Banged Up

by Jeanne St. James

  “So torture me, you shit-for-brains, not her!”

  Mace’s attempt to piss Spinozi off seemed to work. Spinozi left Colby to step closer to him. He jammed the gun against Mace’s lips. “Watch your mouth, before I blow it right off your face!”

  “Do it,” he goaded between pressed lips.

  “It’s not going to be that easy, Walker. No way. I’m not in a rush and you and your girlfriend have nowhere to go.”

  —

  Colby squeezed her eyes tight. Any moment she was going to wake up and this was all going to be a bad nightmare. She had seen scenes like this in the movies. This does not happen in real life.

  This could not be happening.

  It was.

  Colby opened her eyes when she heard a noise she didn’t even want to guess at. She fought down the bile threatening to rise into her mouth.

  The half dozen men behind Mace kept staring her bare breasts. They had sick, wicked grins on their faces and it didn’t change when they went back to watching Mace suffer. She couldn’t figure out which excited them more. But her exposed chest was the least of her worries.

  Mace was in trouble. They were both going to die. But not without being tortured first. She was sure of it. How the hell could she help him or herself? Even if she could free herself, she didn’t even know where they were. A garage or a warehouse, maybe. It could be in another state or even another country. She didn’t know how long she had been passed out before waking up tied to this damn metal chair.

  Colby watched the continued violence against Mace through a haze. She didn’t know how long it lasted. An hour. Two? It could have been twenty minutes for all she knew.

  She had lost track of time. She pinned her eyes shut against the horror and slowly rocked back and forth, as far as the bindings would allow her.

  There were too many questions, too many silent answers. The only answers Spinozi got for his questions were the slight sounds of pain occasionally slipping from Mace’s lips. He was beaten and stabbed, sliced and burned. Again and again. No man could take this, she thought wildly. Mace either refused to, or could not, answer the questions.

  She knew, even if he did answer, they wouldn’t have given them mercy anyway. She wasn’t foolish.

  “Now for the best fun of the night,” Spinozi announced with a great flourish. “Untie his right hand. Leave the other bound.”

  She heard a scuffle and then a groan as one of Mace’s hands were freed.

  “Take it,” Spinozi ordered. “Take it!”

  Colby didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t help it. Mace, his face swollen almost beyond recognition, slowly reached out to take the handgun.

  Shoot the bastard, Mace! Shoot that fat bastard!

  “Point it at her.”

  “Fuck you.” The words were no more than a pained whisper. His voice was unrecognizable. There was not much left of the man she knew. And loved.

  Spinozi put a knife to his ear and drew blood. “Point it at her. It’s easier to kill her than to watch me slice off her luscious body parts while she’s awake. Isn’t it, Rico?”

  Mace raised the gun, his hand shaking. The six men stationed behind him had their guns drawn too. Half were pointed at her, half at Mace. They were doomed either way.

  “Shoot her. Shoot her! Now.”

  Mace stuck the gun to his own temple instead.

  He wouldn’t do that. It had to be a ploy.

  “Stupid man.” Spinozi growled. He circled Mace. “Will you leave her alone with us, then? Pull the damn trigger, you coward. Do it!”

  Colby watched his fingers tighten on the gun and his finger slide in front of the trigger. He would not desert her like that. He wouldn’t.

  Mace looked into her eyes. He was empty, a shadow of his former self. Colby wanted to scream, but the damn tape kept her lips together. She wanted to scream at him to stop. Not to pull the trigger.

  “I love you,” he mouthed.

  Colby squeezed her eyes shut. Fine time to tell her now—when they were about to die. She fought back the hysterical laughter bubbled up from her throat. She couldn’t watch. She couldn’t. God, she loved him. She loved him. She loved him.

  —

  He was going to die.

  The gun exploded. Colby jumped, her ears rang painfully. It was over.

  It was her turn to die.

  The ringing in her ears wouldn’t go away. Neither could she open her eyes. They burned with tears and smoke and hatred. She didn’t want to see the gun pointed at her.

  She couldn’t hear anything, but after a few moments she felt the body heat of someone near her. The duct tape was ripped off her mouth. The stinging pain was nothing compared to the pain in her heart.

  Colby opened her eyes to see men swarming around her. They were wearing dark blue wind jackets and baseball-type caps with ATF and FBI on them in big yellow letters.

  They were too late. Too late!

  Someone cut her ropes. The sudden circulation to her feet and hands caused a stinging sensation. An awful prickly pain. But the pain of knowing Mace was dead was worse.

  Her hearing must have been still muted from the gunshots because it took the darkhaired man in front of her a couple times before she could make out his words. “Ma’am. Here, put this on.”

  Colby tried to reach out for the offered jacket, but her arms refused to move. “I can’t.” Her voice was hoarse and she tried to clear her throat.

  The agent helped insert her arms into the sleeves and he buttoned the jacket closed, covering her nakedness. She wanted to stand but her legs were shaking so badly. She tried twice before the man reached out to lift her up. She was grateful for his help, but she couldn’t say thank you, for if she opened her mouth again she was going to start wailing uncontrollably and they would have to sedate her. Or put her in a straight jacket.

  From outside the building she finally heard the sirens. She hadn’t noticed them earlier due to her hearing loss. But those high pitched wails sounded good to her now.

  She looked around to see the officers dragging Spinozi’s men out of the door, shackled like the animals they were. She wished she had her Glock; she would shoot every one of them between the eyes. She spotted the gun in the agent’s holster. It was within reach.

  He must have noticed her gaze, since he turned his hip away from her and said, “The ambulance is here, ma’am. Do you think you can walk? I’ll help you.”

  He took her arm and supported her while she walked out the door, careful to keep her on his left side, away from his weapon.

  “There’s only one ambulance left, ma’am. So you’ll have to hitch a ride.” The man gave her a gentle smile as he handed her over to the EMTs, who helped her climb into the back of the ambulance.

  “Sit here,” one of them said, pointing to a seat next to the gurney.

  Colby sat, in a daze, and looked to see who she was riding with. If it was Spinozi, she’d kill him right now, before they could get to the hospital. She didn’t need the agent’s gun; she’d kill him with her bare hands. “My God…” she whispered. She turned to the EMT next to her. “Is he alive?”

  “Yes. He’s been in and out of consciousness—look.”

  Colby leaned forward. Mace. He hadn’t shot himself. Those deafening gunshots must have all come from the agents’ guns.

  He was alive. But… “Is he all right?”

  “He’s in a critical condition, but—”

  Mace slowly lifted a hand to Colby’s face. He couldn’t quite reach, so she leaned closer, crying out with disbelief when he touched her skin. His bottom lip was split and blood trickled from his mouth, but he tried to speak.

  Colby leaned closer until her ear was a breath away. “What?”

  “Will you marry me?”

  She was hearing things. Why would he ask her that? Here, now? While he was fighting for his life?

  The EMT pulled her back. “Ma’am, please. Sit back, give us some room to work.”

  Colby sat back. And wept.
/>
  Chapter Fifteen

  “Why won’t they let me see him?” Colby yelled to no one in particular while she paced the hospital hallway. She was frustrated and angry. Just plain spitting mad. She had been waiting for six hours—time enough for doctors to clean her up, stitch her up and officially release her—and now they refused to let her see Mace.

  “Probably because you aren’t family.”

  Colby spun toward the voice. “Who are you?”

  The man was short, bald and stocky but wearing a well-fitted, deep blue suit and dark glasses. Why did he need sunglasses inside?

  “I can’t tell you who I am. Just think of me as a concerned citizen.”

  Concerned citizen. She damn well knew he was Mace’s boss. She was sick of this secret squirrel shit. It had landed them both in hospital. “Why won’t they let me in to see him? I’m his fiancée!” Maybe he had enough influence to get her into Mace’s room.

  The man raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  Colby swore she heard “The SOB finally got the best of me” under his breath.

  Before she could question him on it, he continued louder, “Well, Miss Parks, congratulations. And for your wedding present, I’d like to give you Mace’s walking papers.”

  He handed her a thick manila envelope. The outside was free of writing, but a federal government seal was printed in one corner. She tore her eyes away from the official looking envelope to catch her reflection in his sunglasses. “Walking papers?”

  “Yes, Mace is officially retired as of midnight tonight.”

  Colby sank down in a chair, staring at the packet. She flipped it over in her hands a couple times before saying, “Retired? Honorably, I assume.”

  The man laughed. “There are no honors in his line of work, Miss Parks. Just be glad we got there in time to keep him alive.”

  She picked at the sealed edge of the envelope. She glanced up. “May I?” He gave a slight incline to his head, enough of an answer for her to tear the flap open. She slid the paperwork out she asked, “How did you know where we were?”

  She started to scan the cover letter when she realized he hadn’t answered her. What was he waiting for? Colby looked up. He was gone. If it wasn’t for the paperwork she held in her hands, she would have thought she had imagined him.

  She finished scanning the letter, before flipping through the rest of the package which included details of his pension, retirement benefits and a lot of legalese.

  A nurse quietly approached her. “Miss Parks, you may see him now.”

  “What? I thought—”

  “Mr. Smith explained your situation and we realized we had been mistaken.”

  Colby silently thanked Mr. Smith as she rushed past the nurse and raced down the hallway. She couldn’t push the door open fast enough to enter Mace’s room.

  His head was cushioned by a pillow, his upper body in an upright position due to the medical bed. He had ugly black stitches crisscrossing his face, one ear, his arm… She stopped searching. There were too many sutured areas to count. He reminded her of Frankenstein, though not as scary. His eyes were closed and his breathing was steady. He had an IV in his left arm and some sort of machine was hooked to him, beeping every second or so.

  She dragged one of the blocky hospital room chairs next to his bed and perched on the edge. She reached out for his right hand, which was unencumbered with tubes, and he met her halfway. His warm, large fingers enveloped hers. Her eyes flicked back to his face and he was staring at her through swollen, purple eyes. They were unreadable, but he gave her fingers a slight squeeze.

  Without letting go of her lifeline, she placed the packet of papers gently on his chest.

  He lifted his head off the pillow a little, asking “What’s that?” through puffy, bruised lips.

  “Your tour of duty is officially over. You’re retired.”

  Mace didn’t say anything. Colby didn’t know if it was a good or a bad thing. He couldn’t want to continue getting shot and beaten up. How much could a body take?

  After tonight, she couldn’t take anymore. She didn’t want to say, “It’s me or your career.” She wouldn’t do that to him, but she could not stand by and worry about him. Or worse, lose him for good.

  “Good. Now I can concentrate on other things.”

  Colby let out her breath, not even realizing she had been holding it while waiting for his response. He was letting his job go. “What other things?”

  “Building you a new home. Somewhere far way from here. Somewhere safe.” His words were slow and it took him effort to get them out, but she understood every one of them. He gripped her hand harder. “I’m sorry your house is gone, Colby.”

  “I know.” She smiled. “I can replace a house. I can’t replace you.”

  He gave her a gentle tug and she slid over to the edge of the hospital bed, careful not to jar him too much. “I know how much it meant to you, what a haven it was for you.”

  “You are all I need now.” Colby brushed a finger lightly down his bruised, broken features. He laid her head lightly on his chest. She felt it rise and fall softly with his steady breathing. “I love you, Mace.”

  The movement of his chest hesitated under her cheek, and a moment later it surged and continued on with its soothing rhythm. He brushed her hair away from her face with his free hand. “How soon can I get out of this place? I’m sick of hospitals.”

  “Soon,” she answered, but truthfully she didn’t know. He had a lot of healing to do before he could ever build their home. Their home.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Go?”

  “Yes, where do you want to build our new house and our new life?”

  “Anywhere, Mace. Anywhere you go, I’ll follow.”

  He chuckled softly, then groaned in pain. “No, I think you’ve got it backward. I’ll follow you. To the ends of the earth, if necessary.”

  Colby sighed as Mace tightened his fingers around hers. He lifted them to his mouth and pressed them ever so lightly to his lips.

  She leaned over and laid her cheek against his, careful not to hurt him. She needed him, needed to feel him against her. God, she loved him and she never wanted to let him go.

  “You never answered my question,” he murmured in her ear.

  Question. What question?

  Oh.

  “Yes.” She laughed through her tears. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  The End

  About the Author:

  I started writing around 13 years old and found it great therapy. Over my high school years I wrote my first novel, a young adult novel that was pretty raw about a young girl growing up in a gang. That manuscript is now forever lost (and that might be a good thing). During this time I read loads of books, most of them historical romances and category romances (contemporary). I fell in love with the genre. And have been writing ever since…

  I now concentrate on the erotic romance genre. Why? Because it’s a blast. There’s nothing like a hot, hot romance to get your juices flowing. But I still like the HEA (Happily Ever After) ending.

  I currently reside in South-central Pennsylvania with my dog and the love of my life (yes, he has two legs, not four). I am an emergency dispatcher and have my AA and BS in Criminal Justice.

  My first published erotica piece was a fantasy short story in the July 2006 issue of Playgirl, which was titled “The Hot Ride.”

  My website is at http://www.jeannestjames.com where you’ll find info about my presence on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and my blog. I update it when I have a chance because I’d rather be writing hot stories.

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