Chapter 39
Pain.
It hit me the moment I regained consciousness. A dull ache that radiated through my head, throbbing worse than any migraine I had ever had.
It was so bad my stomach rolled with nausea as I tried to open my eyes, but the blinding light was too much. I then tried to stand up so I could move toward the kitchen and get a glass of water, but that was when I realized I was tied to a chair.
I took long, slow, deep breaths in through my nose and exhaled out of my mouth, trying not to panic as I braced myself to open my eyes again and check my surroundings.
It took a few minutes, but I was finally able to open my eyes and look around.
I was in some dirty room, sitting directly beneath a bright lamp that was pointed at my face. I couldn’t see too much around me, only a few feet in every direction.
The only thing I could really make out was the wooden chair with peeling red paint that I was zip-tied to, and the dirty concrete floor. It was cold in here, like I was underground, or maybe in a large warehouse that was too big to be heated. My one bare foot was starting to go numb in the cold.
“Where am I?” I asked, my throat like sandpaper as I tried to speak. My words came out as more of a hoarse croak than anything else.
“Don’t worry about that, doll,” the big redheaded guy said, stepping into the light. “I doubt you’ll be here long.”
“What are you going to do with me?” I asked while willing my head to clear so I could think.
“I don’t want nothing to do with you,” the big guy said, squatting next to me. Then he put his big, meaty paw on my knee and moved it up my thigh. “Well, maybe there’s a few things I might want with you. Pretty little thing like you really should know better than to be with a man who can’t protect her.”
“You’re here because of Harrison? Why?” I asked.
I knew why. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who this man was and what he wanted. He was part of the O’Murphy clan, and he wanted to punish Harrison for pursuing a case against them.
“It’s just a job, it’s nothing personal, kitten. Your little boyfriend was looking into our crew, and we don’t like that. So when someone offered us a lot of money to force him to stop, well, who would turn down a win-win scenario like that?”
“So you kidnap me? I’m just a paralegal.”
“Oh honey, we know you are much more to Mr. Astrid than just a secretary.”
“Paralegal,” I corrected with a growl.
If Harrison insisted that I never refer to myself as a secretary or anything that could be seen as lower than the station which I had earned, I certainly wasn’t about to let some random thug try to demean my hard work either.
“Well, it doesn’t really matter. See, we need your boss to drop the case against us. And to stop sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“You think kidnapping me and taking me from him is going to make him stop looking? If anything, you’re going to set a fire under his ass, and he’s going to bring down everyone you’ve ever even met.”
“No, we have the assurances from someone in his inner circle that the second you’re out of the picture, she’ll make sure he drops the charges and stays out of our business. She has leverage.”
“Nobody has that level of control over Harrison,” I said. “He doesn’t answer to anyone. No one chooses what cases he does or doesn’t touch. He is the district attorney. He decides what cases are pursued.”
I didn’t know why I was trying to explain the basic chain of command in a law office to this guy. I didn’t expect him to realize his mistake and let me go. I wasn’t that naive. But something told me to get him talking, listening to anything.
Maybe I could buy time. I had to believe that Harrison was looking for me, and if he was looking for me, if he was coming for me at all, I needed to give him as much time as possible to find me.
“Oh, honey, no. This isn’t someone who has sway over him professionally. I’m talking about the person who holds the Astrid purse strings. See, they don’t like you cozying up to their son. Something about you not having the right pedigree.”
“Not a fucking dog,” I gritted out.
“Really? You look like a stuck-up bitch to me. Sitting there tied to a fucking chair, and still looking down your prissy little nose at me. You ain’t shit. You’re just the bitch that thinks she is too good for her own kind and keeps sniffing around men who don’t belong to her.”
He sucked his teeth in a disapproving way, like he was reprimanding a small child for taking two cookies instead of one.
“If you know what’s good for you,” I said, glaring at the man, “then you will let me go before Harrison finds you. And he will find you.”
The man threw his head back in laughter when he stood back up. The hand that was on my thigh flew through the air, and he backhanded me hard enough that the chair I was in tipped over and I went tumbling to the floor.
My mouth filled with the taste of blood, and my side ached where I had landed. My head was still throbbing, and being struck and then hitting the dirty concrete made it so much worse. The room around me spun as he grabbed the chair and pulled me back up.
“Now, kitten, I don’t think you’re very long for this world, but you might want to watch that little whore mouth of yours, or your last few hours are going to be very unpleasant.”
The man turned and walked out of the light, leaving me alone as far as I could tell. I had no idea who else was in the room, if anyone. I didn’t know if people were watching me or if I had any chance of escape.
I let my head hang down as low as I could as I tried to get some semblance of control over the pain radiating through my skull. I wanted to scream, I wanted to run; my entire body was shaking, I was so scared.
Hot tears trailing down my cheeks, I took some slow, deep breaths, controlling the ache in my back, trying to hold back the panic. I needed to stay calm and figure out my next steps.
I knew I needed to buy myself some time. Maybe, if I could humanize myself to these men, they would be less inclined to hurt me. I wasn’t some rich woman who lived high above them in the lap of luxury. I was a girl who grew up on the streets, like them. I didn’t know if it would make a difference, but I didn’t see how I had any better options.
“Can I have some water, please?” I called out into the dark abyss around me, hoping someone could hear me. If I could get someone here talking to me, then I could stall them, hopefully long enough for me to figure a way out of this. And if someone was talking to me, they weren’t trying to kill me, or worse.
There was no answer.
“Please, can I get some water? My throat hurts,” I said again, letting a sob escape between my words.
I remembered reading somewhere that some men couldn’t stand women’s tears, that it spoke to something primal in them, and they felt the need to stop them. Of course, on the other side, there were some men who got off on hurting women. I had no idea which kind of men I was dealing with, but I was so scared I wouldn’t have been able to stop the tears even if I tried.
“Stop your whining,” another, deeper voice said. “I’ll get you some fucking water.”
A few minutes later, the shorter guy with dark hair and thick eyebrows stepped into the light with a water bottle in his hand. He cracked it open and held it to my lips, then tipped it back, forcing me to take several long gulps before he took the water away and threw it behind him.
I gasped and choked on the little bit of water I wasn’t able to swallow fast enough. As soon as I caught my breath, I looked back up at the man who just stared at me, his arms crossed over his chest as he glared.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I wouldn’t be thanking me if I were you. Why does a nice girl like you have to go and do something so fucking stupid?”
“I don’t know what I did,” I said.
“You stuck your nose where it didn’t belong. You were helping that fucking lawyer bring a case against me and mine. You would think a girl like you, living in the neighborhood we found you in, would have been smarter than that.”
“I wasn’t,” I said. “I was just doing my job. All I was doing was filing papers.”
“You going to tell me that rich motherfucker didn’t actually have you doing research and investigating?”
“That’s not my job.” More tears flowed freely down my face. “I’m a paralegal, my job is to file documents, drop things off at the courthouse, or maybe even file a motion or two. I don’t do any of the investigative work, I do the busywork. I don’t know what Mr. Astrid was working on, he kept it very close to his chest.”
It wasn’t a complete lie. I was the only one who knew what Harrison was working on. He always kept his cases very close to his chest. Even going as far as sending his secretary to Atlantic City where she would be safe from the blowback.
“Maybe that’s true, but you seem like a smart girl, you should know. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you do or how careful you are. People like us often end up under the tires of people like them. You, little girl, are insignificant when it comes to the wheelings and dealings of people like them.” The man walked away, his footsteps echoing throughout the space.
After a moment, somewhere in the distance the footsteps paused. Door hinges screeched open, followed by the slamming of the door closing. I was pretty sure this time I was all alone. I couldn’t hear anyone breathing. I couldn’t sense anyone near me.
With another deep breath, trying to calm my nerves and stop the shaking of my entire body—which was partly from the cold but mostly from fear—I closed my eyes and tried to listen. There had to be something that could tell me where I was.
The silence around me was deafening, so I tried to listen harder and concentrate on the far-away ambient noises. There was something rhythmic, but I couldn’t quite tell what it was. Something hitting something wet, maybe? I strained to hear, trying to figure out what it could be. The loud and distinct sound of the air horn of a cargo ship suddenly pierced the air, startling me.
I had to be by the docks. That rhythmic sound I heard had to be waves hitting the dock pilings.
That explained why it was so cold in this room my breath billowed in front of me. Large warehouses were often not heated when they weren’t actively in use, due to the cost of heating such large, open spaces.
Unfortunately, knowing that I was by the docks didn’t really help me unless I could get out of this chair and find my way out of the warehouse. If I could manage that, there should be tons of people around, including security guards and dockworkers.
Sure, a few probably worked for the mob, but I was willing to bet most were just hard-working people trying to make a living.
I had to believe that.
Otherwise, there was no point in trying to get free.
They would kill me anyway.