CHAPTER 2
ADDY
“ Addy? Addy, wake up for me. Please.”
My eyes shot open and I sat up abruptly, looking all around me for Bull. My vision swam and there was a relentless thudding in my head, each dull thump accompanied by pain. I groaned as I dropped my head and slammed my eyes closed before I threw up.
“Easy, shortcake. You have a huge egg on the side of your head.” I felt soft hands wrap around mine and instantly turned to my side and forced my eyes open.
“Eli?” I gasped as I found him perched on the edge of the bed I lay on. “Oh God! Eli! Are you alright? Your head…”
“Yeah. I’ve definitely been better. Do you know where we are?” he asked with a wince.
I looked around, moving my head much slower this time. We were in a bedroom. There was a window off to my right through which bright sunlight shone in, and I was laid on a twin bed, another to my left. The walls were cream and there was no other furniture. There were two doors side by side though, opposite me.
“Did you try the doors?” I asked as I looked to Eli.
“One’s a bathroom. The other is locked. The window too, and I don’t think it’s a glass we’re going to be able to break. It has a weird tint to it, like the windows in an armored car.”
“You have an armored car?” I asked from nowhere.
“No, but Asher hired one after that kidnap attempt on me. He made me ride everywhere in it for months until I put my foot down,” Eli explained.
“Sounds like Ash,” I shrugged with a small smile.
“Addy, we need to focus. What’s going on?”
“Max,” I told him as I shimmied to the side of the bed and swung my legs from the edge so I was sat beside Eli.
“Max? You mean that attorney from Vegas?”
“Yeah. He was our father’s business partner in the trafficking ring, or the parties…o-or both, I guess? I didn’t ask him that,” I shrugged.
“Is he the one who did this to you?” Eli poked at the side of my head and I gasped in pain.
“Yeah,” I replied as I moved away from his touch. “We were on a plane when I woke up. Max told me he had me kidnapped before. He wanted to mess with Joseph because Joseph was screwing him over with business. He thought Joseph would freak out when he found out I was mixed up in it all. That didn’t work, obviously, then Joseph died. Now Max wants to use us to get what he’s owed and millions more, I’m guessing.”
“So he’s going to ransom us?” Eli questioned and I nodded, then realized that was a bad move when the world started to spin again. “Okay, that’s good. Ash will pay the ransom. He won’t care about the money. He’ll get us back.”
“No,” I groaned as I rested my spinning head in my hand. “It’s not good, Eli. There’s no way Max would have told me everything if he planned to let us go. If Ash pays that ransom, Max is going to kill us. We’re only any use to him while he can use us to get to Ash,” I explained.
“They’ll find us then. Asher will scour the country to find us. He won’t give up, and nor will your men.”
“Adam’s dead.” I only just got the words out before a sob burst from me.
“What? No! That can’t be right, Addy.”
“They sh-shot him, Eli. He was bleeding out. There’s no way he survived. I…” I tried to take a breath, but the sobs wouldn’t stop coming and my entire body was trembling as I thought back to Adam’s gray, still face and the huge pool of blood that had surrounded him the last time I saw him. “He was dead. He’s gone.”
“We don’t know that,” Eli argued as he pulled me into his arm and carefully cradled my aching head against his chest. “We don’t know that he’s gone. Adam is strong. He could have held on. You have to cling to the hope that he’s still alive.”
I knew he was right, and I desperately wanted to cling to the hope he spoke of, but I couldn’t get that last image of Adam from my mind. He’d been too still. I couldn’t remember his chest rising and falling. I was so sure he hadn’t even been breathing.
“Tell me what happened, Addy. I remember Leo at the door, but that’s it,” Eli spoke up after just allowing me to cry for several minutes.
I took a deep breath and sat up, wiping at my face, then wincing at the pain in my shredded wrists cause by me trying to escape the rope back at the house.
“Your wrists,” Eli said as he caught my hand and pulled it closer to take a look. “These need cleaning and dressing.”
“I don’t think our kidnappers are too concerned about our welfare, Eli,” I rasped, my voice hoarse.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Leo knocked on the door, He was working with them. You were knocked out. By the time I realized something was wrong, they were already coming for me. I tried to hide and I managed to call Kane, but then Bull found me.”
“Bull. The guy from your memories?”
“Yeah. He tied my hands, but I fought him and got away. I came to look for you, and yelled for Adam. You were gone already, but Adam came running from upstairs. He was getting us out of the house to look for you, when he was shot. I fought to get free of the ropes to stop the bleeding, but I was pulled away. They drugged me and I passed out.” I stopped to take another breath as that last image of Adam haunted me again. All of the life he was always so filled with had been gone.
“Addy?”
“I was on the plane when I woke up. You too. You were unconscious. Max told me everything, then Bull knocked me out. I have no idea where we are now,” I went on.
“Judging from the view out of that window, we’re back in Nevada somewhere. The house is huge and the whole property is fenced in with cameras on every corner. I saw security patrolling too. Escaping is not going to be easy.”
“Max said Asher wouldn’t be able to find us here,” I told him.
“Then he’s underestimated our brother. Ash will find us. I have no doubt of that,” Eli insisted. “Maybe there’s a way we could help him too.”
“What do you mean?”
“If this is a ransom, Ash is going to insist on proof of life. That means we get to speak to him on a call, or a photo, or video, something to prove we’re alive. We have to use that to give Ash a clue.”
“Eli, that’s brilliant,” I gasped. “We have to tell him it’s Max. If he knows that, surely he could find this location? I mean it has to tie to Max in some way, right?”
“How do we tell him it’s Max though, without being hugely obvious. Max cannot know what we’re doing,” Eli pointed out.
“Do you know morse code?”
“No. I was never in the military. I wasn’t even a boy scout,” he told me with a roll of his eyes.
“Okay. What if we get to talk to him, what could we say?” I asked instead.
“Do you think pig Latin would work?” he asked with a groan after several moments of us both thinking and coming up with nothing.
“God, we suck at this,” I cried.
“What if we put his initials on our skin, somewhere they won’t see?”
“How will Ash see it though, if Max can’t? And we don’t have a pen?”
“There’s a mirror in the bathroom. We could smash it and I’ll carve the letters in my skin, under my sleeve. If it’s a photo or video, I’ll find a way to lift my sleeve so Ash sees it, but then it’ll be covered again.”
“No Eli. We’re not carving anything into your damned skin. Don’t be crazy,” I cried.
“What choice do we have? We have to find a way to tell Ash something. If he pays that ransom, they’ll kill us, Addy. We’re not going to let that happen. We’re getting out of here.”
“You have to be careful, Eli. They’re going to use us against each other to keep us in line. We have to tread carefully. We can’t make trouble. These men, they don’t have a conscience. They won’t think anything of hurting either of us. You have to keep your cool and go along with what they want. No matter what happens, you have to keep your mouth shut, do you understand?” I asked firmly, thinking about what Max had said in the plane. If he wanted to hurt me, I knew Eli would try to stop him and I couldn’t allow him to do that. I had lived through more assaults than my mind could even comprehend. I would take anything Max could do to me, as long as Eli was okay. I would do anything to protect him.
“I’m not going to just sit back and let them hurt you, if that’s what you mean. I know I’m not as strong as Ash, but I would never allow anyone to put hands on you again without one hell of a fight, Addy.”
“I don’t care what they do to me, Eli. I can survive it. I can survive anything, except losing you. I already….I c-could have lost Adam. Please…d-don’t make me lose you too,” I whimpered, forcing the shaky words out through my tears.
“Max said something on the plane, didn’t he? That’s why you’re so sure this is actually going to happen?” Eli demanded.
“He won’t kill me. He likes me too much to kill me yet. You just…you have to let me go if he comes for me. I can do it, Eli. I survived for two years. I can survive this until Asher and the guys find us,” I told him as steadily as I could, even though just the thought of another man forcing himself on me had me spiraling into panic and images of horror from my past.
“Like hell I’m going to let him take you! Are you crazy? Do you realize what your asking of me? You’re my little sister, Addy, and you have already endured so much because Ash and I failed you. If I die trying to protect you this time, then so be it.” Eli was angry, illustrated by the way he shot to his feet and paced back and forth before me. He wanted to protect me, just the way I wanted to protect him, and I got that, but he didn’t know the world we had been dragged into. I did. This was my second venture into it, and I would not allow it to break my sweet brother the way it had destroyed me.
“Eli…please…” That was all I got out before the rattle of the lock on the door had me jumping to my feet and fighting through the dizzy spell that movement caused. By the time I managed to see straight, Eli was before me, blocking me completely from whoever was entering. I grabbed his arm and struggled to move around him, but he effortlessly pushed me back behind him, and I had to cling to his shirt just to remain upright.
“Stay behind me, Addy. No one is laying a hand on you. I’m going to get us both out of here,” he uttered quickly.
I knew I had taken a hard hit to my head, and my back, because both throbbed angrily, but I also knew I needed to get past it and pull myself together. The fact I couldn’t seem to do that, was really making me mad, and Eli sounding so determined to protect me, had me terrified for him.
“How much do you want?” Eli demanded as soon as the door was open. I looked around him and saw Bull filling the doorway, that twisted smile on his face, that I knew meant nothing good for us. “I have access to my trust fund. I can pay whatever you’re asking my brother for, right now.”
“Eli,” I whispered as I squeezed his wide shoulder as much as I could. I knew he wanted to get out of this, but offering them money wasn’t going to help either of us. Once Max had whatever he felt he was owed, he’d simply kill us both.
Bull didn’t even acknowledge a word Eli had said. He stormed into the room and moved to grab Eli. I was shocked when Eli moved way faster than I thought possible and evaded the grab, followed by a ridiculously fast punch thrown at Bull’s face. When Bull was knocked stumbling back by the hit, Eli didn’t relent. He moved forward at speed, and landed another punch, followed by a spinning kick that landed in Bull’s stomach and had him folding forward with a loud grunt.
“Addy, run!” Eli yelled as he moved forward again and kicked out. I had no idea where these skills were coming from, and I stood frozen in shock for several moments. I had no idea Eli could fight. He’d once told me he was more of a lover than a fighter, and I had fully believed that. “ADDY!” Eli yelled as I stared on. Eli thrust his knee up into Bull’s face and blood exploded all over the cream carpet below. I suspected Eli had just broken his nose. Bull groaned loudly as he slumped to the floor, clutching his nose and looking dazed.
I felt Eli grab my hand, then he was dragging me towards the door and out into a lavishly decorated landing area. We both looked around us, but there was no one else around. There were several closed doors around the mezzanine landing, and below us, over the balcony railing, I could see a wide open reception area and the front door.
“We have to find the garage. We need a car to get out of here. There’s too much security outside for us to sneak past,” Eli whispered as he pulled me towards the stairs. I paused and looked back to the room we had escaped. Bull was still laid out on the floor, but it didn’t mean he’d stay that way.
“Wait,” I whispered as I ripped my hand from Eli’s grasp and ran back to the room. I quickly looked over the door handle on the inside and saw there was no keyhole or way to unlock it. Deciding it was good enough to keep the bastard restrained long enough for us to escape, I quietly pulled it closed and checked it had locked behind me, then I rejoined Eli, giving him a nod that we were good.
We moved down the stairs silently, then paused at the bottom, listening for any sign of more guards, but complete silence surrounded us. I clutched Eli’s hand tightly in mine, then followed him as he moved around a corner to the right. I was terrified of what would happen if we were caught. They could just kill us if they thought we were going to be trouble, but we had gotten that far. We had to try and get away now. It was likely the best chance we had to escape unscathed.
We found ourselves in a huge, bright kitchen. Plates of half-eaten food filled the counter tops, and there were open takeout containers on the large kitchen table in the center, but there wasn’t a single person around.
“Where is everyone?” I asked in a whisper.
“Who knows? Just keep moving,” Eli replied, pulling me towards a door in the back corner of the kitchen. I stood behind him, my back to his so I could see if anyone approached as he silently opened the door a fraction and peeked inside.
“Bingo,” I heard him utter, then he was pulling me along behind him once again. We slipped into the pitch dark, silent room and Eli closed the door behind us. He flicked the lights on, and they flickered several times before illuminating a garage filled with four cars.
“Look for the keys,” Eli whispered. We split up and I went to the left. There were several shelving units filled with filing boxes. I scanned the labels on each as I moved past them. Most were just labelled with dates, all of which meant nothing to me, but on the top shelf there was one labelled with one word – LYFE. The name of the company Joesph had used to hide the money from his illegal dealings. Knowing it could be useful to put an end to this whole thing, I grabbed it without much more thought.
“Here, Addy. Get in,” Eli said as the lights on a huge silver SUV flashed. He appeared before me and opened the passenger door. “Come on, shortcake. We’re getting out of here,” he urged when I just stood staring at him. I didn’t know if it was the knock to the head I taken, or the terror of what was going on, but I just couldn’t seem to keep my thoughts straight.
I forced myself to move then though, running to the car and climbing in, placing the file box in my lap and closing the door as quietly as I could.
“Seatbelt on. This is going to be rough, so hold on,” Eli told me as he appeared at my side in the driver’s seat, and pulled on his own belt. I shoved the box behind me into the back seat, then buckled up. I grabbed the handle above my head and braced my other against the dash, then gave Eli a nod.
“Let’s get out of here,” I told him.