A Hateful Negotiation

Chapter Seventeen Blake

Chapter Seventeen

Blake

The covering was whisked away, and there, as my hands had been tied behind my chair, two fuckheads stared down at me. Tristian West and Ashton Walden.

I growled because no fucking way was this happening to me again. No way in hell. I began working, trying to get one of my hands free right away. I probably should’ve been scared. I knew this, but right now, I was pissed.

These two assholes.

Walden’s face was bruised. I got a better look at him since there was light in the room, and he looked as if he went three rounds with a heavyweight champion, and lost. West wasn’t too much better.

Both were heavily bruised, and both were scowling at me.

They were livid and looking at me as if I was the cause of whoever pissed in their cereal.

Wait . . .

Oh. Oh, man.

I got it then, and I probably should have gotten it before then, but I was probably partly to blame for whatever had pissed them off.

Creighton had been fucking with these guys.

I drawled, my hands still working on the knots behind my chair, “Am I to take from the silent reception that I’m the recipient of you fucking Creighton back? Is that why I’m tied up to a chair?”

I sounded frustrated and on edge, but my insides were more than torpedoing in somersaults, blasting and bouncing all around me. I couldn’t let them see that side of me. More so because I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction that yes, a part of me was scared here. A small part.

Okay. Maybe more than a small part, but I wasn’t going to indulge. I might do that later, when I was in the shower, and no one could hear me crying. Yes. I’d plan a sobfest date with myself, but later. When I was safe and free.

Ugh. I was so mad that I was in this situation.

Think, think, think, Blake!

I felt the slack on one of my hands. Yes.

The rope fell loose around one of my hands, but I caught it so the rope didn’t fall to the ground.

I needed more time. A few more minutes as I began working on the other hand, and this one would go faster.

Scanning the room, I began looking. There was always an escape route.

A wall I could tear through, a window I could slip out, a side of a building I could climb down.

There was always a way. I just had to get free first, then find the escape route.

There were no windows.

There was a table. Two doors. A panel in the ceiling. A camera pointed my way. Plastic sheets had been spread out underneath me, and I wasn’t going to ponder on their existence.

“I’m feeling a weird sense of déjà vu, like I’ve done this before,” I bit out, sarcastically.

Walden was the one who stepped closer. His eyes were hard. His face was harder, like granite. My eyes widened. He was more furious than I was. What had Creighton done?

I felt the slack behind me. The second hand was almost free.

“You’ve not been kidnapped, Miss Green,” the West guy spoke up.

Hazel eyes. Wide cheekbones. He was rugged, but handsome at the same time.

I was placing him at six four, maybe two hundred and fifteen pounds?

That was a guess. His hair was slicked back.

He was a lot more put together than the other one.

He shot Walden a look, who shuddered when he saw it and visibly shook before he stepped back. Okay then.

West was the spokesman.

“Really?” I said. “My tied-up hands say otherwise.”

“You’re here because we have questions.”

I glanced between the two. “So this has nothing to do with the other guy I saw in the alley?”

West pinned his Walden with a glare. “What is she talking about?”

Walden shrugged. “I don’t fucking know. She’s a liar, like her boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” I ignored the kick in my chest.

“Ashton.”

He glared at West, his jaw clenching. “It doesn’t matter and not in front of her.”

“Fine.” West indicated the door. “Hallway. Now.” He stalked off.

Walden glared at me again.

West shoved open the door and barked, “That wasn’t a request.” He let the door slam shut behind him.

I held Walden’s scowl. “I think your boyfriend wants to have a talk. You’ve been a bad boy, Ashton Walden.”

“Keep fucking talking. Your boyfriend enjoyed torturing me. What do you think he’d do if I returned the favor on you?”

I shook my head, seething inside. “You don’t get it.”

His eyes narrowed to slits. “What don’t I get?”

I leaned my head forward, as far as I could, and said softly, taunting, “I am not like your women. You won’t have to worry what Eight will do to you.

I’ll handle you myself. I don’t have the same moral code as your best friend’s cop.

” I saw the surprise in his eyes and laughed, an edge to my tone.

“Yeah. I did my research, too, dumbass. When you find yourself getting kidnapped one time, you educate yourself on who might do it a second fucking time. Thanks for that, dickhead. But I know your woman, too, and I don’t need to wait for my switch to get flipped like she does.

I’ll come out swinging with a gun in one hand and a machete in the other. That’s who I am.”

The door opened behind him. A sharp command, “Ashton!”

He was quiet until, “Eight?”

I’d messed up. I hadn’t meant to let that slip, but I continued to glare back at him. “I like machetes. I have a favorite back in my room.”

He scoffed before he left.

I went back to finishing the last knot on my left hand. One last tug and the rope fell away. I didn’t need to catch this one. I let it fall because it wouldn’t matter. By the time they’d come back, I wouldn’t be here.

I sprang.

First course of action, I took the chair to the camera, climbed up, and angled the camera so it was looking away.

After that, I tried the second door. It was locked.

That wasn’t surprising, so I took the chair under the panel, removed it, and began to climb up.

Once I was high enough, I nudged the chair aside so it wouldn’t be so obvious I had climbed up.

I didn’t want it to fall and make a loud crash, but there was only so much control I had over that.

Some things were more important, like getting out of there.

When it fell backward on the plastic sheets, which cushioned the fall so it was only a muted thunk, I said a quick thank-you to the universe.

I put the vent back in place behind me and began crawling. The venting system was big enough for me and sturdy enough so I wasn’t too worried when I heard shouting behind me.

They knew I was gone.

Turning the camera would give me some leeway. I was hoping they’d assume I had gotten through the second door and relocked it before concluding I was in the vents. Yeah, going through the venting system was almost commonplace in movies, but not in real life.

Real life, they’d think about windows and doors first.

I was hoping that would give me enough time to find an exit door for wherever they’d brought me, so I stayed calm and I kept crawling.

As I did, fury and tears began to build up in me.

This was Creighton’s fault.

Again.

I was hearing their shouting underneath me, behind me, ahead of me. They were all over, and here I was, moving my way through whatever type of building this was, and I was livid.

A tear from frustration slipped down my face, but I wiped it away and kept going because that’s what I did. I kept going. Like always. My throat closed up as emotions were beginning to pile on top of each other.

West and Walden. They weren’t happy with each other right now, but their closeness was there. It was so thick that it was visible. They were family to each other.

I didn’t understand normal families. They were an anomaly to me.

Two months ago I was kidnapped, which set off the chain of events that led me back here, but through that situation, I met a family.

A real family. Aunts. A mom. Cousins. They loved each other.

I could see it in front of my eyes. It was palpable.

I hadn’t understood it then.

I’d heard Palma on the phone with her sisters one night. She wanted to talk to them. She was laughing and giggling. They talked for over an hour.

That perplexed me.

It was the same with Marshall. I heard him on the phone with his mom the other morning. He laughed at something she said, and I froze. I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop and overhear, but he was in the living room, and I was coming down the stairs to go to the kitchen.

I hadn’t been able to leave. My legs ceased to work, so I sat on the stairs, listening to his entire conversation.

I couldn’t say what they talked about, but I’d been rocked by the love I heard in his voice. It was real and authentic. In his mom’s, too, as I could hear her speaking through his phone. She adored him.

Those were the types of relationships that I started to think didn’t exist. They were the unicorn relationships.

No one wanted me. It’s why I was in the foster system. I was just a foster kid.

Except Creighton wanted me. We were family. Him. Levi. Lassiter. Me. We were fucked up. And right now I was back to contemplating potentially gutting Creighton, but he was family. I loved all of them. So yes, I did have a family, but we weren’t normal. We were still so very messed up.

And I was in this mess because of those family members.

Dammit, Creighton.

I kept crawling through the vents, and I was a shaking mess.

Anger. I’d focus on anger because it burned the most right now. It was the easiest to process, and I let it overwhelm me until every inch of me was pulsating fury. I was a literal fucking phoenix crawling through these stupid vents.

Creighton was like an infection.

If I cut him off, would this type of life go away? Would I stop being kidnapped? Being tied up. Being drugged. A girl could only be threatened so many times before she actually picked up a machete. I was nearing that point.

I was done.

So. Done.

Tears were burning my eyes by the time I found an exit to this building. I got to it, and paused, my chest hurting. I had no idea where my phone was. My wallet. My keys. I groaned quietly, pressing my mouth into my arm as more tears slipped free.

I rested my head against the paneling behind me and drew in gaping breaths. My chest was still hurting. A hollow ache was there, and it was so empty. It felt like there was no end to how empty I was feeling.

Life sucked sometimes.

Wiping my face on my shoulder, I shifted to my butt and lifted up a foot.

With one heave, I kicked out the last panel.

Looking out the side of the building, I gulped.

Whoa. I was probably up on the seventh floor, and that was still a long way down.

But there were grooves on the side of the building.

They looked big enough to get my feet in them, so I needed a minute to collect myself.

Calm my shit, and focus. All was not lost. I’d deal with the toxin in my life, but right now, I needed to keep my head about myself or I’d slip and fall.

I reached down, testing to make sure my fingers could wrap around them. They could! The grooves went all the way down, so okay then.

I’d done this before. It was an old hat.

I just needed to take my time. Keep my head clear. And climb.

Could a person survive a seven-story fall?

I was about to find out.