by Mike Dagons
“That particular van is a special edition. It’s no way I can sell it to you for that, unless you throw in the bike,” his face cracked a sleazy smile.
“I’m going to give you cash for this van, and I’ll give you four hundred for a portable loading ramp, wheel chocks, and some soft tie down straps.”
The salesman laughed loudly. “You drive a hard bargain, little lady,” he said, and reached out to touch her face.
Cynthia caught his hand, and forcefully put him in a wristlock. Immediately, his head dropped below his waist and he howled in pain. “You’re going to break my fucking hand,” he squawked.
“Baby, if you try to touch me again, I will break it,” she released him. “Now, are we going to do business, or do I go to another dealership?”
“If you’d follow me into the office, I’ll have somebody put your bike in the van.” He massaged his wrist.
Cynthia followed him inside the small building, and he stopped at the information desk. “Sharon, get somebody to put the bike out front in the Chevy Express and tie it down. Tell them she’s paying to take the ramp.”
It took them less than ten minutes to complete the transaction inside, and when she walked out the building. Two men were pushing her bike up the ramp and into the back of the van.
Cynthia got in behind the wheel, and Valow got in so fast and silently, it was like he’d magically appeared next to her. “Where did you come from?” she squeaked in surprised.
“Let’s go,” he answered, and she pulled the van out the lot.
She looked over at him, and saw that his soft jeans where torn, and his thigh was streaked with dried blood. “Are you hurt?” she asked.
“Back in the garage, how did you know it was my bike?” he asked instead of answering her question. He knew she was able to get it started because he always left the keys in it.
“Do you always avoid answering questions by asking a question?” she asked instead of answering him.
He turned his steel blue eyes on her in a mean stare, but she didn’t flinch like most people did when he looked at them that way.
“Well, we gon’ have a staring contest, or are we going to talk?” she scowled.
“You look like your sister,” he answered.
“How is that?”
“Fearless,” he answered.
“I’m not. I’m scared out of my fucking mind actually, but having you with me makes me feel safe. Now, are you hurt?”
“It’s just a bullet graze. A little alcohol and it’ll be fine. How did you know it was my bike, and why didn’t you keep running like I told you to do?”
“Sam told me that you owned a Lauge Jensen customized Viking. It’s my dream bike, and when I saw it parked near the mouth of the garage entrance. I figured it had to belong to you.”
“You talked to Sam about me?”
“Yes, I talked to her about you, when we talked about your bike. I have a Harley Superlow 1200T. It’s a great bike, but it don’t compare to the Viking. I plan to own a Lauge Jensen someday. I didn’t leave you because I thought you might need a ride. I knew I was going to need protecting, and since my brother-in-law thought enough to send the very best, it would have been foolish of me to bail on you at the first sign of trouble,” she looked at him with a wide grin.
“Your sister tell you I was the very best when y’all were talking about my bike?”
“Nope, how you handled the men back at the hospital told me that. I think we should rent a room so I can fix your leg,” she suggested.
Valow gave her a nod of consent, and she pulled into the lot at the next Comfort Inn she saw.
Chapter 11
I was trying hard not to scream when Anakin pushed the forceps into the bullet hole in my shoulder, and probed for the slug that bitch put in me.
I had killed the last blue eyed bastard I could find hanging on Luther Scott’s family tree, but I still felt empty inside. The love of my life was gone forever, and no matter how many dead bodies I racked up. I didn’t think it would ever fill the hole in my heart.
Anakin pulled the slug out my shoulder, and I gritted my teeth when he poured alcohol in the wound to clean it. He applied a clean bandage, and then gave me a shot of penicillin. I popped a Percocet for the pain, and slipped on a new shirt.
“She was able to wing you because you’re tired. We all are,” Ceylon observed.
“Once we get the boat in the water. I’ll sleep,” I replied.
“I’ll take us out,” he said, and went up on top.
“Luther wasn’t there, and I hate to say it, but I don’t think he gave a fuck about none of those women or his children. If he had, he would have put protection on them as soon as you killed the first two,” Anakin observed.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing. I’ve spent the last week killing people the man could care less about. It means I haven’t done a damn thing to tear out his heart like he tore out mine.”
My cell vibrated, and I looked at the display and saw it was an incoming text from Bender. I read it, and then hope sprang alive. “Basin pissed Bender off by worming into his system, and it motivated him to dig a little deeper into his life. He’s got new information on him.” I shared what I was reading with Anakin. “Basin has an older sister who is a resident surgeon at Stroger. Tyler Basin never legally married her mother, and he didn’t give her his name. She is single, thirty six years old, and she doesn’t have any children or other relatives. Her name is Nicole Warren, and like Jeff, she spent most of her life in boarding schools.”
“If I cared about her, I would have moved her already,” Anakin said. “But maybe the arrogant fuck is like Luther, and he doesn’t give a shit about her.”
“Or maybe he’s using her as bait to draw me out,” I said. “It is possible that he didn’t think I’d make the connection between them because her last name ain’t Basin. In any case, I think I have to check it out.”
“I’ll tell Ceylon to take us back to Chicago,” he said, and then left me alone.
Learning about the doctor burdened me with another mild attack of conscience. What if she was not just adding to the world’s scum population like the Scott clan? I didn’t know if it was right to kill her. Maybe she was doing some good, and killing her would hurt more than Jeff.
My mind drifted to Monique, and it opened up the wound of losing her and my child afresh. When they took her from me, they severed my lifeline to humanity. I no longer felt human, and the only reason I was fighting to stay alive was to kill them for killing her. I didn’t want any of them muthafuckas to live a peaceful or happy life ever again.
Nicole Warren had Basin blood running through her veins, and that was reason enough for her to die by my hands, so I was going to cut the bitch’s heart out.
I crawled into my bunk, stretched out on my back, and fell into a restless sleep. I kept seeing Monique’s face, and hearing her voice screaming my name. I opened my eyes and saw Anakin and Ceylon standing over me.
“We’re going to have company in a minute. I hear rotor blades,” Anakin tossed me my wetsuit.
“The boat’s radar is not picking up anything approaching us yet, but if this muthafucka says something is coming. I believe him,” Ceylon said.
He had seen Anakin do some amazing things in the last 72 hours, and hearing what wasn’t humanly possible to hear was one of them. So I understood why he was a believer.
I got off the bunk and started putting on my suit. I grabbed an oxygen tank, and put it on my back like they were doing. “How far are we from shore?” I asked Anakin. He had the unique ability to pin his exact location. He called it his personal Doppler. He could actually track a storm. He never got lost, and he always knew the exact time.
I tied on my waterproof utility sack which held my guns, ammo, and clean clothes and boots.
“We about ten miles off shore,” Anakin answered, and me and Ceylon stopped and shared stunned looks.
“I don’t know about Ceylon, but I can’t swim ten miles
,” I confessed.
“It’s why I’m going to tow you. Slip these over your heads, and tighten the slip knot.” He gave each of us a rope with the ends tied like a lasso. “The snap hooks were fine for a short haul, but these will give me more freedom of movement,” he said.
I took the rope and slipped it over my head. I pushed it down under my arms, and then pushed the knot up to tighten the rope around my chest.
Ceylon did the same, and Anakin tied the other ends around his waist. We went up top in single file, and then we walked down the ladder and eased into the water. I put my goggles on while we were drifting away from the boat. I was about to fit my oxygen mouthpiece between my teeth when without warning Anakin did a vertical leap straight up out the water, like a Dolphin, and then dived back in dragging us both under with him. He was swimming underwater like a mermaid, and moving so fast, we were being dragged through the lake like we were tied to a speed boat.
I was struggling against the water pressure to get my mouthpiece in, and I was sure Ceylon was having the same difficulties.
I had just managed to get my mouthpiece in place when a booming explosion sent rippling waves through the water. Flipping me head over heels and slamming me into Ceylon. The blast turned the water into a lake of fire. We were well below the surface, but I actually felt the water temperature heat up a few degrees.
Ceylon and I were being towed out the danger area faster than we could swim, so we just relaxed and enjoyed the rush.
Chapter 12
“I’ll go in and get him, and you look out,” Choc said.
“Wait, Choc! We’ve been trying to call Curtis for hours, and he is not answering his cell, at home, or at the dance studio. Maybe it’s something we should be concerned about,” Rayce said.
“I am concerned, and that’s why I’m going in to check and see if he’s in there bleeding out on the floor while we’re sitting out here chilling.” He got out the car and walked up the block to Curtis Gladstone’s apartment building.
Rayce kept her eyes on him until he walked up the stairs, and then opened the door to the vestibule. As soon as he disappeared inside, she felt the gun muzzle pressed to her temple. “Keep your hands on the wheel.” The man behind the voice ordered. “If you don’t, I’ll be forced to kill you.”
Rayce tightened her fingers around the wheel and kept staring straight ahead. “You can have the car,” she said.
“Your love for your partner is filling too much space in your head. It’s hindering your ability to think operational. If I were a jacker, I’d be waving the gun in your face and screaming; get out the car. I got the jump on you because your mind went into that building with your partner. It wasn’t smart to fall in love with the person relying on you to have his back out here in the field.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she started to move her hand, and he tapped her head lightly with the barrel.
“You’ve already proven you’re negligent. Please, don’t prove you’re stupid, too,” he warned. “I was able to slip up on you like you’re a suburban bitch down here slumming. I can surely put a bullet in your head before you reach that Walther PPK you got holstered under your arm. Take one hand off the wheel slowly, and turn your rearview down towards the floor.”
Rayce did as she was told, and he moved the gun away from her head for a second, and got in the backseat. “You’re too late. I picked up Curtis Gladstone last night. Now drive, and don’t look back,” he said.
Rayce moved her right hand to the gear stick slowly, and then shifted the transmission into drive. She had a fleeting thought about ignoring the warning and going for her gun, but then thought better of it. Getting it out and then being able to get a shot off would be next to impossible, even if it was an amateur holding the gun at the base of her skull. There was no way she could pull the move off with a pro, and she was pretty certain the man taking her hostage was a pro because he knew exactly who she and Choc were.
Rayce pulled the car out of the park and onto the side street. As she drove by Curtis’ building, she saw at least ten men rushing it.
She thought about running into one of the parked cars to set off its alarm to give Choc some kind of warning. “If you veer left or right a centimeter. I’ll pull the trigger. Dying will not help your partner.”
Tears filled her eyes as she drove by the building without slowing down. “Turn right on Pulaski and pull over, and keep both hands on the wheel,” he ordered.
Rayce did as she was told. She heard him open the car like he was going to get out, and then she felt a stinging blow to the back of her head.
Once she was unconscious, he got out the backseat and opened her car door. He removed her Walther from her holster, and put it in his waistband. He moved her to the front passenger seat, and then he flex cuffed her hands together behind the seat back. He looped a rope through the ties, and then threaded it under her seat and tied it to her feet, so she wouldn’t be able to kick him while he was driving.
He had only made her drive a few blocks from the building in K Town where she left Choc, so he turned around and went back. The streets were quiet, and he figured they had taken him without a fight as planned.
He was already on the expressway when Rayce came to and discovered she couldn’t move her arms or legs. “Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“You’ll see soon enough,” he answered without looking over at her.
Chapter 13
They arrived in Paris at night, and the girls took a cab to the Hôtel de Crillon and registered in two rooms on the same floor. Kenyah was barely speaking to them because Chanay had called her, “a dumb ass bitch who thought having a Degree made her smart.”
Sam and Severe had to stop Chanay from kicking her ass when she called her a hoe. Since Severe was charged with protecting Kenyah. She had to bunk with her.
She didn’t know Kenyah very well, but in the little time she’d been in her company. She’d learned that she didn’t like her very much as a person. She hadn’t had any compunction about sneaking off to have sex with Desmond in front of her brother-in-law’s friends. It was bad-mannered at best, and Trent was a nice guy, so she didn’t think he deserved the disrespect.
Once they got settled in, they ordered a late dinner that they were going to eat in Sam and Chanay’s room. “I’m sleepier than I am hungry,” she said to Severe when they got ready to leave.
“I can’t leave you here alone, so I’ll call Sam and get them to bring dinner over here.”
“I don’t want those bitches in my room,” Kenyah huffed. “If you want to eat with them, then you go to them.”
“I’m your bodyguard. I cannot leave you alone,” she reiterated for the hundredth time. “If you’re refusing to go with me, then I’ll have them come to me.”
“If you bring them over here, I’ll go to the hotel manager and tell him we’re registered under a false name,” she stated boldly.
“You do realize we’re trying to keep you from being killed.” Severe wished she had let Chanay beat her ass.
She blew out a long breath, and then mussed her own hair. “I’m sorry, really. I’m just not use to living this kind of secret life like the rest of you. I just learned a few days ago that my husband’s job required him to cheat on me, and that he had another life and a baby on the way. I’ve been kidnapped, made to drink piss, and almost killed. Now, I’ve been separated from Trent, again, and carted off to Paris. It’s all been a bit much, and I am feeling overwhelmed by all of it. I’m sorry I’ve been acting like such a bitch, but I’m scared my life is never going to be normal again,” she said, and then hiccupped a sob.
Severe understood how frightening the clandestine world she lived in could be for someone like Kenyah, and she felt sorry for her. “I know this is hard for you, Kenyah, but I promise things will return to normal. You just have to be patient and careful for a little while longer.”
“Okay,” she forced a smile. “I don’t want to make you sit here babysittin
g me and miss having dinner with your friends. You can leave me here alone. It’s not like you’re going out. Their suite is just down the hall, and I promise all I’m going to do is shower and go to bed. I promise not to leave the room. Tell Chanay that I’m sorry I acted the way I did,” she got up and went into the bathroom.
Severe thought about it for a second, and then decided it wouldn’t hurt to leave her alone for an hour, so she walked down the hall to Chanay and Sam’s suite.
A couple of minutes after Severe left the room; Kenyah cracked the door to the suite and peeped out into the hall. When she saw it was empty, she darted across the hallway and into the stairwell. She ran down two flights, and then took the elevator down to the lobby from there.
She had the doorman hail her a taxi, and then she told the driver to take her to the Hôtel George V.
Chapter 14
As soon as Kenyah called and agreed to see him tonight, Desmond rented another suite in the hotel, so he would have a place to meet her.
He had promised Gloria they would spend the two days he had away from his wife and boys with her, but that was before he learned Kenyah was going to be in Paris at the same time. He wasn’t going to allow his plans to spend a romantic evening in the room with Gloria to make him miss an opportunity to be with Kenyah.
“Gloria, I have to go out for a little while,” he knocked on the bathroom door, and she opened it right away. She was wearing a pretty cream nightgown and looking extremely sexy, but she was not who he wanted.
“Go out where? I thought we were getting ready to relax and listen to music. I ordered Champagne and strawberries,” she whined.
“I won’t be gone long,” he kissed her on her forehead, and grabbed the keycard.
“Where do you have to go, Desmond?”
“Out, I’ll be back later,” he picked up his phone.
“I am not going to pretend I don’t know what you’re doing. You want me to wait here while you go and meet with that hoe, but it’s not happening.”
