by Anne Conley
“Good?”
Bonnie giggled at the weird sauce stain on his face only ribs could provide. He looked like someone had given him a Glasgow smile, and she shuddered at the thought, her smile fading. That was one of those things she only had her brothers to thank for putting in her head, after listening to their stories. Glasgow smiles had been given to narcs’ relatives by the Mexican Mafia on a case Simon worked in San Antonio. Cutting the victims from the edge of their mouths to their ears, it was a warning to the narc in question right before they were killed, leaving a gruesome reminder for those left behind.
She grabbed a napkin and reached across the table. Zack obediently stilled his face and leaned forward, allowing her to wipe his face like a child.
“There’s not much point. I was going to get it all when I was done,” he slurred around a mouthful of food.
“Yeah, well, I can actually eat without looking at you with sauce on your face this way.”
They continued eating, Bonnie getting into her sliced brisket and Zack clearly being more careful about the sauce on his face. It was a comfortable silence, and Bonnie welcomed the ease between them. Memories of their time together filtered into her brain, and she realized they had slipped right back into what they used to have.
But they were different now. It couldn’t last, could it? That much time hadn’t passed; five or six years wasn’t that long. But Zack had been absent these particular years of her life, had forced Bonnie to grow in ways she’d never thought she’d experience. Her college years were supposed to be fun, full of parties and boyfriends. Instead, they’d ended on a sour note, where she’d had to run and hide from danger. In fact, the way her brothers reacted, Bonnie was pretty sure they hadn’t told her the extent of the danger. She wondered what they weren’t telling her. It was fruitless; they’d never tell her, but still …
Trying to change her morbid train of thought, she broke the silence with Zack.
“What’s your new brother like? Is he everything you always wanted?” He used to refer to Quinten as the brother from another mother fondly, often wishing for a brother of his own.
He finished chewing and wiped his mouth. “You know, it’s weird. He’s really hung up on the blind thing. Not that it doesn’t make me awesome. But the blindness is why Dad chose me over him, so it’s something he’s lived with his entire life, as a reason for the rejection, you know? But he’s cool. He knows it’s not my fault, and we’re trying to be friends. Well, sort of. We’re still feeling our way, but he invited me over to watch a ball game at his house. I get the idea he doesn’t have a lot of friends besides Deena Rae.”
“I don’t really know her. What’s she like?”
Zack smiled. “She’s totally kickass. She beat the hell out of Andrew, the fucker who gave me the Viagra the other day, so she’s my new idol. She seems a little prickly, but honestly, she’s really cool once you get to know her and figure out her boundaries.”
“I wish I knew the people there better. It would be cool to have more friends, but I would love to have them without having to seek my big brothers’ approval.”
His face turned serious. “They’re just looking out for you. It seems like their overbearing assholes, but they have their reasons.”
Well, that was a change of heart for Zack. Bonnie looked at him silently, and he must have felt her scrutiny because his coleslaw was suddenly his sole focus.
“What aren’t you telling me? The other day, you were just as angry about their protectiveness as I was.”
“Nuffin,” he mumbled around a mouthful of food.
“Whatever.” She knew he was lying, and it pissed her off. Standing, she gathered her trash and put her notes in her bag, slinging it over her shoulder with a huff.
“Look, Bon-Bon, don’t be mad.” Zack was hurrying to keep up with her as she strode away, the clicking of Shania’s claws echoing on the wood floor beside him. “There’s stuff you don’t know.”
“Clearly,” she muttered. So her brothers had gotten Zack on their side. Whatever.
“Wait up,” Zack rushed behind her, but if there was one thing a Pierce woman knew how to do, it was walking away in a pair of heels.
Outside, the heat of the day hit her like a hot towel at a sauna, only it didn’t smell as fresh. She closed her eyes to inhale the heat, letting the heated air cleanse her insides. She couldn’t stay mad at Zack, even if he was being an ass like her brothers.
He was Zack.
Shania and Zack caught up with her as she stood outside the door to the barbecue joint. A mumbled apology was all she got from him, but it was more than Bonnie ever got from her brothers. She started to turn, to ask again what was going on, but suddenly, everything was a blur.
A dark hood slammed over her head and arms like steel wrapped around her. Right before the cloth came down, she saw the Italian guy from the other night do the same to Zack. She tried to fight, but the suddenness of everything caught her off guard, and the way she was being held made using her arms impossible.
She tried to use her heels to her advantage. Lifting a foot, she scraped it down the inside of the knee of the man holding her from behind, landing it hard on his instep.
Nothing. Panic infused her blood. That was a move that always got her out of stuff with her brothers. They couldn’t handle the heel to the instep. Who the hell could? That was a brutal move.
She could hear Zack struggling, Shania barking and growling, then silence from Zack and a whimper from Shania.
Oh God. What was happening?
Bonnie was being pulled backward and stuffed into a car. Her panic rose as scents of leather and pine invaded her nose. Breathing deeply, she smelled chemicals as a hand pressed against her mouth and nose.
And then nothing.
Chapter Fourteen
A pounding headache had Zack waking up from blackness to find more darkness and shadows. He could tell it was daylight, as sunlight streamed through a large square window to his right, and the medicinal smell and steady beeping told him he was in a hospital.
“You with us?” Simon’s gruff voice asked from a corner of the room, down low, indicating he was sitting in a chair. Zack heard the rustling of Shania’s harness, then the weight of her two front paws resting on his bed as she nuzzled his arm with the I.V. in it. He reached to pet her, cooing to her absently, but he was still a little lost, even though her presence was reassuring.
“Yeah. You got some sunglasses?” He was squinting against the light coming in. It was like staring into a spotlight almost, a high contrast to the shadows in the room.
“Yeah,” Quinten’s voice came from the other side of the bed right before blessed tinted lenses slid onto his face. Shania licked his arm and whimpered affectionately. Zack scratched behind her ears and felt her relax her head on the bed next to him. She was probably still propped up on her front paws, which didn’t seem comfortable, but she drew comfort from him as much as he did from her.
The shadows and light evened out to something he could deal with, helping with the pain in his head. That was about the time he remembered why he was in the hospital. He groaned.
“Fuck.”
Simon’s voice was softer when he spoke next. “What happened?”
Zack knew the guys were using a lot of restraint to keep from killing him right now. Bonnie had been his responsibility, and she’d been taken on his watch.
“She’s gone. He got her.” He took off the sunglasses and rubbed his eyes, closing them against the light, against his friends’ glares.
“Talk to us, man. Give us something.” Quinten’s frustration was cutting through his patience.
Zack simply stared at him, willing him to understand the futility of his situation. He stuck his neck out to get closer to Quinten and glare at him, knowing his sightless eyes weren’t as effective as they should be. Simon sighed, and Zack’s head fell back in defeat.
“There were two guys, at least. I don’t know if Jonas was one of them. The other was Manicotti
Man. Ryan can describe him. He was following us around at South by Southwest. It was a quiet car. Big. Like a sedan, not an SUV. They got Bonnie before either of us knew what was happening. It was an orchestrated thing. They knew my weakness.” Nobody spoke, but the shadow that was Simon stood and came closer. “How long have I been out?”
“Just today. You’ve only been here a couple of hours. We’ve got Evan looking harder into Jonas because we figured that’s who was behind this. The fact nobody killed you tells me it’s not his dad. The senator would have had a bullet put in your brain.”
Zack shuddered, knowing that to be the truth. The senator didn’t like the Pierce team and would make them all disappear if given the opportunity.
“What’s the doc say? Has he been by?” Zack pushed himself back so he could sit up. It hurt his head but not enough to keep lying flat on his back, feeling helpless. He needed to be out finding Bonnie.
“He hasn’t told us anything. But we managed to keep him from calling your mom, so there’s that.”
Oh God. His mom would be hysterical if she found him in the hospital. She had just wrapped up her stint living with his dad here, she wouldn’t want him to be here, too. She would coddle and smother, and he would lose his shit.
As it was, he could give Bonnie’s brothers absolutely nothing. That was more frustrating than the reason why he couldn’t give them anything.
Chapter Fifteen
Bonnie awoke from a blackness she’d never known, but as soon as the light filtered in and she saw where she was, she knew she was fucked.
She’d been drugged and brought to this room. Pain radiated up her leg, and she took stock of the rest of her body. Everything else seemed fine besides a dull throbbing behind her eyes. She shook the foot that hurt. A jangling told her it was chained to whatever she was on. Her fingers stretched and spread. Was it a bed? Lifting her head, Bonnie looked at what she was lying on.
It was a bed of sorts, but it was upholstered in vinyl. Washable. To remove blood and other fluids, probably.
Panic gripped her as she looked around the room. Simon and Quinten would tell her to examine her surroundings, look for something to use for her escape.
Bare walls, clean and freshly painted. No tables within reach. In fact, there was nothing near the bed at all. Across the room were a small table on wheels and a chair—another vinyl-upholstered number for easy cleaning.
It wasn’t a large room, but it wasn’t small, either. One window led to outside, but all she could see from this angle was a blue sky.
Bonnie sat up, her head pounding as the blood rushed from it. She fought the lightheadedness, as well as the sudden nausea, gulping past the dry lump in her throat. Her vision wavered as black dots danced around her periphery.
When everything passed, she looked out the window again. Trees. Mesquite trees and the tall pin oaks told her she was probably outside the city limits, although with all the scenic places inside Austin, almost anything was possible.
Events leading to her being here filtered into her consciousness. She remembered everything and realized Zack was probably dead. There was no way they had let him live to go back to Simon and Quinten. Together, with the rest of the men and women from Pierce Securities, they would rain a special kind of hell down on her abductors.
But that was only if Zack lived. So he had to have died. That thought brought a sob to her throat, a painful burst of air she wasn’t sure if she inhaled or exhaled, but the noise was loud in the silence of her room. She couldn’t focus on that. Bonnie had to get out of here.
Looking at her ankle, Bonnie grabbed the thick, heavy chain. It was long enough for her to walk around a little bit, so she decided to do that. If nothing else, getting some blood flowing to her extremities might help her think.
She could get about three feet away from the bed before the chain stopped her. It wasn’t far enough to reach anything, which explained the lack of furniture in the room, but it was far enough she could fight if she needed to.
Of course, there was nobody here to fight.
Should she yell and see if someone heard her? No. She couldn’t see someone running to her rescue. Not here. Bonnie was in a room designed to keep people locked up, and judging by the easy-to-clean furniture, bleeding, too.
Yeah, there wouldn’t be any good Samaritans coming to help her if she yelled.
So she stood there, silently, in thought. She had to figure out a way out of here.
Her brothers were going to be so pissed.
Bonnie stared at the walls of the room where she was being held captive. All alone, she had gone from good feelings of her brother and Zack rescuing her to feelings of anger at the three of them for not doing more to stop this. Her brothers had been so damn vigilant with her for so long, and just because she threw a juvenile fit, they let Zack protect her, and look what had happened. What had they been thinking?
Even as that thought crossed her mind, she hated herself for it. This wasn’t Zack’s fault. At all. Honestly, there wasn’t much anyone could do as soon as Jonas had found her in that club, unless she ran again and hid somewhere else. Far away.
Nobody had been inside this room since yesterday. Most of last night had been spent dry heaving into the bucket that had presumably been left for her to use the restroom. Whatever she had been knocked out with to get her here had made her nauseous. But it was all out of her system now, thank God, and her mind was a little clearer, if weak. She was hungry, the contents of her stomach long gone.
And she was angry. Her anger vacillated from person to person, but it was definitely the most prevalent emotion. She shook with a red rage, desperate for an outlet to release her ire, whether it be her brothers, Zack, herself, or Jonas.
Her rational brain told her Jonas was the most likely person to be angry at, but since he wasn’t here, she couldn’t let anything out. So she turned it all inward.
She knew this was wrong. Jonas was clearly the crazy person here who had latched on to her for some reason for his twisted whatever. Everyone else, including herself, had only reacted to his insanity.
But she was still here, and the need to lay blame on someone was undeniable.
A scratching at the door arrested her attention, and the doorknob jiggled as someone inserted a key.
Had Jonas come to taunt her? Kill her? Torture her? Slowly, the door opened, and she stood awkwardly on the other side of the bed, placing it between herself and the door. Bonnie had nothing to defend herself with, but she could use the bed as some sort of barrier.
A weird, red hand came inside first. She didn’t register who it was, not until the guy with the horns and tattoos fully emerged on her side of the door with a tray in his hands. The odor of eggs and toast nearly knocked her over, the bland food sending a heat toward her that was a contradiction to her surroundings. Her mom used to make her eggs and toast when the housekeeper was out, and the juxtaposition of the experiences made her head swim.
Tattooed Guy placed the tray on the table across the room, and she snorted. Great. He was going to eat in front of her. Super. Well, she wasn’t that hungry. She could handle that.
But then he slowly eased the rolling table toward her, where she could reach it but not him. It was a little funny. He was protecting himself from her by staying out of her reach.
As he should. Bonnie was pissed. And finally, with someone to direct her anger at, she sneered at the man holding her captive.
But she was hungry, so she ambled around her bed to where she could reach the table and pulled it toward her, not taking her eyes off the man as she did so.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, facing the man, she reluctantly picked up the fork. It crossed her mind the food was drugged, but she needed sustenance. If it were drugged, she would know soon enough.
So Bonnie ate. She scarfed down the food, keeping one eye on the man with the strange tattoos and implants in his head.
“Where’s Jonas?” It was the one question she wanted an answer to. If Jonas would s
how himself, she would wrap the length of this chain around his neck and strangle the life out of him. She would get him in one of those jiu-jitsu moves Quentin had shown her and use her powerful thighs to force his submission.
But the man didn’t answer. He only looked at his lap, but Bonnie didn’t think that’s where he was truly focused. He was as aware of her presence as she was of his.
She continued shoveling food into her mouth, forcing her esophagus to work the food down and willing her stomach to not revolt. Hurting from all the puking she’d done last night, her insides threatened a repeat performance. As she ate, Bonnie could feel her stomach settle and some semblance of her strength returning.
She repeated her question. “I know Jonas is behind this. Where is he?”
The man’s eyes snapped back up to hers. They were blue, a clear blue, not unlike Zack’s. Maybe the colors of his skin offset his eyes, making them appear bluer. His shaved head, tattooed in red and black scales to give off the appearance of a dragon, or a demon, was clearly a canvas for the horns he’d had imbedded underneath the skin. Bonnie wondered what had hurt the worst, the tattoos or the implants?
He still didn’t answer her, his hands rubbing circles on his thighs. She looked at his hands, studied them, knowing you could tell a lot by a man’s hands. His were covered in tattoos, like the rest of his visible body. He wasn’t keeping them still, so she couldn’t read the letters on his knuckles, but like the rest of him, red and black scales covered the skin on his hands.
He wore a long-sleeved t-shirt, but Bonnie didn’t have to imagine too hard that his arms were covered with the scales as well.
Since he clearly wasn’t going to answer her question about where Jonas was, she finished eating, managing to get down most of her food. She drank the bottle of water provided, thankful she was at least being given sustenance.
She would just have to wait and see if it was drugged.
