“In my car, listen Daisy –”
She interrupted me. “Ally is freakin’ out. She let the cat out of the bag but, girl, it sounds a lot worse than what it was. Jules is upset. She wants you to understand what happened –”
I interrupted right back. “I want to know about Roxie.”
“Roxie is freakin’ out too! She likes you with Luke, we all do. This could get weird, like it was weird for awhile when Vance and Luke both were –”
I didn’t want to hear about Vance and Luke and Jules, I wanted to know about Roxie. “No, I want to know why Roxie thought it was her that I thought Luke had a thing for.”
“Pardon?” Daisy asked.
“Last night, when Luke and I were arguing about it, his first guess as to who Ren meant was Roxie. Ally told me Roxie thought I thought it was her. Why would both of them think that?”
Silence.
“Daisy, please, tell me,” I begged.
“Sugar, I know you’re lookin’ for a way to protect your heart. But you’re lookin’ in the wrong direction. I have to tell you the best way to protect your heart is to trust it to a man who’ll take care of it for you.”
Right. Like such a man existed.
I did not think so.
“Last night and this morning, Luke and I talked a lot,” I told Daisy. “He said a lot of shit to me, all of it I wanted to believe. The problem is, he declared he was through talking this morning and it seems there’s a lot he left out. I can’t trust my heart to a man who’d keep something from me. Especially if it’s about people in his life which will mean, if I stay with him, they’ll be people in my life. That means in the Rock Chick Hot Bunch tribe I’ll be the chump and I don’t want to be the chump. Can you understand that?”
Daisy said softly, “I can understand that.”
“Please then, tell me.”
She sighed. “First off, you have to know these girls are not your usual girls. The Rock Chicks are special and the Hot Bunch know that.”
I kept silent and waited.
“Okay then,” she went on. “Luke threw down with Roxie when he was playin’ her bodyguard. It wasn’t a big deal. He just told her he was interested if it didn’t work out with her and Hank.”
The news hit me like a blow.
Strike one.
“Then he kind of fell for Jules when they were trainin’ and workin’ together. That went a little further because Luke went for it after everyone thought Vance broke up with her and then went out of town so he wasn’t keepin’ his eye on things. Nothin’ came of it, mainly because Jules had already given her heart to Vance, but somethin’ special grew out of that for Jules and Luke. Ava listen to me, it’s somethin’ sweet and special and totally innocent that grew out of it. Vance and Luke are friends and –”
Strike two.
“Any more I should know about?” I asked, interrupting her. “Jet, Indy, anyone?”
“Sugar,” Daisy said softly and she sounded disappointed. “Don’t be like that.”
“So let’s play what if. What if Vance had broken up with Jules? Where would Luke be now?”
“What if is a stupid game. He didn’t break up with her, end of story.”
I knew where Luke would be now, I knew by his relentless, tough guy, macho man pursuit of me. He “fell for Jules” as Daisy put it. If Vance had broken up with her, right now Jules would be in Luke’s loft and he’d be contemplating when he would let his and Jules’s daughter date if she looked like Jules (likely it’d be at age forty if she looked like Jules).
Then it hit me, Jules was pregnant. Hell, if she was with Luke she would be pregnant with his baby.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, almost certain I was going to puke.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Daisy mumbled.
“I have to go,” I said again.
“Come over to my house, we’ll talk,” Daisy replied on a rush. “I’ll get the girls over –”
“Later, Daisy.”
Yeah, much later… as in never. To cut off Luke, I had to cut off the Rock Chicks completely. And I liked the Rock Chicks a lot.
And that was strike three.
“Wait!” I heard Daisy cry before I disconnected.
I tossed my cell into the passenger seat, put my hands on the steering wheel and rested my head on them.
You think she should talk to him now? Hear his side of the story? Listen to him explain about how he tried it on with half the Rock Chicks? How he broke it off with Sandra Whoever-she-was without batting an eye? How he didn’t mention any of this shit during his “straight talk”? Bad Ava taunted Good Ava.
Good Ava didn’t answer. She was too busy quietly crying.
* * * * *
I turned off my phone and went to a travel agent. I booked a last minute trip to an all-inclusive in St. Croix, leaving the next morning at oh-dark-thirty.
I went to a card shop, bought a card, paper and a pen and wrote Sissy a long note, explaining everything. Then I went to an Internet Café, e-mailed my clients and told them I had a family emergency that would mean I’d be out of town for two weeks and I looked up the address for Nightingale Investigations on the web. I posted the card to Sissy, care of Nightingale Investigations. Then I went to the mall and bought a bunch of new stuff for my trip, including luggage because mine was at Luke’s.
Then I went home, scanned the street for Luke’s Porsche or any black Ford SUVs and finding none there I parked in my garage. I lugged my bags inside and took them upstairs. I was going to spend the night in a hotel close to the airport.
I dumped my shopping bags on the bed and rolled the suitcase beside it. Then I walked downstairs and arranged my purse and all the paperwork I’d need for my trip, including my tickets, on the dining room table. After that, I went to the kitchen to get a drink, a heavy one. I was going to call a taxi to take me to the hotel so I could get as drunk as I liked.
And I was going to get way drunk.
I was mixing it, my back to the kitchen door, when two arms closed around my waist.
Shit.
I hated it when Luke moved so quietly.
“Let me go,” I whispered and even to my ears my voice sounded broken.
“Not until I teach you a lesson.”
My body went solid.
It did this not because it was Luke who was speaking.
It did this because it was Noah Dexter who was speaking.
Fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck.
* * * * *
I fought him.
I lost and got hurt doing it, so hurt, I lost consciousness for long enough for him to carry me downstairs to my creepy basement.
The fight had been ugly. I kicked, screamed, bit, punched, tugged and tumbled.
He mostly punched and he was better at it.
Before getting knocked out, I felt wetness on my face that I was certain was blood coming from a tear in my lip or from my nose or both.
By the time I came to, I had something over my mouth, strong and sticky and I knew it was tape. I licked it and pushed at it with my tongue but it didn’t move. He had me in the old coal room, the smallest, darkest, most cramped, most creepy part of the basement and he was taping my hands well over my head to a steel support pole.
I made a noise that was supposed to communicate “No!” but it didn’t come out as much due to the tape.
I felt sick, my head was groggy, I felt dull pain in too many parts of my body and I was scared out of my ever lovin’ mind.
I got myself together enough to try to pull my body away from him taping my hands but the tape held strong and tore at my skin. Before I could get anywhere, he moved around and pressed into me, moving from my hands and starting to tape my arms to the beam. I kept pushing against him and trying to kick at him but he just pressed deeper until my breastbone connected with the beam so hard I cried out under the tape.
“Sent some PI’s after me, didn’t you? You stupid fuck,” he hissed in my ear, his body still pressing into the back of mine, hand
s still wrapping the duct tape around and around my arms. “You should have left it alone. That fuckin’ redskin sniffin’ me out. Someone finds you down here before you die of thirst, you call them the fuck off. You hear me, Ava?”
I swallowed and it tasted like blood. Then I nodded.
“Christ, I had to leave a mark I’d been workin’ for months because of this fuckin’ shit.”
I closed my eyes and stopped pushing against him when he started to tape my chest to the beam. I tested the tape at my hands but it held fast.
“And you’re fuckin’ Stark. I cannot believe you’re fuckin’ Luke fuckin’ Stark, but I saw it with my own eyes.”
My body went still.
He felt it and he stopped wrapping tape around me and laughed. “Yeah, I watched you, Ava. I watched you and I jacked off while I did it.”
Oh… my… God.
Even though I really, really didn’t want him to, he explained, “I been followin’ you but you’re never fuckin’ alone. I knew you’d see Stella so I went there, hopin’ to nab you in the bathroom or somethin’. I watched Stark fight Zano for you, followed you and Stark home and broke into a place across the street. Lucky for me you guys left the lights on, I watched the whole thing. I wish I had a camera.”
I was breathing heavily through my nose. I couldn’t believe this was happening and I didn’t want to believe what he said.
“You were hot,” he whispered, pressing into my back in an entirely different way. His hand slid across my side to my breast, cupping it. “He did you against the wall. I thought you were a good girl. I knew you’d let me fuck you against the wall, I would have stayed around longer.”
Then for some reason his hand went still, his body went tight and his head came up.
He hissed in my ear. “I have a gun, you make a fuckin’ noise, I blow your brains out then I’ll shoot whoever’s up there too.”
That’s when I heard footfalls upstairs.
“Ava,” Luke’s voice called from upstairs. I closed my eyes and visions of a bloody, bullet-ridden Luke filled my head. I opened my eyes again immediately to clear the visions.
“Let’s make this interesting,” Noah muttered and then he moved away to drop the tape but he came right back and he pressed his body into mine.
I heard Luke’s footsteps going up the stairs to the top floor just as I felt Noah’s hand on my belt buckle. My body jerked but Noah hissed, “Not a sound or you’re both dead,” and I stopped my struggle before it started.
I could still hear Luke moving around the house and I stayed silent, even as Noah’s hands undid my pants and one slid inside while the other one went up my shirt to cup my breast again. I could feel his fingers (not hitting the target, by the way, he never did) pressing against me, his other fingers doing a nipple roll as I listened to Luke moving around the house.
Finally after it threatened all day, I threw up but choked it back down before it made it to my mouth.
Throughout it all, silently I was crying.
I tried to ignore what was happening to me physically by chanting in my head, don’t come down here, don’t come down here, don’t come down here.
Luke didn’t come down. Noah and I heard the front door slam and I knew Luke was gone.
I felt both terrified and relieved by this.
“Fuck, now I have a hard on,” Noah said in my ear, pressing his groin against my ass, rubbing against me and his hands kept at me. “You always did have a sweet ass,” he mumbled in my ear. “You do it doggie-style with Stark as well as against the wall?”
I had, that was one of the three positions of a few days ago.
I did not share. Not only because I couldn’t, as he had taped my mouth closed, but also because it was none of his business and he was dry humping me against a steel pole that he had taped me to, the screaming, unbelievably horrible, awful, maniac jerk!
I heard him groan into my neck (luckily, as was usual with Noah, this didn’t take very long) and he sagged against me when he was done.
I hate you, I thought and this time I meant it with all my heart.
His hand swept across my ass.
“Sweet,” he muttered.
Then he finished taping me to the pole. When he was done my hands, wrists, arms, chest, waist, knees and ankles were all taped to the beam and I couldn’t move, not even an inch.
He got in my face. “Next time, Ava, if you don’t call off the Indian, I won’t be so nice.”
I made an angry noise in my throat but it was too late, he was gone.
Before he left he closed the door to the coal room and I heard him fix the lock. The door had a padlock on the outside, don’t ask me why, I’d inherited it from the former owners and never removed it but I also never locked it.
Now it was locking me in, even if I was to get loose I’d be locked in my creepy basement in a room completely devoid of light. But I was taped from hands to ankles to a steel pole and I didn’t know if I could get free. I had blood in my mouth, the taste of vomit in my throat and had just been violated in a very-not-nice way, even though I knew it could have been worse, that didn’t help much in the current situation.
Keep your head together, darling, Luke will come back looking for you, Good Ava whispered in my ear.
You’re strong, you’ve been strong through a lot, stay strong, girl, this, too, shall pass, Bad Ava whispered in my other ear.
I’m scared, I told them.
So are we, Good Ava admitted.
But we’ll make it, Bad Ava said. We always do.
* * * * *
For a very long time, I alternately hung there and fought against the tape. Every once in awhile I’d make progress, a little more movement, but it was exhausting and I wasn’t getting very far. So I’d stop and rest and work on trying to get the tape off my mouth by rubbing it against my shoulder.
This worked, I was able to pull off the tape and it hurt, mainly because it also pulled against what I knew now was a tear on my lip. I also managed to get my ankles far looser but couldn’t get my feet free.
Eventually, having exhausted myself, I fell asleep tied to the beam.
I woke up when I heard a noise.
“Basement!” I meant to scream but it came out as a croak.
I tried again. “Basement, basement, basement! I’m in the basement!”
This came out a lot louder.
I heard fast footfalls on the stairs.
“Coal room, at the back, the room with the lock on the door,” I shouted. “There’s pull lights in each room. There’s a padlock. The key’s…”
I stopped shouting because I didn’t know where the key was or even if I had the key.
Then I heard a gunshot.
The door came open and I winced as the light from a flashlight hit my face.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Lee muttered.
“Thank you, God,” I said.
He moved forward, his hand going to the back of his jeans.
“Hang on, honey,” Lee murmured softly. “I’ll have you free in a second.”
“Hanging on is my only option at this point,” I whispered my joke and it didn’t sound very funny which must have been why Lee didn’t laugh.
He put the flashlight in his armpit and with a pocketknife he cut through the tape, ripping it free. A couple of times I made pain sounds in the back of my throat when he ripped tape off my skin but I did my best to swallow them down. When I was mostly loose, I drooped into him even though I tried not to, but my entire body was numb. He took my weight and kept working at the tape until I was free. When he was done, he straightened. He pulled me fully into his arms, his going tight around me as pins and needles shot through my whole body.
Then to my horror, I started crying.
He stroked my hair with one hand and held me tighter with his other arm.
“S… s… sorry. I’m a wuss,” I told him.
“You’re fine.”
“I’ll have it together in a second,” I said.
&nb
sp; “Ava, you’re fine.”
I nodded.
I started deep breathing and he kept stroking my hair. After awhile I got the tears in check, wiped my face against his shirt and took one, last, deep breath.
“I gotta call Luke,” he said when I exhaled.
I nodded again.
“You know who did this to you?” Lee asked.
I answered immediately, “Noah.”
I knew my answer surprised him by the way his body went still.
Then he pulled back and, even in the dark (he was holding his flashlight behind my back), I could tell he was looking at me.
His hand came to my neck and his thumb stroked my jaw.
In an ultra soft voice, he asked, “You wanna tell me why your jeans are undone?”
I shook my head, his hand flexed against my neck and then I said, a hitch in my voice, “He kind of… touched me.”
The air in the room went static in a flash and just as quickly I felt it move with the fury rolling off Lee in waves, pounding against the walls and slamming back into the both of us.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he said, his voice tight.
He started to move to pick me up but I pulled away. “I’m okay now, I can walk.”
He nodded, guiding the way with the flashlight, holding my hand. He took me upstairs, to the bathroom and led me in.
Before he closed the door behind him, he said, “You need anything, call me. I’ll be right outside.”
I nodded again. He closed the door.
I stood at the sink, hands at the basin, avoiding looking in the mirror and listened very carefully. Therefore, as intended, I heard him make the call.
“Vance, you with Luke?” Pause. “Okay, I found Ava. She was taped to a support in her basement. Dexter did it. I want you here, Mace, Eddie and Hank, everyone you can get. She’s in bad shape, been beaten up but it’s worse,” he paused again. “Yeah, that’s it. She was dressed but her pants were undone. She says he touched her.” I closed my eyes tight at hearing these words coming from Lee. Somehow, hearing them made the whole thing seem more real. “I want the boys around when Luke finds out. I’ll give you five then I’m callin’ Luke,” Pause. “Yeah, out.”
At that I walked to the door and pulled it open. Lee was leaning against the wall in the hall. His head came up when the door opened.
Rock Chick Revenge Page 35
