Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
SINCLAIR
"Shit." I bumped into the coffee table. "Ouch."
My wineglass fell and hit the floor. Glass tinkled, wine splashed down my jeans and probably everywhere else too.
Fuck.
"Fuck. This is a great time for the power to go out." I felt around on the table for my phone.
"Don't turn it on," Wren said urgently. "The lights are still on across the street."
I peered out between the blinds.
She was right. The streetlights were still on too.
"Any chance you didn't pay your electricity bill?" she asked.
"No chance," I said. "It's set on automatic and sends a text message whenever it gets processed. The last one came three or four days ago." I tucked my phone into my pocket.
"Not a coincidence then." She stood slowly and grabbed my hand.
"Probably not," I agreed. "Stay close."
"That was the— What was that?" Her hand gripped mine so tight it hurt.
I didn't say a word or move a muscle.
Someone was at the back door.
The knob rattled, followed by a click. They weren't making any attempt to hide their presence. They could have broken the door down, but they didn't. They wanted us to sweat. They were playing with us.
I opened my mouth to suggest we try to sneak out the front door.
It also rattled.
Shit.
"Come on," I whispered.
I tugged Wren towards my bedroom, on the other side of the house. We trotted in as the back door squeaked open. Now would have been a really good time for Javey to be outside watching, but that was the point.
They'd waited until the guys were away to make a move.
I pulled Wren over to the window and gritted my teeth as I undid the latch. It probably wasn't audible outside the room, but it sounded loud as fuck to me.
I slid the window open as far as it would go and placed my palm on the fly screen. I pushed it up and grabbed on tight, trying to keep it from dropping onto the ground outside the window. I managed to hold onto it and lower it down silently.
"You first," I whispered. I stepped back and shoved her towards the now open window.
She didn't argue or hesitate. She swung one leg over the sill and held on with her hands. She transferred her weight to her other foot and swung her other leg over.
"Get out of here." I gripped the side of the window. If they came while I was climbing out, they'd catch us both.
"Not without you," she whispered back. "Come on."
I swung my leg over just as a blaze of light moved into my bedroom doorway.
That was followed by the cocking of a gun.
"Stop right there," a cold, male voice said.
I didn't look outside. I hoped like hell Wren ducked down in time to avoid being seen.
"Hey," I said lightly. It didn't hurt to try to be friendly when someone had a gun pointed at you. Whatever it took to appear harmless.
"Step back inside," he ordered.
I did as he said. I stood with my hands raised to either side so he could see I wasn't armed. I was pissed off at someone coming into my home like this, but I wasn't dead yet, so that was a bonus.
"Out this way," he barked. He turned his phone towards the doorway, the light indicating the front of the house.
Keeping my arms raised, I stepped towards and then around him carefully. There was a difference between wanting someone alive and leaving them unharmed. I was all too aware of that fact.
"Out the front door," he said.
A couple of other figures dressed entirely in black, stood just outside. And one in jeans and an emerald green hoodie. Wren.
Fuck. I thought… hoped she got away.
Under other circumstances, I might have made a smartass comment, saying if they wanted me outside, they could have waited until I climbed the rest of the way out. I had a feeling something like that would go down like a balloon with a brick inside it.
No, it would be best to keep my mouth shut. The less pissed off the people carrying guns were, the more likely I was to make it out of here alive.
"This way," another one of them ordered.
If this was a romance novel, they'd put us in the back of a car, possibly a limousine, drive us to the airport and put us on a private jet to go to Sydney to see the guys.
Since this was real life, they shoved us into the back of a black van, one of the gunmen watching over us. They slammed the door and climbed into the front.
"Well, this sucks," Wren said. She sat down against the side of the van and tucked her knees in against herself.
"You should have run when I told you to," I said.
She shook her head. "It wouldn't have made any difference. They were waiting."
I settled back and rubbed my fingertips over my temples. I shouldn't have asked her to come over to my house. She should be safely in her townhouse.
I turned to the gunman. He pulled the mask off his face and sat with his eyes narrowed, gun trained on us.
He looked younger than me, but with that air that this wasn't his first time doing things like this. I didn't recognise him. He was nothing more than a hired gun. He probably didn't know anything, but I decided to try anyway.
"What is this about?" I asked.
"Quiet," he snapped.
"In other words, you don't know." I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. "That makes three of us. I hope they're paying you well for this."
What was I saying? Of course they were. Men like this didn't abduct women for shits and giggles. Not in my experience anyway. And not if they didn't want a whole bunch of angry hockey players coming down on them like a bunch of brick filled balloons.
The guys were going to be ticked when they found out, to say the least. Blood was going to be spilt.
I considered my options and the chance of us overpowering one guy and getting out of the van. The first part would probably get one of us killed. The second part would be more difficult for whoever was still alive.
I ruled out trying, for now.
What would the guys do? I considered, then decided they'd do exactly this. Bide their time and wait. Right now, that was our best chance of walking away from this in one piece. I doubted this was about Wren or me. We were a means to an end. Bait.
That didn't mean they wouldn't kill us, but they probably wouldn't kill us yet. Not until we'd fulfilled our purpose.
We sat in silence for twenty or thirty minutes before the van pulled to a stop.
The front doors opened and slammed shut before the other two of our abductors walked around and opened the back of the van.
They'd both taken off their masks as well, revealing faces only slightly older than the guy that travelled in the back with us.
Like him, I didn't recognise either of them.
They worked for whoever paid them the most, that was all.
It was unlikely they cared whether we lived or died, unless our deaths meant they didn't get paid.
Then they'd work really hard to make sure we didn't die.
What do you know, we had something in common.
"Out." Gun still trained on us, the guy inside the van indicated for us to climb out before him.
I followed Wren out and found myself outside the front of an old motel. Judging by the darkness of the reception area and sign on the street, it was closed, possibly abandoned.
"This way." One of them jerked his head towards an old door. The worn number twenty-six on the front was barely visible.
"Otis, you first." He nodded towards the youngest of them.
Otis nodded. He turned the door knob, pushed the door inward and stepped inside.
"Roach, stay behind me," the same guy said. He must be their leader.
Roach nodded and waved to his gun for us to hurry up and follow Otis.
I glanced at Wren, but stepped inside.
What choice did we have? Alive didn't necessarily mean with functioning legs. Or hands for that matter. Since I was attached to both, I stepped over the threshold and moved to stand against a grubby wall near the window.
Wren hurried to stand beside me.
"You gonna call them, Gus?" Roach asked, keeping his voice low but loud enough for me to hear.
"Yeah, keep an eye on these two. If they try anything, aim for their feet." Gus grinned at us as if he'd said something hilarious, then stepped back outside and closed the door behind him.
I exchanged glances with Wren, knowing she was thinking the same thing I was. He probably had a tiny cock. Guys like him liked to overcompensate in all sorts of ways.
We both bit back smiles; we were also attached to our feet.
"You might as well sit," Roach said, nodding towards the only bed in the room. The covers didn't look like they'd been changed since nineteen eighty-five.
"I think I'll sit over here." I lowered myself to the carpet which was just as disgusting. I had a feeling Roach wasn't the only cockroach in the building. The place should have been torn down, or blown up, years ago.
"Me too." Wren lowered herself down beside me. "This place is delightful."
"It's no five-star resort, that's for sure," I muttered back.
"No stars sounds more accurate," she agreed. "This place should come with a health warning."
"It probably does." Hired guns didn't always follow health warnings or do what was best for people they abducted from their own homes. I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn't high on their list of priorities.
"This was not how I expected the night to end." She sighed and sagged against the wall.
"Really?" I looked at her with one eyebrow raised. "This is a pretty standard Saturday night for me. A few drinks, a random abduction. Ending up in a shit hole around about dawn."
Wasn't this every girl's dream date? Yeah, maybe in one of those romance novels, but not in real life. The reality was that this sucked shit.
"Later on, you and I are going to have a talk about better ways to have fun," she told me. "Because if this is your idea of a good time, you clearly need some educating." She smiled.
"I'll be more than happy to have that conversation with you," I said. Just about anything would be better than this. I'd rather have a long, drawn out conversation with Aidan. No, really, I'd much prefer that to this.
I fell quiet, listening to Gus speaking outside. He wasn't trying to keep his voice down and the paper thin walls meant I could hear almost every word.
"Yeah, we've got her and a friend of hers," he said.
"I figured, two for the price of one. If one doesn't do the trick, the other will.
" He was quiet for a moment, listening to whoever was on the other end.
"I don't know, some redhead. If you don't need her, me and the guys can— Okay, okay.
We'll leave them whole, for now. I'll hear from you in a couple of days then. Yep. Later."