by Angel Steel
What the…!
A thick black material is wrapped around my wrist to the back leg of the chair. My head spins to the other side and looks down and I find the same thing with other wrist. I lean forward to look around. Shit! The only thing in the room is a chair. A chair that I’m tied to in the center of the room. I am tied to a bloody chair! My heart begins to pound in my chest as the material pulls taut over my wrists as I tug them once again. I only have a second to think, when I hear a noise behind the closed door.
My eyes dart across, as it begins to open. I hold my breath as a shape steps into the poorly-lit room, then pushes the door closed behind them. I shiver as cold air hits my damp skin as I stare at the person that’s just walked in. I open my mouth to say something, but stop when the shape steps forward.
My jaw drops open fully as Max comes into view, and stops right in front of me.
“What… ” I slam my mouth shut, looking around the room, then back to him. “What’s going on? Why am I tied to a chair, Max?”
Max squats down in front of me and rests his hand on my knee. I flinch as soon as his hand touches me. “I’m so sorry, Amelia,” he whispers then stands quickly and steps back, away from me as the door opens again behind him.
“I see you’re finally awake, Miss Wilder,” a deep, husky voice says.
I turn to the voice as it steps into the room and into the dim light directly in front of me. Scowling, I glance over him. Black shiny leather shoes, black pants, that look freshly dry-cleaned, a white crisp shirt covers his top half. I then raise my eyes to his. He glowers down at me as he lifts his hand and begins rolling the white sleeve up his arm.
“Who the hell are you?” I say through my teeth.
He doesn’t say anything as he does the same to the other side and steps closer to me. “Let’s cut the pleasantries, Miss Wilder. Where is Masters?” he asks as he glares my way.
What! I pull at my hands again. I hiss as the material cuts into my flesh. Stilling my hands, I look back up at the man. “Why am I tied to a chair?” I raise my voice at him.
He leans forward suddenly and is in my face. I lean back away from him, but he only follows my movement, till I’m pressed back into the metal chair.
“My sweet, Amelia,” he says, raising his hand to my cheek and tracing the tip of his thumb over my skin. “You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into,” he murmurs as his thumb slides down and over my bottom lip.
“Well, why don’t you fuckin’ tell me then?” I hiss. As soon as the words leave my lips, his hand curves around my chin and digs his fingers into my flesh, holding me still. Then just as quickly, drops his hold and stands fully, rolling his sleeves up a little more. My breath freezes in my lungs as he stops and takes a step till he’s right in front of me.
“Just tell me where Masters is, and I’ll let you go, unharmed?”
The way he says it, I know he’s lying. Something in the way he says the words. The tone of his voice. I glance over to Max, finding him staring at the man’s back. “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” I say, turning back to him.
His face hardens and out of nowhere, his hand raises and slaps me across the face. My head spins sharply on my shoulders and falls forward. Fuck! My cheek throbs as the pain flares through my head. I breathe deeply through my nose and lift my head back up.
“Don’t play games with me, Amelia. If you do, you won’t like the consequences. Now, I’ll ask you again. Where is Zane Masters?” he says calmly.
Zane!
My body stills at his words. Why is he asking me about him?
“So, you know who I’m talking about now, Amelia?” he asks.
I look over his shoulder at Max. Come on, look at me! His eyes don’t shift from the man’s back.
The man moves in front of me again. “Where is Zane?”
I look up and start to shake my head. I see his hand coming this time and I sit here motionless and grit my teeth together as he connects to my other cheek. I scream out, as pain rips through my face, the hit harder than the first. My head rolls back on my shoulders, my cheeks burning. I lick my lips and flinch as my tongue glides over my split lip. The taste of blood lingers on the tip of my tongue and I close my mouth. My eyes clash with his, I lean back away from him as he leans forward until his face is level with mine.
“You have such as a beautiful face, Amelia,” he says as he rubs his palm over my sore cheek. “It would be a shame to ruin it.” He tilts forward, his hot breath lingering over my lips. Then his hand slides down over my cheek to my neck and wraps his fingers around my throat. “But I will if you don’t tell me where Zane is,” he growls as his fingers jab into skin.
“I don’t know where he is,” I croak, his fingers dig deeper. My hands tighten around the legs of the chair as his cold, hard eyes stare into mine.
A sinister grin covers his lips. “Well, it seems we will be having a little fun then, won’t we Amelia,” he declares and drops his hand from my throat. As soon as his hand falls away, I begin coughing. My eyes water as I try to get my breathing under control. He only allows me to breathe for a few seconds, and then his fist is flying toward my face. I don’t have time to react as his fist connects to my left cheek hard, slamming my head back and just as quickly as it happens, blackness takes over and I’m knocked out cold.
My throat feels raw, as I gulp down nothing. Every swallow feels like razor blades making their way down my throat. I hiss as the skin over my cheeks burn. No matter which way I turn my head, it’s no better. I tug gently against my hands, still tied. Of course. I stop and raise my head up and glance around the room.
How long have I been here?
Why am I here?
Obviously by what the stranger said, it has something to do with Dante. Did he know it was him? Fuck! What has he gotten himself into?
A movement catches my eye from the side of the room. I spin my head in that direction, ignoring the pain shooting up between my shoulders as my arms pull against the binds. Max steps into view and slowly walks over to me. My eyes stay on him till he stops in front of me, staring down.
“What the fuck is going on, Max? And why are you here?” my voice rasps as I ask him.
“You shouldn’t have got involved with Zane, Amelia,” he answers roughly as he stands there. “If you stayed away from him, you wouldn’t be going through this shit now.”
“Fuck you, Max. Don’t stand there telling me what I can and can’t do,” I growl, pulling against the binds.
“You should’ve walked away from him, Amelia. Fuck! Do you have any idea what is going on?” he questions.
“Does it look like I know what’s happening? Jesus, Max! I don’t know anything,” I whisper and drop my head forward. “How did I get here, and when?”
“You’ve been here for six hours. Four of them you were unconscious.” His feet shift in my view, then his body lowers in front of me. I look back up and stare into his eyes. “I brought you here,” he finally says.
“Why?” I choke out.
“Because I had to do it, Amelia. If I didn’t, someone else would have.” His eyes were sad, regretful as he stares at me.
“So, you kidnaped me?”
He nods his head once.
“What the fuck have I ever done to you? What is wrong with you, Max? Why would you do this to someone that is family?” I scream, thrashing in my chair.
“Because he has my sister,” he yells and stands quickly from the floor and steps away, his back to me.
I stiffen as his words seep in. Lizzy. They have Lizzy.
“Who is he?”
He doesn’t turn. “Carlos Rowe. Someone you don’t want to be involved with.”
“How long?” I’m unsure whether I want to know the answer or not.
“Two months.”
He turns around and moves back toward me, and drops completely to his knees. “I’m so sorry I hurt you, Amelia. It wasn’t my intention, but I had to. You were getting too close to knowing too much.�
� His head falls on top of my knees.
Now, it all makes sense. Everything he did was for a reason. It wasn’t done on purpose. My shoulders fall forward. “Why does he have Lizzy?” I hold my breath as I ask him.
He lifts his head up and closes his eyes briefly then re-opens them. “He wanted me to place drugs in the bikes that come into your dad’s shop. I refused straight away. Then I got a phone call from him, telling me he doesn’t take too kindly to being told no, and he had an incentive for me to do what he’d asked.” A tear slips from the corner of his eye and slides down his cheek. “He sent me a picture of Lizzy tied up and gagged. Then a video came through an hour after, as he injected her with a drug. His drug. He laughed the whole time and told me if I didn’t do what he asked, Lizzy was next on the list to be sold to the highest bidder as a sex slave.”
I cringe at his words. “You should have told one of us, Max.”
“I couldn’t, Amelia. He would’ve found out if I said one word about it. I had to keep it to myself,” his voice breaks.
I can feel my own tears as they fall from the corner of my eyes. I need to change to a different subject. “So what you did and said, it wasn’t you?”
His head comes upright. “That wasn’t me. It was drugs he gave me,” he chokes.
“Are you on them now?” I need to know that he is himself and not someone completely different.
He shakes his head from side to side. “No, I haven’t touched anything for a month now.”
“Good,” is all I get out, relieved at his words.
“What does this all have to do with Zane?” I was pretty close to saying Dante instead of Zane, luckily I caught myself in time.
“I don’t know. All I know is Zane has been working for Carlos since he’s been in town.”
Of course, he has. It’s the stupid mission he’s on.
Shaking my head. “We need to get out of here, Max,” I say, pulling at my hands again.
He looks up. “We can’t. The second you or I step foot outside of this place, we’re dead, Amelia.”
Oh God!
“If we stay here, we’re dead anyway, Max,” I hiss as I look around the room for something to help us get out of this dump.
“Just tell Carlos what he needs and he’ll let you go,” Max says his voice low.
I turn my head in his direction. “There is no way he’s going to let me walk out of here alive, Max. You and I both know that,” I grumble as I pull harder against my hands. “You need to call Dad and tell him, Max. I don’t care what you tell him, just say you know where I am. He’ll know what to do,” I whisper as I slump back in the chair.
“Fuck! I’m sorry I did this, Amelia, but I had no choice,” he says softly.
“We all have a choice, Max. It’s whether you pick the right one or not. When you speak to Dad tell him I love him, just in case something happens, okay?”
He nods his head and stands from the ground and steps back away from me as the door behind him opens suddenly, and Carlos walks in with two other men and one of them is pushing a metal trolley into the room. My body tenses as Carlos stops in front of me. One of the men steps forward with a chair and places it directly in front of me, as soon as he does Carlos sits down in it and the metal trolley is wheeled to his side.
“Are you going to tell me what I want to know, Amelia?” Carlos asks leaning back in the chair.
“I don’t know where Zane is. I’m not his keeper,” I grit through my teeth.
A sickening smile covers his lips as he rests his hand on the top of the trolley and begins tapping his fingers on it. The noise echoes through the room, each individual tap, becomes louder and louder, till it’s the only noise in the room. The two men that walked in with him move to the side and out of my view as I keep my eyes firmly on Carlos in front of me.
“Well, since you don’t know, let’s see if we can get him to come to you, then.” His hands stop tapping and lift from the trolley.
Oh fuck!
I pale as he raises a large knife from the trolley and spins it in his hand. The shiny metal glistens in the light of the room. He leans forward closer to me and twists the blade in my face. “Let’s see how loud you scream, Amelia.”
I’m in deep shit!
As soon as the words leave his lips, someone steps up behind me and places something over my nose and mouth. I struggle against them, but it’s no use. My eyes begin to droop and the last thing I see is his sick twisted smile as I’m pulled into complete darkness.
Making my way back to my room at the compound, everything is set for us to go in and finally bring Carlos in. Masen had received a call saying that Carlos would be at the north side warehouse by the docks, waiting for a large shipment to come in. But it wasn’t his drugs in the shipping container that was coming in, no, we had already intercepted the shipment at their location and replaced the drugs with a look-alike placebo drug. There is no way that ‘Purple Havoc’ is ending up on the street. If it did, too many people would die.
Reaching for my black pants, I pull them on as my phone buzzes across the room. I knew it was Masen letting me know they were ready and waiting for me. Once I’m fully dressed, I walk over and pick my phone up and move toward the door and swipe the screen. As I open the door, I stop in my track once I read the text that has come through. It’s not from Masen, it’s from Chopper.
Amelia’s missing, meet at the shop.
“Fuck!” I grip my phone and hear it crack in my tight grip. Looking at the message again, I quickly type back a reply,
Are you sure?
I slam my fist into the wall, and then bang my head against it, breathing heavily. I’m torn between looking for my wife or bringing Carlos in for good. A man that has ruined the last five years of my life. The one that pulled me away from my wife. My child. My family. I’ve waited five long years for this moment, this single moment when all this ends, and I can have my life back. A life I’ve missed. No. I needed to end this for good. Not waiting for the reply, I slide my phone in my pants pocket and open the door and walk out.
I can’t drop this mission. If I don’t do this now, Lia and I won’t be able to move forward with our lives. I stride down the hall, pulling the straps of my vest and tightening them. Carlos is my main focus right now. I need to end his life so he doesn’t wreak any more people’s lives out there. This is retribution for all that I have lost.
The night is dark, still, nothing is moving as we all make our way toward the dock, where the shipping container is located. Masen to my left, Rosko to my right, both a step behind me as the rest of the team follows closely behind. I raise my left hand, halting further movement, and drop to my knees to observe the area.
My Glock is trained in front of me as I scan the area in front of me. Masen shifts beside me and taps on the screen of his GPS and leans it my way. “Northwest, thirty meters.”
“Heat signals?”
I hear Masen tapping again. “Three confirmed.”
I nod my head and stand. Not taking my eyes away from in front of me. “Masen, Alex head north-east and secure area. Rosko, Maverick, Liam, Tank, head northwest. The rest, follow me.”
Everyone’s voice comes over the ear piece we all are wearing and move out.
With every so many steps, I stop and listen. Waiting. Lights flash from one side to the other from the main docking area. As we close in, voices travel our way, and I stop dead in my tracks, my hand raised. I wait till the voices disappear before I move forward again.
My body tenses as I silently step into the large warehouse, my gun scanning around the area in front of me. I just barely hear the tapping on metal behind me. Swinging my body that way, my gun trained quickly, the red small LCD light flashing over the area where the noise came from. I tighten my hold on the trigger.
A giant rat scuffs across the cement floor. Its tiny nails the only noise we hear as I step further into the room, looking around. A frown creases my brow as I lower my gun to my side and stop in the center of the warehouse
.
Several ‘clears’ echo into my ear. Then shadows enter the room moments after. My laser quickly flicking between the bodies as they come in, confirming each individual as my teammates. Lifting the strap over my shoulder, my riffle hangs at my side as my team come to a halt in front of me.
Masen says as he comes to a standstill while his fingers tap at the screen of his gadget. “Three heat subjects moving north away from here. Twenty feet and retreating.”
I lift my hand and swirl my fingers in the air once. “Move out,” I say gruffly and grip onto my gun and stride forward. Once out the door, my body against the outside wall, as we close in on the heat signals ahead.
I elevate my hand in the air suddenly as boots crunching on rocks linger in my hearing. Masen shifts closer to my back as I glance around the corner to the sound. Three men of average build wearing fluoro-yellow shirts, with a black logo of a ship on the back, indicating them as workers of the docking company. My body relaxes slightly as I flatten my back against the wall. Flicking my hand right quickly, my team moves back.
Once the movement of the three men vanishes, I step from the wall and face them. Everyone besides Maverick and Alex stay where they are as they keep a lookout while the rest of us huddle together.
“Either your intel was wrong or Carlos has moved his location,” Liam says, wiping the sweat from his brow.
Masen’s head swings his way, jaw tight. Slapping my fist on his chest, I step forward. “Maverick, take Red and Tank and find the workers. We need info on where the shipment is.” My phone vibrates in my chest pocket, but ignore it as I continue talking, “Masen, Rosko, and Alex you’re with me. The rest of you stay here and wait then follow us. Masen will send you coordinates of our location, now,” I say and look to Masen typing away on his phone. They all nod their heads and move out and along the wall. He knew exactly where I wanted to head. Carlos’ other warehouse, the one we had already been to.
