Fueling His Hunger

by Sparrow Beckett

  Adrenaline kicked in. She tried to pull away, to scream, to tear his hand away from her mouth, but he was too strong. Despite her fight, it only took a minute for him to get her into the car.

  A second man was in the backseat, holding a gun.

  Chapter 16

  Between the leather jacket, black T-shirt, jeans, and sunglasses, Luke had to admit he looked intimidating. In the mirror, he set his mouth in a grim line, but it wavered, and then he laughed. It was hard to stay serious to keep up the appearance of being Ophelia’s bodyguard. Maybe if his “new boss” was an uber bitch it would help, but between the hot sex and the relationship that kept growing no matter how hard he fought it back, it was difficult to maintain a sinister demeanor when he looked at her. It was even harder not to grab her ass when there were people around.

  It didn’t help that Priya, Chloe, and the cook had all caught them in compromising situations on multiple occasions. They already knew Ophelia was messing around with her new bodyguard, so there was less and less incentive to be discreet, at least at her place.

  She was slumming with him, he knew, and eventually things would end, but for now . . . Now they were having too much fun.

  He added the heavy motorcycle boots she seemed to be developing a fetish for, then threw a few of his newer kink acquisitions in a duffel bag. They were just supposed to hang out tonight, but one glimpse of the bag would turn her curious and eager. Such a dirty girl, his Ophelia.

  His Ophelia for now. For as long as he could keep her.

  Her meeting was probably over by now, and knowing her, she’d probably sent him a naughty picture or a sweet text. He grabbed his phone off the nightstand and checked it.

  Nothing? Weird. Was her meeting running long?

  A missed call though? Even weirder. Who the hell actually called people nowadays?

  For a couple of minutes, he fumbled around, trying to remember his newest voicemail password. When he finally got it working, the voice sounded strained.

  You don’t fucking listen, do you? I have your little bitch. If you want to see her alive again, you need to pack up and get the fuck out of Vegas. Tonight. No cops or she dies.

  What the fuck?

  Glacial dread stole down to his belly. He swayed, braced himself against the wall, felt his knees buckle. Sinking to the floor, he replayed the message.

  Vander. Fucking Vander had Ophelia. It had to be her—who else could he mean?

  He clutched his chest, feeling like his heart was missing beats.

  Maybe Vander was mistaken. Maybe he’d grabbed some stranger and Ophelia was safe at home waiting for him.

  He dialed the house line. Yelled for his cousins, his voice breaking on their names. Tried her cell. His cousins pelted into the room and he babbled an explanation at them. Texted her. Tried her cell again.

  “What do I do?” He pushed himself back up, pulled himself together. It wasn’t time to panic. Ophelia needed him.

  Fuck. He knew he was no good for her, but he hadn’t foreseen this. She was probably scared shitless. As tough as she was, this wasn’t the kind of thing a girl like Ophelia was prepared for. His sister, Macy, wouldn’t have been surprised, but Ophelia hadn’t been raised knowing shit like this could happen, and now she’d been kidnapped twice. Except with Vander it wasn’t an accident, and he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her.

  If Vander laid a hand on her, he’d kill him. He’d snap his fucking neck.

  Luke hit speaker and played the message for his cousins in the silent room. “He says not to call the cops, but I don’t know what else to do.”

  “I know they want us out, but this crosses the line, even for them,” Fox growled. “The treaty we made with Lurch after Marcel shot me should still be in effect. We haven’t called an end to that truce. Sure, they like to bust our chops sometimes, but Vander has to know he’s way out of line on this. I doubt Lurch even knows what he’s up to.”

  Fox yanked his phone out of his back pocket and scrolled for a minute before hitting a button. He pushed his long blond Mohawk back from his eyes.

  Addison, Fox’s fiancée and a fellow car thief, came into the room, looking around quizzically and straightening her clothes. “What’s going on?”

  “Lurch? It’s Fox.” Luke’s older cousin started to pace. “What the fuck, man? Vander just left a message on Luke’s phone saying he grabbed his girlfriend, and if we want to see her alive again we need to clear out tonight.”

  Addison clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes widening as she looked at Luke. He nodded grim confirmation at her before turning his attention back to his cousin.

  “Uh-huh . . . Yeah, that’s what I thought. Fucking idiot.” Fox shook his head, then paused while he listened. After a couple of minutes, he ended the call. “Lurch and the other guys have no fucking clue what Vander is doing,” he told them. “Lurch and Rick are meeting us at an address on Balzar.”

  Luke turned and ran downstairs, with the others following close behind, their boots loud on the hardwood stairs. Fox and Addison took one of their SUVs, and Atlas shoved Luke into the passenger seat of his Mustang.

  Atlas gunned the engine and floored it down the drive, with Fox close behind.

  “For Lurch to offer to help means Vander has really gone off script,” Atlas grumbled as the car sped down the side road toward town.

  So Vander had lost it. That wasn’t a comforting thought. Just because he didn’t have his group backing him didn’t mean Ophelia was safe. Far from it. If he was alone with her there was no one to stop him. No one to rein him in.

  Luke dug the tips of his fingers into the edges of his seat, wishing he was driving. Atlas was going more than forty over the speed limit, winding through the side roads, but it was too damned slow.

  Usually darkness was their friend. In their line of work, they spent a lot of time awake at night, prowling the busy Vegas streets until well past when most people were asleep. Tonight darkness ate their headlights, swallowing the beams whole.

  Ophelia was alone and scared. Was he hurting her? Was she even alive?

  “Don’t give in to paranoia. She’s going to be okay,” Atlas said reassuringly.

  Luke wished he could believe him. Wished it was that simple.

  “I appreciate the lie, but there’s no way to know that.”

  His cousin shrugged. “True, but I doubt he’ll do her any real harm. Scare her, yes. But I don’t think he’s stupid enough to do something more serious. He has to know that at a certain point even we’d call the cops. He’s lucky we haven’t.”

  They’d never been a group for weapons, but driving into this shit storm with only a pocketknife made Luke feel unprepared. They were hackers who had a knack for talking their way out of bad situations. They weren’t murderers. Sure, he knew how to throw a punch, but how would that help against Vander, who was probably packing? Then again, the more guns that showed up at a confrontation, the more likely shit would get out of hand. At least that was the theory his old man had, and why they never carried them.

  They met up with Lurch and Rick at an empty lot, then followed them to a run-down house a few lots down. There was no sign of movement inside the house. The walkway was choked with weeds, and the wooden stairs listed crazily to one side. Lurch unlocked the door and went in first. The others followed him in, and they split up, searching the house from basement to attic. There was no indication anyone had been there in weeks.

  As they filed out of the house again, Lurch shrugged. “This was my first guess. We don’t use this house very often because it’s a shithole, so he might have thought it would be the last place we’d check.”

  “Would he guess you were helping us?” Atlas asked, scrubbing a hand through the stubble on his head.

  “He’d know this would piss most of the rest of us off, so yeah, he’d have to guess we’d help you.” Lurch shook his head in exasperatio
n. “No man in his right mind would book it out of town because some idiot kidnapped his girlfriend. Why would he think this would fix anything?” He waved his freakishly long arms in exasperation. The man had to be at least six foot eight. He had all the height of a basketball player, paired with the physique of a noodle, and a seriously creepy, skull-like head. His nickname suited him.

  The second and third locations were also empty. Zigzagging around the city felt like a waste of time. If Vander knew Lurch would help them, maybe he’d brought Ophelia somewhere more secluded.

  By midnight, Luke was getting frantic. His phone didn’t ring no matter how hard he stared at it. What if Vander never called back? What if he just killed Ophelia and dumped her body somewhere?

  Should he call the hospitals and see if she had turned up tonight?

  God, he couldn’t even think about that. But he couldn’t not think about it either.

  Nausea nagged at him. He kept feeling like he was going to puke. Tremors made his hands unsteady. Every time a house they searched was empty he lost more hope. Heroes on television never panicked like this, but how could he not, at the idea of Ophelia in the hands of an unhinged rival?

  She was so small and vulnerable. He was supposed to keep her safe, not lead her into danger. He thought of her crumpled form in an empty house, broken, abandoned, dying. Waiting for him to save her. Waiting for help that would get there too late.

  “Stop,” Atlas barked, pulling him out of his gruesome reverie.

  “I can’t.”

  “You’re going to pass out if you keep breathing like that. Focus on slowing yourself down. You can’t help her if you’re out cold.”

  Luke gripped his phone, letting the case cut into his palm, focusing on the small pain and working on slowing his heart rate.

  They just had to find her alive and okay. Then . . . then she could leave him.

  Then he’d make her leave him.

  If she was hurt, or dead, he’d never forgive himself.

  Chapter 17

  The cold of the metal pole behind her seeped through her shirt, chilling her to the bone. The zip ties digging into her wrists kept her arms stretched around the pole uncomfortably. She’d been there for what felt like hours. Her feet ached but she refused to sit down, to let the bastard get the upper hand.

  Ophelia studied every detail of where he’d taken her. It was some kind of warehouse. A large open room with steel doors and no windows. It smelled like a musty attic, and was that blood on the ground? It was the kind of place where young, kidnapped girls turned up dead in crime movies. Dirty floor, steel pipes, ominous feel. Yeah. This had Criminal Minds written all over it.

  But she refused to play damsel in distress. Instead of sinking to the floor in despair, she remained alert, collecting any information she could. Her captor was big and had mean, piggy eyes, but for all that he didn’t seem to be that bright. From what she could gather from his conversations with the other guy, they were car thieves.

  His accomplice had come and gone, whispering updates out of earshot. The one who seemed to be the boss was called Vander—she’d heard that much. And he had some sort of vendetta that involved Luke.

  So this was what playing with fire got her.

  Vander paced in front of her, his heavy boots kicking up dirt. He hadn’t said a word to her, but by the angry muttering and clenched fists he seemed to be getting more on edge as time went on.

  Unsure of what to say, she’d stayed quiet and simply observed. Until she knew more about him, and could predict his actions, she didn’t want to risk his wrath by getting chatty.

  A small groan escaped her as she shifted her body, trying to take the strain off her shoulders. Her whole body ached, and the ground, as dirty as it was, became more and more inviting.

  Vander stopped his anxious pacing and looked at her. Her groan must have caught his attention. Dread filled her belly, making it knot up.

  “Uncomfortable?” he sneered.

  Since the answer was obvious, she didn’t bother to respond.

  “This is your boyfriend’s fault, you know.” Slowly, he walked toward her. “He’s going to pay for what his team did to Marcel.”

  Marcel? Luke hadn’t even mentioned him. What the hell had happened and why did she get the feeling it was bad? Really bad.

  “But I didn’t do anything.” Her voice sounded husky from the dust and lack of water. “I barely even know Luke, or his cousins.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t give a fuck. This is about revenge.”

  Maybe if she kept him talking, she could learn more, figure him out. Could she convince him to let her go? Fat chance, but what else was there to do? “W-what did he do?”

  His brow rose. “Your boyfriend? They ran my cousin, Marcel, off the road. He crashed into a guardrail and died. They killed him.”

  She felt her eyes widen. Luke had killed someone? Her throat tightened. No way. He couldn’t have. It just . . . wasn’t in him.

  Vander moved closer, his eyes flipping from anger to amusement and back again. “That’s right. Your boyfriend is a murderer. Does it change how you think of him? You fucked a murderer. How does that make you feel?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, wanting to scream at him to shut up. With a deep breath, she slowed her racing thoughts. Why was she letting this asshole get to her? He was the enemy, not Luke. Why the hell would she believe him?

  Think. There had to be a way to talk him out of this.

  “You know who I am, right?” God, she hated that she could even say that. But now it might work to her advantage. “I’m a millionaire. People will be looking for me by now.” That wasn’t exactly true. Her reputation for disappearing while drunk at parties had kind of fucked up that plan, but he didn’t need to know that.

  A few steps closer. He snorted. “A criminal and a celebrity. Priceless.”

  “I’m not a celebrity.” Shame filled her, briefly, but it was true. She didn’t act or sing or even star in reality TV shows. Honestly, she was well known simply because she existed. Wearing designer shoes in public and being bought for product placement by corporate sponsors helped, but it wasn’t as if she had any talent.

  How pathetic. What did Luke see in her anyway?

  “You’re a means to an end. I don’t give a fuck who you are. And even if the FBI is looking for you, they won’t find you here.”

  Yeah, right. There weren’t many abandoned warehouses in the city. They hadn’t driven far after taking her. In fact, this was probably one of the first places someone would look for her. If anyone bothered. But that was a big if.

  Vander was only about a foot away now and she panicked, wondering what he was planning to do. Too close. He could hurt her so easily.

  With a smirk, he put his finger under her chin and forced her to crane her neck. “You’re a pretty thing. I can see why he likes—”

  She seized the opportunity, taking advantage of his proximity. After rearing back, she slammed her forehead against his face as hard as she could. He stumbled back in shock, his nose gushing blood. He stared at her. Fuck. She was so dead. Maybe that’d been a stupid move, but she couldn’t wait around for another chance. She had to strike first.

  One step toward her. Two. His eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled to the ground. His head made a sickening crack as he hit the concrete.

  Her vision tunneled and the room spun. The throbbing ache in her forehead was the worst pain she could remember. She hadn’t meant to knock herself out at the same time. This always worked in movies, damn it.

  She slid down the pole and sank onto the floor to collect herself. With her eyes closed, she focused on her breathing. In through her nose, out through her mouth, one breath at a time. Don’t pass out.

  Once the world righted itself, she noticed the headache building. She’d probably have a huge goose egg on her forehead soon.

>   So now what? She’d incapacitated her captor but she was still stuck in the stupid zip ties. She tried, in vain, to slip out of them again, or break them, but they were too tight and her wrists were starting to feel raw.

  Shit. She’d just knocked out the only man who could get her out of here. Unless the other guy came back. Or if Luke found her. But what if he had really done what Vander had told him to and left town?

  When Vander woke up, he was going to be pissed. What the hell was she going to do now?

  Chapter 18

  “That’s the car he’s been driving.” Lurch jerked a thumb at the nondescript four-door mostly obscured by the warehouse’s shadow. Luke recognized it immediately. “Why would he bring her here, though? So hard to defend without any backup. He probably figured no one would look here, and I guess the lack of neighbors appealed to him.”

  Atlas glanced up and down the street. Lurch and Rick drew their guns, and Luke and the others automatically took a step back. Luke was all for pounding the shit out of the guy, but killing someone?

  “You’re going to shoot him?” Fox asked, staring at the gun in Lurch’s hand. “He’s your teammate.”

  “No, no. Just threaten him,” Lurch grumbled.

  Rick, his second in command, nodded. “This needs to be dealt with quickly and quietly. He’s out, even if he gives her up without a fight.” He spat on the ground, as though the whole situation had left a bad taste in his mouth.

  Lurch sighed. “This loose-cannon bullshit is bad for business. After Marcel lost it last year, more than half of our fucking contracts pulled out. Buyers want cars, not drama.”

  “I know Vander was close to Marcel—they were cousins or something—but I thought he’d moved on for the good of the business.” Rick sucked his teeth.

  “Let’s do this,” Luke prompted. “What’s the layout?”

  “The typical,” Lurch said. “The warehouse only has a few cars in it right now, so it’s mostly big and empty. Just follow me.” He used the keypad to get them into the front office, and Fox closed the door quietly behind them.