"Is your chosen form of torture talking 'cause, let me tell you, I'd certainly take death over this."
D's fist banged on the metal door three times, the sound loud enough for me to shrink away from it. "You're going to regret this," he promised as the door pulled open, revealing the other guy from that night nine days ago. Trick. Paine had called him Trick and he was the one with more of a brain. I wondered if that worked for, or against, my favor.
"The fuck'd you do to her face?" he asked, looking down. "And her arms?"
"Bitch hit me with a fucking padlock. The fuck was I supposed to do, let her get away with it?"
Trick sighed heavily, like he'd hit his limit at having to put up with D's shenanigans. "I'll call the boss," Trick said, moving out of the way of the doorway so we could, presumably, enter. I was given very little choice because I was shoved forward with two hands to my back, making me trip over my own feet. I managed to stay upright somehow and Trick's hand reached out to steady me. "Ease up," he said over my shoulder toward D.
The smell hit me first. It wasn't something I could place, but it was chemical, unnatural. It made my nose burn to breathe it in. The air inside the warehouse was hot, stiflingly so. I felt sweat already start to bead up on my scalp as I heard the door slam behind me. My eyes quickly found the sources of the heat and humidity, locating long, low work tables in four rows down the center of the room. People stood almost shoulder-to-shoulder. Some were doing some sort of grinding, others stirring, but also some... cooking things. As in over fires. Small ones. With beakers over them. Like in science class.
No one even bothered to look our way despite the initial commotion. I guessed they were either too focused, too scared, or too used to such things to bother. Or maybe a combination of all three.
"Stick her over there," D said, waving a dismissive hand toward a small closed off space in the corner, like an office, except the walls didn't go all the way to the impossibly high ceiling.
"Come on," Trick said, his voice going low. "Better not to piss him off. The boss won't do the talking with fists and boots. You're better off laying low until the check in."
"Check in?" I found myself asking, immediately cursing myself for being nosy and cringing at the pain even the slightest bit of talking did to my, I imagined, hideously bruised jaw.
"Check in," he agreed, not dumb enough to elaborate as he opened the office door and ushered me inside. "You got about... two hours," he said, looking over the room quickly before moving back toward the door. "Sit tight." With that, he closed and locked the door.
For a long second, the panic swelled up to epic proportions. I felt like I was choking on it. It made my skin feel like it was crawling, like bugs were going to burst from the hair follicles covering my body. It made my mind race and my breath hitch.
There was some kind of slamming outside the door that made me jump and somehow managed to fight back the swirling thoughts so I could think clearly.
Panic wasn't going to help me.
I needed to think.
I needed to...
"Idiot," I hissed at myself, reaching into my back pocket and grabbing my cell. I was so nervous that my hands fumbled and screwed up my password twice before I took a deep breath and tried again. My screen unlocked and flashed bright and beautiful, like a lighthouse beacon to a lost ship. That was until I looked at my service bar and saw a big, ugly X over it.
My brows drew together, confused. I'd never seen an X over my service. I had service every-freaking-where. I was once in a field full of wind fans in the middle of bumbfuck Montana and had all my bars. It was never simply... gone. Not willing to accept the X, I clicked off of the now-blank Facebook page, and hit my number pad, typing in 9-1-1, hitting send, and bringing the phone up to my ear. I waited. I pulled the phone down when I heard no ringing, saw that it was doing the dot-dot-dot thing, trying to connect, brought it back up to my ear and waited some more. I hung up. I dialed again. I waited again.
But it was no use. There was nothing.
Maybe the Third Street guys had one of those signal-blocking things.
On a sigh, I slipped it back into my pocket and crept across the room, taking it in fully for the first time.
No windows, obviously, and just the one door. There was nothing on the bare Sheetrock walls. In the center of the room was a cheap Ikea-looking black desk and ergonomic desk chair. On the surface was a blank memo pad and two pens. I grabbed the pens and stuck them in my pockets, knowing it wasn't much, but it was something. As much as my stomach turned over at the idea of stabbing something like that into someone's eye, well, if it would save me from rape and death... I was willing to steel my stomach and do what needed to be done.
I took deep, slow breaths as I moved methodically over every inch of the small space, looking for any point of escape (there were none) or anything I could use to defend myself (aside from the pens, all I found was a heavy rock that I guessed someone used to prop the door open).
It wasn't much.
It certainly wasn't a metal, bone crushing padlock.
But it was something.
It was all that I had.
With nothing else to do, I sat down on the office chair, tried my best to ignore the pain that was overtaking my entire body, and tried to ready myself for anything.
Sixteen
Paine
I'd like to say I knew something was wrong, that I had a gut feeling, that I had some kind of fucking sixth sense that told me my girl wasn't okay. Sure, I'd love to claim that. But it wasn't true. I wasn't some superhero and I wasn't psychic.
So at eight when Elsie still hadn't showed up, I expected she had stayed a little longer at the gym, doing a guilt workout to work off the whole container of Chinese food she had devoured in one sitting. When eight-thirty rolled around and I was sitting in her kitchen next to the dinner spread of a giant salad, baked rosemary chicken, and side of green beans I had made, mindful of the fact that we both liked to keep our bodies in shape and to do that, you had to feed them right at least sixty-percent of the time, and she still hadn't showed up, I started to worry.
When another twenty minutes ticked and she still hadn't pulled up, I grabbed my keys and I headed over to Willow to check the gym. At first, I spotted her blue Porsche and felt my stomach muscles unclench, my hands relax their death grip on the steering wheel. She was just staying extra late at the gym. Hell, maybe she ran into a girlfriend and got to gabbing. But as I did a quick K-turn, ready to go and wait at her place so I didn't show up and look like some possessive prick, I spotted something that made me put the brake to the floor while pushing my car into park and running out of it. There were keys on the sidewalk.
This is where the gut feeling finally did kick in.
Sure, they could have been anyone's keys.
There were dozens of cars in the lot, any one of the owners could have carelessly dropped their keys on their way into the gym, shuffling to get their shit into their gym bags or whatever.
But that wasn't the feeling I was getting.
The feeling I was getting was that they were Elsie's and that something was wrong.
When I got to them, snatched them up, and saw the dozen or so keys she kept on a chain along with the Porsche key fob and the red Stanford "S" Roman had given her as a key chain, the stomach clenching came back, intensifying to the point of a sharp pain.
I turned and ran toward the gym, barely in the door before I started barking at the girl at the front desk. "I need your camera feed for the parking lot. Now," I growled when all she did was look at me with drawn-together brows. "Fucking now, babe. I don't have time to..."
"Paine, what the fuck?" Shane Mallick's voice called, walking up, shirt wet with sweat like he had overheard the yelling while doing a workout.
"I think Elsie was taken from your parking lot. I need your camera feed. Now."
"Taken?" he repeated, needing clarification.
"Third Street," I said thro
ugh clenched teeth and his face fell as he turned toward the computers behind the desk, shouldering the girl gently out of the way and clicking through a few screens before finding the feed. I moved behind the desk uninvited and stood to his side, watching as he used a little ball to rewind the footage. People came and went. A couple made out against their car. A guy picked a wedgie. A girl wobbled on her heels, looking around frantically to make sure no one saw her.
Then there it was.
I wasn't sure it was her at first, just a blur of motion as a person disappeared inside a trunk, but as Shane slowed the feed and it kept moving backward, Elsie's limp body came back out of the trunk, came to life, then she wasn't being held in a successful rear naked choke, she was being pulled across the lot, flailing, gagged.
By. Fucking. D.
"Lost her," Shane said when they went out of camera range. "Hold up," he said, switching to a different camera and rewinding. Then there they were again. She hadn't been paying attention and she ran right into him.
Fuck.
"Shit," Shane cursed, standing, reaching for a phone.
"Cops?"
"They can put out a call to look for her. But they won't find her," I said, clenching my hands up. "Call Sawyer."
"Sawyer Anderson?"
"Yeah. He was working a case for her. Call him, tell him what happened. Get him on it," I said as I moved out from behind the desk and went toward the door.
"Where you going?" Shane called.
"Family fucking reunion," I growled, swinging open the door and running across the lot toward my still-open and still-running car. I threw myself inside and put it into drive, simultaneously peeling out of the lot and reaching into the glove for my gun.
Seemed like the only time I ever saw my brother anymore was when I had a gun on him.
Enzo generally occupied the old apartment I used to when I ran things. But he also had an apartment on the very outskirts of the slums, still technically on the streets he ran, but safer and more expensive. It was like a part of Enzo was constantly at conflict between his old life before and the one he chose to live in after, like he couldn't give up the money and power of running the streets, but also didn't really want to be associated with that 'low life' behavior his mother raised him to detest.
As I parked on the street, slipping the gun into my waistband and pulling down my shirt to cover it, I wondered if that was something he struggled with- what Annie would think of the man he'd become.
Knowing Enzo, it fucking haunted him.
I pushed those thoughts and the tug of connection away as I moved in the front doors of the red brick building that had a super that actually cared enough to keep things relatively up-kept though there was no automatic lock on the front door. I went inside and took the elevator up to the top floor and moved toward the far end of the hall near the exit staircase.
Enzo wasn't the door locking kind of guy so I reached for the knob while taking my gun back out.
The inside of his place was neat, orderly, almost obsessively so. Maybe like a part of him rebelled against the filthiness of his lifestyle and overcompensated with chronic housekeeping. All his furniture was sleek and modern, a style that made my lip curl. I liked a home to look like a home, like a place you could sink into and feel comfortable. I figured it was just another way to make his place look all the more orderly.
The living and kitchen space was empty and I moved down the hall toward the master bedroom. The bed was made, tucked down in full-on military fashion. Just when I was turning in the direction of the bathroom door, it opened.
Enzo froze, back illuminated by the harsh fluorescent light in the small tile room. But as he took a step out and his face wasn't in shadow, I felt my raised gun fall a few inches.
This was because Enzo, just as big and built and unbreakable-looking as me, had been worked over. Meaning his face was busted: lip swollen and broken open, one eye swollen almost shut, the other bruised with small steri-strips holding a large gash closed. And if the way he was leaning toward his side and bulkiness under his shirt was any indication, he'd bruised or busted a rib or two as well.
"The fuck?" I heard myself ask, not sure I'd ever seen anyone get the drop on him, let alone keep him down long enough to do that kind of damage. It looked like he'd been jumped. It looked like...
"Yeah," Enzo said, nodding slightly like he knew what I had been thinking.
"You got a beat-out?" I asked, brows drawing together. First, because as long as I had been affiliated with the gang, the only way out was death or disappearance. Second, because shot-callers simply didn't get beat-out. That wasn't how it worked.
"What the fuck are you doing here with a gun on me again?" he asked, moving into the room and lowering himself down onto the foot of the bed, wincing hard as the movement, I imagined, sent a stabbing through his ribcage.
"Elsie," I growled, lowering the gun, but keeping it at my side. Looking like he looked, moving like he moved, I seriously doubted he could get across the room toward me before I could get the gun raised again if need be.
"Elsie?" he repeated, shaking his head like the name didn't ring a bell.
"My. Fucking. Woman," I seethed, not having the time or patience for the runaround.
To that, Enzo's battered face twisted up into what would be considered a smirk. "Woman? You got a woman? As in... one you do more than just fuck? You?"
"Don't have time for this, Enz," I said, shaking my head. "About a week and a half ago, she was being chased down the street by D and Trick. About an hour ago, she was leaving the gym and ran into D again. He choked her out and threw her in his trunk. Now I need to know what the fuck is going on. You got beat-out, that sucks for you. But that shit is fresh so you were still in control of things nine days ago when they pulled the chasing stunt. So I want to know what the fuck is going on."
Enzo held a hand out, shaking his head. "Didn't know shit about that. You can come in here, testosterone stinking up the joint, but that don't change the fact that my men have been working with someone else under my nose for a long while now, slowly stealing their loyalty and my power."
"Then why the fuck are you beat-out and not lying in an alley somewhere?"
"Whoever this new guy is, Paine, they ain't Third Street. They don't know how we work. Seems like they don't care to either. They have their own agenda. Fuck if I know what that is seeing as I seemed to be the only one out of the loop over there."
"You have no idea why they'd want Elsie? I know she was sniffing around your warehouse but..."
"We don't have a warehouse," Enzo cut me off.
"The one on Kennedy," I elaborated.
"The fuck could we use a warehouse for, bro? We deal smack and sell women. Ain't like we needed manufacturing or to hold stock."
"She was chased from that warehouse to my shop by Trick and D. So whoever this new guy is, he's got a warehouse on Kennedy for something. And if..." I trailed off as my phone vibrated in my pocket. I reached for it with my free hand, seeing an unknown number and swiping to answer. "Paine," I barked, too impatient to deal with some bullshit wrong number, but knowing I needed to answer because if there was even a slight chance that it was Elsie, I'd never forgive myself for missing it.
"It's Sawyer," he said in my ear, sounding calm, dangerously so.
"Shane call you?"
"Yeah, but I got a call from Barrett first."
"Barrett?"
"Try as I might, couldn't keep his ass off the case once he got released. He's crashing on my couch with his laptop. Anyway, he must be keeping tabs on Elsie because he said she dropped a pin."
"She dropped a pin?" I asked, that meaning absolutely nothing to me.
"On Facebook. He said she used to do it all the time anytime she went out with friends. To check in or whatever. Until he told her to stop because that was just asking for a stalker. Anyway, she dropped a pin and he called because she dropped it in Third Street territory. Somewhere on Hoo
ver. She pinned it at Barky's, but there's no way she's at a vape shop, let alone advertising that she's at a vape shop. But Barkey's is about a block over from..."
"The warehouse on Kennedy," I finished for him.
"You seen the place?" Sawyer asked and I could hear a little tension there. "It's massive. No fucking telling how many men could be in there. I got me and two of my men..."
"I can get Breaker and Shooter but that's about it..."
"Better than nothing. Call them. Meet me by Barky's in twenty."
He disconnected and I called Breaker to fill him in. He would call Shoot. They would meet me at Barky's. Then the six of us would go in and pray like fuck the warehouse wasn't full of the entire God damn Third Street gang.
"Yo," Enzo called as I made my way out his bedroom door. I turned back with a raised brow. "Under the sink in the kitchen. Both are loaded."
I nodded tightly. "Thanks."
With that, I went into the kitchen, grabbed the guns, and tore out of the apartment building, trying not to consider what it meant that Enzo was helping me, that he was out of the gang, that he was not my enemy anymore. That was shit I would think about when I got my eyes and hands on Elsie again, when I knew she was alright.
D was a wild card.
When I ran things, I was constantly having to keep an eye on him, make sure he wasn't getting some asinine idea into his head and running with it. He was violent and dumb which, as anyone with half a brain would know, was a really bad combination. He hadn't really hurt her in the video at the gym. True, he'd dragged her. And, yeah, he'd choked her out. But he hadn't beat her. He looked like he was focused on just bringing the mouse home to his master. Which was good. If she didn't piss him off, she would be alright.
She'd been smart. She'd used the phone to drop a pin, hoping or knowing that Barrett was keeping an eye on her. She was hoping for a rescue. I hoped that meant she knew not to try to fight her way out. There was no way to fight out. Especially not for someone untrained and nowhere near as strong as the men who she would be around.
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