Chapter 20
Panic charted a perilous course across both of the Rhodes twins' faces. Casper glanced at her twin with rage boiling between her eyes. I could tell that a sisterly spat was about to break out.
“What the fuck, Chey?!” She stomped over to her sister and lightly shoved her. “I told you I didn't think he looked right.”
Cheyenne scoffed, smoothing out her black outfit before glaring daggers back at Casper. “They're fucking twins, Cas. They're both living in the same city, it was always a fifty-fifty shot.”
“But we're supposed to be better than making mistakes like that.”
“If you wanna take the lead for once, be my fucking guest.”
Now that their bickering was off to the races, I flexed the restraints holding my hands together. There was the slightest give to them, hope ringing in my ears as I subtly tried to work against them while they continued to debate.
“This is why it's so fucked that we're the ones forced to do this.” Casper scoffed as her hands gripped at her own hips.
“I mean, we're the youngest ones. Who the fuck puts twenty-two year olds in charge of being the family assassins? This family is so fucked and I am over it!” Casper strutted over to one of the machines and kicked out until her perfectly outfit matching green heels scrapped the forgotten metal.
Cheyenne looked dumbfounded at her twin's actions.
Casper paced further down the warehouse, giving me even more time to work against the restraints.
I could feel it working, garnering more and more give.
Just a little bit more and I might just be able to break my hands free.
Thank goodness they hadn't gone through the trouble of constricting my legs to the chair.
Cheyenne ambled over to her twin, reaching to place a hand on her sister's shoulder, but it was instantly bucked off. Casper turned around to face her mirror image, but she kept silent.
“Look, I'm sorry I didn't listen to you when you had doubts we grabbed the right guy. But this is what makes us valuable to the family. This is what we were tasked to do.”
“And you don't think that it's fucked up?” Casper countered, still pacing and eyeing the rest of warehouse like a suddenly obvious exit with her name was about to appear and save her the trouble of being here.
“I’m so tired of killing. I'm so tired of being told I hate Orbs when the truth is, I don't care!
I just want my own fucking life. That's what I want.” She turned to me, making me pause my latest shift to free my hands so I wouldn't be found out.
“Not killing the guy that married our sister's son.”
“The brother of the guy that married your sister's son.” I solidified, still attempting to rile them up for more time.
They both glared at me and spoke in unison. “Shut up.”
The Rhodes twins looked at each other again, starting up more conversation of what their next move should be.
I took the opportunity to use as much of my strength as I could without alerting them to try to get my hands free.
With the faintest of snaps, I felt my hands break through the taped confinements.
The sisters kept talking, not noticing my success over their oppositions.
Now I just needed to plot my next move. I knew that my best option was getting inside that office.
If it didn't have my phone or some way to contact the outside world, then at least I could try and barricade myself inside.
“We don’t get to choose our lot in life,” Cheyenne was telling her sister as they continued to be opposing forces in conversation. “What are we supposed to do, Cas? We were practically born to help the family take out our enemies.”
“Just because it’s what we’re supposed to do, Cheyenne, doesn’t mean that it makes it right.” Casper retorted, flexing her hands up in the air in desperate defeat. “I don’t even hate Orbs! That’s Dad’s deal. My deal is feeling like I have agency over my own fucking life. Don’t you want that too?”
While Cheyenne contemplated her twin’s words, I knew that my chance to interject and distract them further was dwindling.
I needed at least one of them over to me so I could try and incapacitate one of them.
And ideally, I needed it to be Cheyenne.
I didn’t think Casper really wanted to hurt me, judging by the amount of verbal acrobatics she was doing to get out of having to kill me.
Cheyenne on the other hand looked about as bloodthirsty as a rabid animal. So it was now or never.
“I don’t know,” I said, chortling at the notion presented by Casper in regards to her sister.
I was still ushering in a little bit of my brother’s bravado even though they know believed that I wasn’t Troian.
“Cheyenne doesn’t strike me as the independent type.
She needs someone to tell her what to do. ”
“Shut the fuck up.” Cheyenne warned, whipping her head away from Casper and delivering knifed glares in my direction. “You don’t know me. Especially if you really aren’t Troian.”
“I’m not Troian.” I solidified. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t know a coward when I see one.”
And that was all it took. Cheyenne was a spitfire, but she had a short fuse just daring to be lit.
My words were lighter fluid to her already prepared fire and I was about to take full advantage of it.
She stormed over to me and decked me in the face, rocking me in the chair.
It took everything I had in me to pretend like my hands were still constricted behind my back and allow the hit to happen.
I needed her to think she had full control over the situation before I turned the tables.
As I righted myself to stare back at her, her finger was waved in front of my face.
“I told you to shut the fuck up! Do you really think you’re in a position to get me riled up right now?”
“Actually, I do.”
Without warning, I swung my arms forward, pushing her back lightly as I revealed that I had full use of my arms again, the tape that they’d wrapped them in still hanging around my wrists.
Cheyenne’s eyes were the size of serving platters, consternation evident in them.
But I wasn’t about to give her a second to breathe or reassess the situation.
I bent down slightly and used my foot to sweep Cheyenne off her feet, a yelp barreling out of her as she lost her balance and fell to the floor.
I looked up to see Casper, who hadn’t moved but was watching the situation with earnest. My eyes then locked on the office at the end of the massive room and before Casper decided she needed to make up for her sister’s lack of blood spilt now that she was on her ass.
Dashing for the office, I didn’t miss a single step or waste time looking behind me to see what their next move was going to be.
“Don’t worry about me, get him!” I heard Cheyenne bark with gusto. Casper must have reacted exactly as I thought and had run to help her sister up instead of trying to inflict pain upon me.
It was too late for them though. I made it to the manager’s office and was delighted when the door pried open with ease.
Not wasting a second, I threw the door closed behind me.
Looking around the door, I was greeted with a lock and made sure to throw it locked just as I heard the twins beating on the door and turning the locked doorknob that refused to give in to them.
I huffed out a slightly eased breath. I was safe inside these four walls. Well, safer than being out there anyway. I knew the door probably wasn’t the Fort Knox of doors and would give way to their battering ram barrage. Right now, I needed to find my phone. Any phone.
Looking around the room, the only window was the one that faced the open warehouse.
The blinds were closed though, so I didn’t have to see the twins’ attempt at entry.
If they were smart enough to find something to plunge against the window, it was all over.
I needed to find my shit. I stormed over to the manager’s desk, opening every drawer and being met with zero evidence of my phone.
They probably were at least smart enough to destroy it in the alley.
On top of the desk was no visible phone.
I swept piles of papers and folders off the desk in hopes that a phone was underneath.
Even if there was, I didn’t have hope that the phone bill was still being paid, considering that there weren’t any lights or anything on in the warehouse section or even here in the office.
Why hadn’t I thought of that? My chances of escaping the Rhodes twins was dwindling. I needed to figure out what to do next. I was running out of time and I had absolutely zero options laid out before me.
My head whipped to the warehouse as I heard a scuffle outside the office.
I stood in the office, immobile and frozen as it sounded like a fight was happening outside.
Was someone else in the warehouse other than the sisters?
Were my saviors just outside the door and I was being saved?
I shook my head. No one knew where I was.
I didn’t think there was any way of tracking me, especially if my phone was really laying broken in the alley where I’d been abducted.
Were the twins fighting? That was the only logical explanation I had left in my head.
Silence sounded from outside, and I wondered what was going to happen next.
Next thing I knew, a massive force pummeled against the office door and it gave way.
I shielded my eyes and stepped backwards as Cheyenne forced her way into the room.
When I looked back at her, she had a bloody nose and there were obvious signs that she’d just been in some sort of altercation away from my view.
“Enough bullshit,” Her voice wobbled with emotion, eyes bubbling as they watered.
Cheyenne produced a gun from the back of her tight leather pants, something I hadn’t taken notice of earlier. She wiggled the gun against her palm and pointed the gun right at my face.
“We’re done here.”