idea what he signed up for when he called David to tell him he saw someone that looked like Gabriella. His hero worship had changed into a healthy case of “I didn’t sign up for this shit” fear.

  “If he tries to get away, shoot his other arm. If he keeps trying, shoot his legs. Keep him alive long enough for me to break Gabriella in front of him. I don’t really care what kind of condition he's in otherwise. Oh, and Justin? If he dies, or if he escapes, I’ll kill you too. So try to man up and do this thing, okay?”

  Justin was almost weeping, but he took the gun from David anyway and his hand was steady as he kept it pointed at me. David walked past me on his way to the door until he changed his mind and came back. “You should never have touched her,” he said as he bent low. I felt his hands at my waist for a brief moment before he pulled his leg back and kicked me in the ribs as hard as he could.

  I tried not to give him the satisfaction of making a sound, but my ribs weren’t listening and at least one cracked under the pressure.

  I saw something metallic swinging from David’s fingertips as he strolled by Gordon slumped in half by the door and I recognized the BMW logo tucked between his pinky and thumb.

  That motherfucker had lifted my keys. He was going to roll up to that apartment in my car. Jeanette, no!

  I squeezed my eyes shut to try and focus. Ten seconds went by, breathe, Dino. Twenty seconds, ignore the pain. Thirty seconds, “Justin,” I opened my eyes and pinned the nervous man with a look of desperation. “You gotta let me go, he’s going to hurt her really bad.”

  “I didn’t want any of this,” he whined, but still had the gun trained on me with no sign of it wavering. “I didn’t know he was this messed up, no one did.”

  “Well now you do, and he’s going to kill her if you don’t let me out of here. At least let me get my phone and call someone to help her. Can I do that?” I slowly started reaching into my pocket.

  “No,” he shouted, and I froze before my hand could grab my phone. “If I let you do any of that, he’ll kill me too.”

  “Look at all the bodies on the floor, man,” I shouted, all shreds of patience draining from my body like the blood from the wound in my arm. “He’s gonna kill us all anyway. We’re already dead. She doesn’t have to be. Fucking nut up and save a life, you dick.”

  This time the gun that went off made a much louder boom, and a much bigger hole in the middle of Justin’s chest. He sank to the ground with a look of surprise on his face, dead before he hit the floor.

  What the fuck is this shit with all the goddamn guns?

  I couldn’t get up yet, just kind of rolled over to my side and looked across the floor. Gordon was sitting against the wall, his legs out in front of him and a large red stain on his side. His gun was in his hand, but it was pointed towards the floor as he lacked the strength to keep it lifted.

  “Fucking-a Gordon,” the words came out on a wheeze, but I’d never been so grateful for an assist in all my life. I staggered to my knees, and then to my feet, my arm a deadweight against my side, but at least standing, the blood wasn’t pouring out of the wound anymore. Just kind of sluggishly oozing. Looking at it made my stomach turn so I just tried to ignore it. The smell of burned skin though, that was harder to ignore.

  I stumbled over to where Gordon sat, bleeding out against the wall.

  “Get the hell out of here, kid, take my car. The keys are under the visor.” Of course, they were. Criminals weren’t overly worried about their shit getting stolen apparently. I pulled out my phone to call an ambulance, he was living, he still had a chance.

  “Put that away, Dino. I’ve only got a few minutes left, maybe. If I’m lucky I’ll be gone before you get to the parking lot. I’m an old, bad guy, Dino. Bad guys aren’t supposed to live to be old. I’m tired and I don’t want to do this anymore. Just leave me here and get going, this fits.”

  I didn’t need to be told twice, that dick fuck had a head start on me and he could move a hell of a lot faster than I could, what with him having been the only one in the room not shot. Hurry hurry, I chanted as I dragged myself down the hall, get in the car. Which fucking one was Gordon’s car again? Oh yeah, the black Town Car. Old school gangster car with the tinted windows and everything. Last time I was in this car I was helping those dumbasses kidnap Angel. I had to laugh to myself at the memory, haha fun times.

  Blood loss was making me stupid, even if I got to the apartment right behind David, I was in no condition to rescue her by myself. Fuck, I would be lucky if I was able to drive there without passing out. I got to the car and flipped the visor down, the keys falling directly into my lap as promised. My left arm was useless, so I had to make the phone call before I could even put the keys in the ignition.

  “Gabe,” I said, as soon as the call connected. I didn’t even wait for him to say hello. “I need your help, man.”

  15

  Jeanette

  I’d dreamed that he’d said it back to me. And even knowing it was just a dream, it helped me feel better about my fabulous blunder from the night before. That, and when I woke up to his cold side of the empty bed, I knew it was only temporary because I found his message on my phone seconds later.

  Gotta work. Be back later. I want my hug.

  Was hug a code word for sex? Because last time he asked for one that was not what happened. I smiled at the memory anyway. Even though the events over the last few days were scary, it was somehow less so because I had people now. I had Gabe and Angel who believed me. I had Dino who trusted me with his secrets over anyone else. It may not have been much in the grand scheme of things but to me it was a big deal.

  Life-altering, big fucking deal.

  So I had hope. Hope that Dino would be able to do what he had so confidently said he was going to do. Handle David and deal with Chaz Malone. Then we would all be able to live happily ever after and I wouldn’t have to change my name again and move far away.

  Okay that sounded like a fairy tale even to me. The reality was much more terrifying and difficult to navigate, but at least now I wasn’t desperate. I wasn’t cowering. I was allowing myself the hope that everything would be all right, even if it wasn’t. I hadn’t had that before.

  I’d declined the lunch date extended to me by the girls downstairs, as I had started referring to them in my head. They said they’d won the free lunch coupon to a new restaurant opening on the old west end from someone advertising in the neighborhood. Jolene said they had been on an afternoon stroll at the time. I giggled remembering how Jolene had said the word “stroll.” They were probably casing the neighborhood and watching the neighbors most likely. I probably would have enjoyed lunch with Jolene and Gerta, but I wasn’t supposed to leave the apartment. I felt bad turning them down, but I couldn’t afford to be seen right now. And I didn’t know when that would change.

  But I wouldn’t be lonely, because Dino was coming back over. And I’m sure Gabe and Angel would be checking on me too, so there was really nothing to be worried about. But still, I couldn’t stop the chill that ran d
own my spine. I wouldn’t be safe until I knew David Ashley was gone, out of state, back to his hidey-hole in the sticks of upstate New York. Where he could go back to his small-town hero life and leave me the fuck alone.

  Almost as if he knew I was thinking about him, I saw a familiar flash drive past the large front window of Angel’s apartment and around the corner, presumably to the parking lot around back. Dino’s BMW. Shit, I needed to brush my teeth and my hair! At least I wasn’t still wearing my pajamas. I had rifled through the clothes that Angel had picked out and put on a pair of cute denim capris and a hunter green three-quarter length sleeve jersey knit shirt. It was soft, and comfortable, and I couldn’t wait to let Dino pull it off of me.

  Running to the bathroom for the fastest tooth brushing of my life, I had just gotten the toothpaste squeezed onto the brush when the buzzer to the apartment rang. I ran back out to the door and pushed the door entry button to let Dino into the building, and then hurriedly pushed the intercom button next to it.

  “Come on up – I’m in the bathroom.” I mumbled around the toothbrush that I had tucked into my cheek like a squirrel. Hopefully he understood that. I ran back to the bathroom and shut the door behind me. I wanted Dino to come into the apartment, he didn’t need to see me spitting toothpaste into the sink. Running my tongue over my teeth to check the quality of my rush job I was satisfied that they were squeaky clean. My hair had a little more static than I would have liked, but I didn’t have any of my spray oil with me. At least the chemical straightener was still doing its job, and my hair hung down in a glossy curtain.

  It would do.

  I smiled as I heard the knock on the bathroom door. Impatient much?

  “Hold your horses, Dino. Do you want your hug that ba-” The words turned to dust in my mouth and the world turned gray around the edges. I didn’t even have time to fill my lungs with air for a hearty scream when his hands closed around my throat.

  “Oh, Gabriella, I’ve missed you so much.”

  The boogeyman had found me in the middle of the day, and he had come here in Dino’s car. That meant that Dino had lost, and there was no one coming to save me.

  I was going to die.

  He hadn’t even hurt me yet, but I was sure of it. He had come here to kill me, because there was no way he could take me back to his home. How would he explain my absence? My name change? I was legally a completely different person than before. What was he planning on doing? And he was looking at me, huddled as far against the bathroom wall as I could press myself, with his hands lovingly caressing my throat, and the look in his eyes was complete adoration. David Ashley truly loved me. So much that he couldn’t let me go or let me love anyone else.

  David Ashley was going to love me to death.

  I was frozen in fear, so terrified I couldn’t even speak. I couldn’t even fight as he took me by the hand and let me out of the bathroom, halfway through the apartment and almost to the front door before I remembered that I was Jeanette motherfucking Clary and I had a choice. I pulled my hand out of his and took up my guard position, one foot slightly behind me, hands up to protect my face. Fuck you David, I won’t go anywhere.

  He laughed, a real laugh. I amused the shit out of him and didn’t that just piss me off! “Gabriella, what are you doing? Come on, it’s time to go.”

  “What did you do with Dino?” He didn’t like hearing that name, that’s for sure.

  “You can fucking forget that guy,” he said, finally letting a little bit of his true nature show. “He’s waiting where I left him, with a bloody hole in his arm. That’s what he gets for thinking he can touch what’s mine. I’ll put more holes in him too, but not until I show him how happy we are to be reunited.” And then he smiled, and it was the scariest smile I had ever seen, turning my blood to ice in my veins. So scared, I didn’t see his arm raise back, but the strength of the slap knocked me clean off my feet and onto my ass. I landed hard on my tailbone and pain exploded up my back.

  Funny thing about pain. You can either let it stop you in your tracks and paralyze you, or you can use it as fuel to push you forward. I’d already spent years frozen in place, but now? Now I was furious. Who was David Ashley to try and make me do anything? And what the hell had he done to Dino? I would kill him. Or die trying.

  David was looking down at me and smiling, happy to have me on the floor and seemingly under control again. And he had an erection too. So slapping me around is still what gets you hard, huh? So predictable.

  I cowered there on the floor a bit, needing a moment to get my thoughts together, and when I figured out my next move I let a little whimper out, just to hammer home my vulnerability. My ass and back burned like fire, but I was so damned pissed that I could rise above the pain. I just needed to get past David and out the door. If I got out the door I could haul ass down the stairs. And if I could get down the stairs, all I had to do was make it out the front door. And then I would be out in the open. This building was on a corner. Someone would see. That’s all I needed was for one person to see. This was the definitely the type of neighborhood where people would call the cops. And David Ashely was out of his jurisdiction. Fuck yeah.

  “Oh, Gabriella, I hate when you make me do that. You know I like it better when you just do what you’re told. Tsk-tsk,” he said as he leaned over with his arm extended to give me a hand up. Yeah, that’s why you have a boner after knocking me on my ass. Fuck. You.

  I didn’t say anything out loud though. No, I was too busy looking sorry as hell that I had dared defied him, just how he liked it. Just how I always had, because I’d had no other choice, because no one ever listened. No one ever believed me. Well things were different now, I didn’t need to rely on anyone else. I’d spent the last six years learning how to never take a beating from another man again. I learned how to protect myself. I also learned how to get back up when someone else had the upper hand.

  As he leaned over to reach for me I scooted back on my butt, just a little bit, enough to surprise him and catch him off guard as I lifted both legs straight off the ground and cracked him as hard as I could in his kneecaps. He folded like a fucking blanket and landed on his back, half on the kitchen linoleum and half on the living room carpet. Directly in the path of the apartment door.

  I sprang to my feet, and before he could roll over to his knees I planted my right foot square on his dick and used his shitty hard-on to launch myself over him, and when I hit the floor I kept on going until I got my hand on the knob. Turning, turning, slamming the door open so hard it bounced on the wall behind me.

  Level one – out the apartment door.

  He wouldn’t stay down, I knew it. There was no time to waste turning around to see if he was behind me. I knew he was. I could hear his feet pounding on the landing. Taking the steps two at a time I was halfway down when he hit me square in the back and we both went tumbling to the bottom floor. It wasn’t how I planned on getting there but -

  Level two – down the stairs.

  It didn’t even hurt, falling down that flight of stairs with the weight of a full-grown man on top of me. I didn’t have time to feel pain. And he didn’t have time to remember to be careful. Kneeling above me as I lay with my back on the ground he swore, “You fucking bitch. You asked for it, this is going to hurt.” And he pulled his arm back to punch me full in the face.

  But he missed because he’s a fucking idiot and was so mad he was starting to lose control. So I bucked my hips up as hard as I could to use that forward momentum and launched him off of me, over me, onto the ground behind me. I was up and sprinting for the door in a millisecond.

  Level three – out the front do- The hand that grabbed my hair twisted cruelly and pulled back so hard my legs flew out from under me and I came crashing down on my already injured tailbone. The fight went out of me for a moment as I completely succumbed to the pain, and the sobs ripped out of my throat unbidden. I had zero control. I was too stunned by the jarring pain to move. I could only lay on the ground staring at the
front door as it slid further and further away. Or rather as I slid further away, in the opposite direction.

  He was pulling me towards the back door. By my hair. To the parking lot that butted up against nothing but trees and shrubbery. A perfect secluded backyard for a half-filled apartment building full of elderly people. The perfect place to be abducted in privacy for me. No, I’d wanted the front door, not the back. Panic and desperation blew away the fog in my brain and I bucked up again, loosening his hold on my hair. As he let go I rolled quickly out of reach, making him swear again.

  “Goddamn it, Gabriella, stay still. If you would have just done what you were told I would have let you sit in the car. Now I’ll have to fucking tie you up and it’s all your fault.” He was screaming now, which was new. He’d never raised his voice to me before, just did everything in that same creepy methodical way whether he was petting my hair or holding me down and leaving bloody bite marks on my skin. Even doing some heinous shit, David had never lost his temper before. Now he was going completely nuts.

  I really felt like that was a win for me. At least that was what I told myself, letting it run through my mind like a mantra as I rolled again and got shakily to my feet. There was some damage there, I think I might have broken my tailbone, but I couldn’t worry about it. I could think about it later, when I was pretty sure I wasn’t about to die.

  “Gabriella. Come.” David spit the words out at me angrily.

  “Fuck. Off,” I threw the words back at him.

  My mistake was turning around. I was so close to level three, and I just wanted to make it to that door and out the other side. But as soon as I let myself turn I felt the pressure as David grabbed me by the back of the head and the wall came rushing in to greet the side of my face.

  Boss level.

  Darkness.

  I must have only blacked out for a second because when I opened my eyes again I was halfway out the back door. David was struggling with having to drag me by my shoulders and get the door to stay open. The thing that most industrial doors had that kept them from slamming shut was broken, and every time he tried to swing the door open to drag me out, it kept coming back and slapping him in the ass. If I wasn’t being dragged to my death I would have found it funny. As it was, I lacked the strength to even open my eyes all the way, much less struggle.