by JD Nixon
“Geez, lighten up, Kirnin. That was unnecessary,” dared Joe, as he and Noel struggled to set me back upright.
“Did I ask for your opinion?” Kirnin snapped.
“Heller’s going to kill you,” I repeated, tears streaming from my eyes.
He backhanded me again, throwing my head to the side at the impact and ripping at my bottom lip. More blood ran into my mouth.
“Heller’s going to kill you.”
He curled his hands into fists. “Gag the bitch before I hit her again.”
“Heller’s going to kill you,” I repeated, my voice increasingly fainter each time with pain.
He punched a hole in the wall with his fist. “Shut the fucking bitch up!” he raged, storming out of the room.
I would have called after him, but Noel gagged me, none too gentle about it either. They left me alone for about five minutes, which I spent wondering if my eye socket was broken. It hurt so badly.
The two men returned with a camera. Noel took a number of photos of me from different angles. I was pretty sure they weren’t going to be pics I’d want included in any modelling portfolio I assembled.
Noel left the bedroom with the camera, presumably to upload the photos to send them to Heller. Joe remained behind to keep me company. Lucky me.
“Are you in pain?” he asked.
I lethargically nodded my hanging head. The adrenaline pumping through my body had burnt up, replaced by pain – so much pain. I was suddenly exhausted, hardly able to sit upright. I wanted to be at home, in my bed. Tears of injured self-pity spilled from my eyes, even though I could feel my left eye puffing closed, reducing my vision.
I barely noticed Joe leaving, but he swiftly returned with a glass of water and a couple of painkillers. Considering he was a thug working for my sworn enemy, I thought that was rather decent of him.
“It’s not much, but it might help dull the pain a litle,” he said, untying my gag.
“Thank you.” I sucked up the tablets off his palm and he held the water to my lips. I managed to take a mouthful, though a lot of it dribbled down my chin on to my blood-splattered clothes.
He regagged me and left me alone again. Nobody came into the room for a long while, though I could hear people moving around the house. At one stage, a car drove away and then returned. The light faded from the part of the sky I could see through the window, evening setting in. There were no lights on in the room, so I sat in the dense darkness, my face screaming with pain, my muscles cramped from holding the same position for so long. My butt was numb, I was thirsty and I desperately needed a pee.
For a moment I was blinded, instinctively looking away from the glare when the door opened and the light switched on. Joe cleared a space on the dresser and deposited a tray containing a bottle of unchilled water and a small cheeseburger from a fast food chain. He undid my gag and the bindings around my wrists and ankles.
I reached for the water, gulping half of it down in one go.
“Do you need the bathroom?”
“Yes, please.”
“I’ll escort you.”
I stood unsteadily, my legs wobbly. I rubbed my wrists to encourage the blood flow to return, even though my skin was raw and stinging there from where I’d struggled against the bindings in the car. Joe walked me out to the hallway to a small extra bathroom that was simply fitted with shower, basin and toilet. I went to close the door and he blocked me.
“Leave it open.”
“No! At least give me the dignity of some privacy.”
He shut the door halfway, and turned away, allowing me the barest amount of discretion. I almost smiled to myself as he stood patiently at the door, forced to listen to my torrential pee. All finished, I took some time to dab at my facial wounds with damp tissues, wiping off crusted blood and a few fresh trickles that talking again had re-opened.
All the while, my eyes roamed the room desperately looking for something I could use as a weapon. A small row of miniature toiletries lined up neatly next to the basin, probably collected on various visits to hotel rooms. Blocking Joe’s view of them with my body, I slipped a shampoo into my pocket.
“Hurry up,” he said, tapping one foot. “You’re taking forever.”
“Bet you don’t say that to your wife,” I sassed back, though it was the last thing I felt like doing. It just seemed right to show them some fighting Heller’s spirit.
He grunted an inarticulate sound. “As if I’d dare. That woman’s tongue is sharp enough to slice steel.”
Back in the room and feeling that I’d sat for quite long enough, I remained standing, sipping at my water and making brave attempts to swallow the cold, congealed burger.
“What’s going on?” I asked between mouthfuls.
“Nothing, that’s what. A big, fat nothing. Kirnin hasn’t heard a word from anyone at Heller’s since he sent the photos. Nothing even from Heller himself.” He didn’t pay me much attention, flipping through the channels on the small TV mounted to the wall. “Looks as though they’ve forgotten about you,” he added, casually cruel.
“Oh.” If my spirits hadn’t been down already, they would have plummeted on hearing that. Surely someone there must be worried about me?
“Yep, take it from me. Guys like Heller are bad news.”
“Guys like Kirnin are worse news,” I retorted, stung.
“True, true. But the Hellers of the world are bad enough, trust me. Full of themselves, not a care for anyone else.”
“Heller’s not like that.”
Not deeming that defence even worthy of a response, he stood from where he’d been reclining on the bed and nodded towards my empty tray. “You finished?”
“Please don’t tie me up again. I want to lie down. I’m really in a lot of pain. I’d like to try to get some sleep.” He hesitated, so I tried another tack. “Rose and Marcus aren’t tied up.” I had no way of knowing if that remained true, and in fact I strongly suspected that if Clive had hunted them down to my flat, they’d now be trussed like suckling pigs on a spit. But Joe didn’t need to know that.
“Okay, I suppose it would be all right for you to lie down. It seems kinda cruel to keep you tied up all the time. I didn’t join security to torture people, especially women.”
“Why don’t you just let me go then? I’ve never done anything wrong to Kirnin.”
“Maybe not, but Heller has wronged Kirnin, including his wife, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do.”
“Heller and Kirnin’s wife.” He lowered his voice. “I heard they had a fling when Heller first came on to the security scene. She took it seriously, fell hard for him. Even promised to leave Kirnin for him. But Heller wasn’t interested. It was just a one-nighter for him. He fucked her and moved on to the next woman.”
And the next one, and the next one, rinse and repeat. I wasn’t surprised at hearing Joe’s gossip. It was entirely reminiscent of Heller’s normal style of ‘relationship’.
“He’s a one-woman man now,” I declared, not confident that was even remotely true.
Joe raised an eyebrow, as if sensing my slight doubt. “Are you sure about that?”
No, I thought, but as I didn’t really feel like talking about private matters with one of my kidnappers, I ignored him and turned down the sheets on the bed, crawling in.
When Joe went to fetch more painkillers I used the time to punch a hole through the lid of the shampoo bottle with the tip of one of the pens I found in the top drawer of the dresser. That would allow me to force out a stream of shampoo, providing better aim for its use as a weapon.
Hurriedly returning to bed when I heard footsteps approaching, I observed something interesting when Joe shut and locked the door. My flat was a good place to stow hostages because the front door could be locked from the outside. However, this room was just an ordinary bedroom, with the lock on the inside, for the occupants’ privacy.
I briefly contemplated locking Joe out when he next disappeared from the
room and then climbing out the window. But when I tried it, the window was locked, with no key to be found in my quick search. I could try to use something to break the window, but I didn’t. It wouldn’t take much effort for one of those big guys to burst through the door, locked or not. I wouldn’t have enough time to smash the window and escape. Exhausted and in pain, I didn’t think I had it in me to do that. Even the thought of being caught and tied to the chair again made me burrow down further into the bed. I’d have to come up with another escape plan.
I took the painkillers from Joe and surprised myself by falling asleep immediately, sparing only a moment to wonder what was happening back at the Warehouse. Had someone picked up Niq? Had Clive managed to get in contact with Heller? Were he and his team stealthily approaching the house at this very minute, ready to rescue me? I wanted to see him again so much, it hurt. There were some aches that no amount of painkillers could dull.
A loud banging on the door woke us both. Joe, who’d made a makeshift bed on the floor next to me, leapt to his feet in alarm. In the near distance, a jumble of male voices shouted hoarse instructions to each other.
Someone or something crashed heavily against the door. Muffled voices and scuffling came from the hallway, as if some hand-to-hand combat was taking place outside the bedroom. Joe stepped to the light and flipped the switch. Nothing.
“Shit,” he muttered. I could only see his silhouette in the darkness, but he pulled something out of his pocket and flicked it open. “You stay here.”
He slipped out of the room, leaving me by myself. I didn’t feel the slightest bit lonely though, as I had no intention of staying in the room one more second. At the door, I stopped to recall the directions we’d taken when Joe escorted me to the bathroom. I shut my eyes and replayed it. From this room, we’d taken a left turn and another left turn into the bathroom. That probably meant I was on the opposite side of the hallway to Marcus’ bedroom, which meant the front door was to my right.
Waiting until the fracas receded from me into the depths of the house, I escaped the bedroom and turned right, feeling my way to the front door, pleased to see it had been the correct choice. With a nervous glance over my shoulder, I tried the door handle.
It was locked from the inside. Unsurprisingly, Kirnin had installed deadlocks.
Refusing to believe that I could be on the brink of freedom, but thwarted by a metal mechanism I used every day, I tugged and yanked at the handle, silently attempting to abracadabra it to open for me. It stubbornly disobliged.
Wasting precious seconds pointlessly kicking the door and swearing at the lock, I abandoned it to search for the key. I ran my fingers along the wall looking for any key hooks, but couldn’t find any.
“Shit, shit, shit!” I fled back to the bedroom, frantically searching for something I could use to smash the window. If I didn’t escape that way, I’d have no choice but to sneak past the fighting men in the living room. I didn’t like my chances of making it through them without being detected or maimed, even in the dark. I had no way of knowing who the other side was, though I prayed with every cell in my body it was some Heller’s men.
I tried a couple of random items I found in the room to smash the window. At one desperate point, I held a pillow in front of me and rammed the glass with my shoulder, achieving nothing except an ungraceful recoil backwards on to my butt. The window must have been coated with some kind of protective film to prevent it from shattering, because nothing I did to it had any effect.
Verging on tearing all my hair out in frustration, I left the bedroom and inched towards the backyard, from where all the noise came. I tried what I presumed was the door to the garage. It was locked. Please, let something go right for me tonight, I sent up to whichever celestial body decided to take pity on me as I switched direction to the living area at the back of the house.
And that was the precise moment a man grabbed my shoulders with brutal force.
Chapter 34
My shriek was quickly smothered with a none-too-clean huge hand over my mouth. I was pressed up close to a body that smelt of booze and felt bigger and taller than mine. Something round, cold and metallic thrust against the skin of my temple.
“Move,” Kirnin’s voice spoke into my ear. In the darkness it felt quite disconnected from either of us, and as deafening as someone calling me at close quarters with a loudhailer.
I thrashed against him. It earned me a whack on the side of my head with the butt of his gun. That sharp, stinging pain took a while to subside.
“Shut your big mouth, bitch. You have caused me no end of trouble.”
Despite my new headache, I tried to protest that unfair accusation. After all, I’d never asked him to kidnap me. But my undecipherable, muffled argument failed to convince him. He whacked me again without really listening to the nuances of my reasoning. Kirnin then moved his arm down to my throat, the gun pressing more closely into my skull.
“I will fucking kill you if I have to. Don’t force me to,” were the words of wisdom he decided to share with me. No wonder Marcus didn’t find him much of an inspiration as a role model, I thought fuzzily to myself.
I shuffled awkwardly with him down the hallway to the back of the house. The rear glass doors were thrown wide open, Kirnin’s men ranged around them, all holding guns. He nudged me through his men to stand at the doorway. It was possible to make out some vague figures of men in the late night darkness.
“Chalmers,” called a familiar voice from the shadows, a hint of anguish there that none of us missed.
“Hugh,” I choked out, a sudden catch in my throat. Kirnin’s grip tightened around my neck.
“Shut it,” Kirnin said, jabbing the gun into my head a couple of times. “Right. Here she is. Let’s start negotiating.”
I waited expectantly to hear Heller’s calm voice mocking him.
“You can have your two back in exchange,” came Clive’s voice instead from the inky depths. “They’re in a car waiting at a safe distance. The car will arrive when I give the signal.”
“Fuck that. I want a lot more than them to hand this beauty over.”
What? I couldn’t believe what I heard. Clive was talking about his wife and son.
“That’s what’s on offer. Your family for our woman. Take it or leave it.”
It was as if Kirnin didn’t even hear him. “Where’s Heller? I’ll only deal with him. I refuse to speak to his . . . staff.”
Even I could feel the hatred for Kirnin rolling off Clive for that jibe.
“Heller’s not here,” Clive told him in a voice so cold it would freeze the sweat on a camel’s arse. “You heard the offer. Give us the woman and I’ll call the other car. That happens – we leave here without any trouble. That doesn’t happen –” A dramatic pause followed that I wouldn’t have suspected Clive of having the subtlety to pull off. I was weirdly proud of him when he did. “Then I can’t be responsible for any repercussions.”
He left that hanging in the air with all the drama of Marilyn Monroe parachuting into her nearest fan convention. Kirnin wasn’t impressed – obviously not a Monroe fan.
“And you heard my response. Bring me Heller and we might start talking.”
“I told you that’s not possible at this time.”
“Well, isn’t that just tough shit for his bitch here? He couldn’t even be bothered to show up in person to secure her freedom.” He laughed. I didn’t. He shook me roughly. “I guess you know where you stand now, don’t you, bitch? You’re nothing special. Nothing but a passing fuck to him. A bit of warm flesh on a cold night. Put a bag over your head and you’re easily substituted with a billion other women.”
“Don’t listen to him, Chalmers,” Farrell called out. “You know you mean everything to him.”
Fine advice, maybe. But the implacable problem with that principle was that once you’ve heard something, you could never unhear it. My anger blossomed and flourished. Kirnin may have aimed to denigrate me in front of a bunch of men, filli
ng me with insecurity, but I doubted he ever imagined the response I actually felt.
Kirnin immobilised my head, but I found if I cast my eyes sideways, I could make out the general position of his facial features. I slowly slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out the shampoo.
“Hey, Kirnin?” I asked in a weak, pleading voice, hoping to draw his attention.
It worked. When he turned his eyes to me, I squeezed that bottle right into his face, hoping to get some in his eyes.
He cried out in pain, loosening his grip. I yanked myself free, running along the side of the house, my hand touching the bricks to guide me. I’d just reached the corner, when a sharp crack sounded in the evening silence, something whizzing past my head, loud enough to hear. I slammed to the ground, eating dirt.
A second shot rang out, followed by a short, intense barrage of gunfire.
“Hold your fire!” yelled Kirnin – or maybe it was Clive? “You fucking idiots! The cops will be here now. Everyone get the fuck out of this place.”
A couple of men came after me, one reaching me before the others – Farrell. He roughly pulled me to my feet and with his arm around my waist, urged me on. His breath warmed the side of face. “Come on, Chalmers. Faster. I have to get you out of here before the cops come.”
We ran down the side of the house, coming up against a huge fence separating the front and back yards.
“It’s not as hard as it looks,” he encouraged, waiting restlessly while I took too long to scale it. I found footholds wherever I could, shimmying down the other side to land heavily on my butt.
A scuffle, and a series of grunts from the other side of the fence hinted that Farrell had run into trouble. Someone shouted loudly in pain and Farrell’s head briefly appeared over the top of the fence.
“Don’t wait for me. Run to the car,” he shouted. “Move it, Chalmers!”
Not knowing where the car was, I stopped at the footpath to look both ways. I could barely make out two Heller’s vehicles in the dark, parked a few houses down from Kirnin’s. Farrell, now more than a little scuffed around the edges, clicked the car key remote when he hit the ground, sprinting towards the vehicles. We reached the 4WD at the same time we heard sirens approaching. Before I had a chance to buckle up, he tore off in a burst of squealing tyres.
