HEAT: A Dark Romance

by Sophia Gray

  “Why didn’t you call me immediately?” I barked.

  Where would she go?

  Change of plans.

  “Call me if she returns home,” I instructed.

  “Are you sure? I can go and—”

  “You lost her,” I snapped. “I’ll go find her.” I ended the call and dialed the hospital her mother frequented. A few lies and I was able to learn Lily’s mother wasn’t there as a patient or for receiving treatment. Which had me making an illegal U-turn and racing along to Lily’s house.

  Let her be there. Let her be safe. Let her not be in trouble.

  I had felt on top of the world when I left Garcia Trucking, but now, my carefully made plans were falling apart at the seams. I had been so busy digging around for intel about Golovkin that I had been blinded to Lily and her needs. I had thought our having sex was the first step to overcoming out disagreement, but I had been wrong. Now she had run off.

  What if she hadn’t run off? Yes, her packing things meant she intended to, but what if while I had been making moves on Golovkin, Golovkin had been closing in on his own plans against me?

  A sudden premonition that his men had captured her while I had been out gathering info made me break out in a cold sweat.

  But this wouldn’t be on her. This was all on me. On my life. On my job. On my quest for revenge. On my desire to make Vanya Golovkin pay for taking my family away from me. If I hadn’t played games, if I had just launched an all-out attack on him as soon as I learned he was back in town, none of this would’ve happened. I had been selfish by wanting revenge and by wanting to have an heir. I had endangered Lily and our unborn child.

  Driving like a mad man, I blazed past red lights and ignored honking cars, shouts of profanity, and raised middle fingers. What little luck I had enabled there to be no cop cars in the vicinity, and I pulled up to Lily’s place in no time at all.

  I didn’t even bother to turn off the car. I just threw open the door and jumped out. Without stopping to catch my breath, I raced to the door and pounded my fist onto it.

  A woman who looked very much like Lily if she were sickly opened the door. Her gaze settled on my face, and her lips pursed, her red-rimmed eyes filling with rage. “You…you’re that guy who paid my daughter to bear his heir, aren’t you?” she demanded.

  I wasn’t used to being talked to in such a tone, but I let it pass. “Yes. Lily. Where is she?”

  Lily’s mother glowered at me. She crossed her arms. Her leaning against the doorjamb didn’t impede her tough woman stance. She obviously needed it for support, but she was definitely a fighter. Too bad her body was warring with her. “Lily went outside,” her mother finally said, heaving a sigh. “She told me all about you and…she went out and was taken. I was just about to call the police—”

  “Don’t!” I shouted.

  She took a step back, wide-eyed. “Why shouldn’t I?” she demanded.

  “Just trust me. You don’t want the police involved.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You know who took her. She’s in danger because of you!”

  I winced. “I’ll get her back. Don’t worry.”

  “Of course I’m going to worry!”

  “You should try to calm down,” a voice called from inside.

  “Calm down,” Lily’s mother scoffed. “Like I can, Clara!”

  Clara came into view. “I know it’s not easy, but you can’t go out and find Lily yourself. You have no idea where she is or—”

  “The police—”

  “Involving them might make things worse for Lily. They also don’t know where she is.” Clara nodded toward me. “He knows. If he promises to get her back, he will.”

  “What good are his promises?” Lily’s mother grumbled.

  “I understand why you’re upset,” I said as smoothly as I could — which honestly wasn’t that smoothly at all. I was ready to fall apart. “I will not rest until she is safe. I promise you.”

  “And what good is your word? I don’t know you. Lily doesn’t know you, does she?” She was back to crossing her arms, stern-faced.

  “She knows enough,” I said.

  “That’s why she wanted to leave you.” She lifted her nose into the air.

  I winced again. “I don’t…” I took a deep breath. Fighting with her wouldn’t help either of us. “I have a vested interest in getting—”

  “The baby. Or Lily. Who are you going to save?”

  “Both.” The answer came quickly and without thinking. And it was the truth.

  Lily’s mother stared at me long and hard. “Fine. You have one day. If you don’t make any progress on finding her, I’ll call the police then.”

  “Don’t,” I warned her, almost begging.

  “They headed north. Left maybe five minutes ago.”

  I hadn’t seen a car peeling out of the lot when I arrived. I must’ve just missed them. I whirled around and marched away, fury building within me. I would burn Golovkin’s world to the ground to get Lily back.

  Chapter 27

  Lily

  After I told my mom I would stay, I couldn’t stay there, sitting there, talking to her. I felt like she was judging me, even if she wasn’t, and if she started to cry again, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from crying, too. Right now, I didn’t need that. I needed to be strong. I needed to keep it together. No matter what, I couldn’t give in to fear.

  So I went into my bedroom. Just seeing my bed and bureau and my clothes made me feel like I was a failure. Here I was, without a job, taking money from a mob boss who had impregnated me, living back at home. Yes, I could help take care of my mom again, but really what did I have to show for my life? I was knocked up, and while I did want the baby, I was hardly role model material for him or her.

  My lungs ached, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I rushed through the house to the front door.

  “Where are you going?” my mom asked. She had returned to her book, but I didn’t think she was really reading it, more holding it up to cover that she was still processing the bombshell I had dropped on her.

  “Out,” I said, my hand on the doorknob.

  “Out where?”

  “I’m just gonna…” Where could I go? I thought frantically. I needed to get away from stress, which meant getting away from people who knew. “Denise. I’m gonna go see her. I’ll be back in time to make dinner.”

  “Clara has been—”

  “Tonight, she can have the night off.” I tried to smile but couldn’t. Before my mom could try to convince me to stay, I left, practically running to my car. I felt too confined in the house, like I was a prisoner. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. All I could feel had been the walls closing in on me.

  But out here, outside, I didn’t feel any better. I didn’t know if I thought the sun might help any, but it wasn’t. I just had to get away. See Denise. Try to forget what had happened the past few days. Try to just be me for once instead of the whore Anton was boning to get pregnant, instead of the fool who thought he might be a decent man, instead of the failure of a daughter who couldn’t even keep her sick mother happy, instead of the woman who couldn’t even keep a job.

  Before I could even get my keys out of my purse, though, I heard the rumbling of a car grinding to a halt. My fingers were just curling around the keys when my arms were grabbed from behind. A hand clamped over my mouth before I could even scream. I tried to bite him, to get enough room to scream even if just for a little bit, but I was thrown into a car, tires peeling before I could finally let out that scream.

  One of the guys, a big brute of a guy, backhanded me. I flew onto the lap of the guy sitting next to the window. He laughed and righted me, rubbing up and down my arm. I tried to squirm out of reach, but I didn’t want to sit closer to the brute, not that there was a lot of room in the backseat for the three of us as it was. Another guy was driving, a little too fast and reckless for my liking, especially considering my condition.

  Somehow, I still had my keys in m
y hands even though my purse was on the floor of the car, the contents spilling out more and more with each sharp corner we took. I tried to jab the guy who was overly touchy feely in his neck, but he easily overpowered me and took them from me.

  “Now, now,” he said with a leering grin, “if you want to play, we can play.”

  From the glint in his eyes and his gruff laugh, I knew I didn’t want to play any kind of games with him. Who were these men? It made the most sense for them to be in cahoots with the guy who accosted me at the hospital, the one who thought Anton and I were dating. If these guys were truly after Anton, then they wanted him dead.

  Which might mean that they would be willing to use me as bait to get to Anton. Or that they might want to send Anton a stronger message, and this time with a dead body. My dead body.

  I swallowed hard. I couldn’t get a good look at the driver, but neither of the men I was sandwiched between were the same guy from the hospital. Still, I knew in my bones they were all connected.

  “Please,” I said, my voice cracking on the word. I cleared my throat. “Please. Let me go. I haven’t done—”

  “Doesn’t matter what you have or haven’t done.” Handsy rubbed my thigh.

  I tried to shove him away, but the other guy gripped my chin and turned me to face him. “Beg all you like.” His grin was menacing. “Maybe we’ll listen.”

  He was lying. Maybe it wasn’t smart — scratch that, it definitely wasn’t smart — but I spat in his face.

  Calmly, he wiped the spit with his huge hand and then wiped it down the front of my shirt. “Don’t do that again,” Brute warned, his voice low and whiny. “We haven’t decided yet if we’re gonna keep you alive or not, so you might want to be a good little girl and take what you can get.”

  “Wouldn’t you like a real man?” Handsy asked. His hand moved toward the inside of my thighs.

  I shifted slightly, gluing my legs together.

  He laughed. “I could show you a few things, teach you new tricks.”

  “I’m not a dog,” I muttered.

  He roared with more laughter. “I like her spirit.”

  “I want to crush her spirit,” Brute countered.

  The two argued, and I tried not to listen to what they were saying. The driver snapped at them to shut up, but neither paid him any attention.

  Trying not to give into panic, I watched the streets, trying to figure out where we were and where we were going. So many twists and turns, though, that I soon started to wonder if the driver was deliberately taking a roundabout way to our destination. Was that for my benefit so I couldn’t follow? Or were they being overly cautious about being tailed?

  Wait a second! Anton had sent my mom a bodyguard! Maybe he had seen the kidnapping. Maybe we really were being tailed! Trying to be discrete, I glanced behind us a few times, but there wasn’t anyone there. As far as I could tell, we weren’t being followed.

  My hope didn’t completely die, though. Anton knew what he was doing. His men would know what they were doing, too. Maybe his bodyguards were that good at tailing that they weren’t obvious about it. God willing, he’d pull up alongside of us as soon as we parked, he’ll get me away from them, and then we could hightail it home.

  Yeah, that was definitely too much of a fairytale ending. Wasn’t going to happen. I was all alone with three very big, very bad guys.

  We bypassed shops and restaurants and houses until we reached the outskirts of town. No other cars were around, and the houses looked poor and rundown, abandoned even.

  The driver turned toward one house set apart from the others and we drove around the back of it. Handsy pulled me toward him and out of the car a little too swiftly, and I stumbled. He prevented me from falling by tugging me close to him. “Better stick close to me,” he whispered in my ear, grinding his pelvis against me. “The others aren’t as nice as I am.”

  I jerked back as far as his hand on my waist would allow. “I don’t need nice,” I hissed.

  He laughed. “You’ll wish for it soon enough.”

  My stomach twisted at that thought, and I was afraid I’d get sick right then and there, but Handsy on one side and Brute on the other led me to the back door. The driver unlocked it, and we filed in.

  The house was dark, no lights on. Even though it wasn’t dark outside, the black curtains prevented any light form filtering inside, so I stumbled along between the guys. They led me to a staircase, and we entered the basement. The walls were concrete, the floor, too. It was unfinished, cool and damp, without any furniture or rugs.

  No, wait. After we rounded a corner, I spied a chair, and they promptly sat me in it. In the corner, I noticed a coil of rope. Thankfully, none of the three guys walked over to collect it, but Brute made a point of looking at it before giving me a shrewd smile.

  “This can be easy,” Handsy said.

  “Or this can be hard.” Brute shrugged as if the matter was out of his hands.

  “Your choice,” the driver said.

  I stared at them each in turn. All of them were fairly tall and muscular. None of them was the one who had approached me at the hospital. Brute had a small scar beneath his left eye. Handsy was the only one with gel in his hair. The driver wore black gloves. He toyed with them as he approached that back corner with the rope, but he just leaned against the wall, arms crossed, gaze on me.

  “What…what do you want from me?” I demanded. Yes, I was scared, frightened beyond belief actually, but I was also angry I was in this situation, furious Anton had gotten me into this mess without being upfront with me about the danger I could be in, livid that people would go to such lengths because of money or whatever it was that was motivating them. Power? Revenge? Who knew what went on with mobs behind the scenes? I didn’t want to find out. I just wanted to be free.

  “Just for you to answer a few questions,” Handsy said, kneeling in front of me, his hands on my knees.

  “Without lying,” Brute added.

  “I don’t know anything,” I said calmly. “I don’t even know why you took me.”

  Handsy squeezed my right knee painfully. “You know why we took you,” he said, shaking his head.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Make a guess,” Brute snapped.

  I had a guess all right, but I didn’t want to say. I didn’t want to be right. Because if I was right, that meant I was in the hands of very dangerous men. Men who might hurt me. Men who might hurt the baby. Men who might kill me. But my fear morphed into anger and even hatred. How dare they take me! As much as I had started to feel like I wasn’t trapped in Anton’s house after I talked to him and told him I would go and still visit my mom even after that guy accosted me, I had hated having to go everywhere with bodyguards. I hated the need for them, and I kind of was growing to resent Anton for my needing them.

  But Anton had the right of it. I had needed the bodyguards. I had been foolish to leave him, to leave his house, to go anywhere without them. Because of his job, because of my stupidity, I was here, trapped. Anton might not even know yet that I had left him, let alone that I had been taken. I eyed the men each in turn. They didn’t strike me as the kind to hold back. Handsy might rape me, and Brute wouldn’t have a problem torturing a woman. The driver…I didn’t like the gleam in his eyes. Something told me he might be the worst one of the trio.

  “I asked you to make a guess.” Brute brought up his hand, preparing to slap me.

  I didn’t flinch, and I stared him down as best as I could with me sitting and him towering over me. “Anton Kovalsky,” I said, proud my voice didn’t shake.

  Brute kept his hand raised. I was starting to think his scowl was permanent.

  “What do you know about him?” Handsy asked, crouching beside me. He brushed my hair back from my neck and started to massage my shoulder.

  I jerked away from him and winced inwardly. I didn’t want to show that they were getting to me. I didn’t want to react to their touch, their threats. Just answer their questions because oth
erwise they would hurt me, but maybe if I cooperated…yeah, right. They were gonna hurt me regardless.

  “What do I know about Anton Kovalsky?” I shifted my gaze from Brute to Handsy. “I know he’s fantastic in bed.”

  The slap was harsh, and it surprised me that the slapper was Handsy and not Brute.

  Tears prickled my eyes, but I didn’t cry, and I didn’t rub my cheek either. Instead I stared Handsy down. “He is. One time he—”

  This time, Brute went to slap me, but I turned my head to the side, and he just clipped my ear.

  “You think you’re so funny, huh?” Brute shouted, his face inches from mine. His spit sprayed on my face, and his breath told me he had onions on a sandwich for lunch.