CHAPTER 20
EVY
Minutes ago.
It took me three steps out the door to realize that I’d gone the wrong way, and I wasn’t sure if it was the false sense of security being at such a big event or the number of drinks I had that masked my intuition. But it was already too late. Too fucking late.
“Walk and don’t say a word,” warned the voice behind me.
I had to wheeze air into my lungs to breathe properly, praying the hard metal digging into my lower back wasn’t what I thought it was. And one wrong move would have me splattered across the hallway.
Trudging down farther, we reached an exit door, which the man behind me burst open. Through my periphery, I tried to get his profile, but his form was like just another man, wearing dark clothes and a mask over his face. It was hard to tell. His voice was familiar, yet I couldn’t place it.
He pushed me out the door, and a shiver ran through my body when the cold New York night air whipped across my face.
A singular small white van was parked conveniently in the alleyway with the back door open.
“Drop your phone,” he commanded.
I wanted to fight and scream and run, but one glance and my eyes landed on the revolver he held in his hand.
Real panic squeezed through my bones. I hesitated, gripping my phone tighter—If I dropped this now, no one would ever know where I am. Jay could never find me. You have to think of something, Evy.
“I said, drop it.” The man pushed forward, half-shoving me, and through the corner of my eyes, I saw his phone peeking from his pocket, and my brain snapped to action. The risk was life or death, but I had to take it. I wasn’t in a position to wait for another chance.
I acted as if I’d lost my footing and stumbled over him. “Sorry,” I mumbled and quickly slid his phone out of his pocket and fell to the ground in a heap. I hid his phone inside the skirt of my dress and twisted around, holding out my phone.
“We don’t have much time. Give it to me.” He grabbed it out of my hands and threw it across the wall, and in a quick chance, I glided his phone under the van, praying it wouldn’t ring and that he wouldn’t notice.
“Get up.” He yanked me by my shoulders and pushed me inside the car, closing the door behind us.
“You’re late.” Another voice called out from the driver’s seat as we cruised away.
The man next to me kept his gun trained on my side, and I didn’t dare say a word. Instead, I noted the route for any signs of where we might be headed. I didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t blindfolded—worst-case scenario, they were confident I wouldn’t be returning, or best-case scenario, wherever they were taking me was just a temporary spot. I tried to focus on the positive. I had to if I wanted to get through this.
Ten minutes later, we pulled up to a quiet street just outside the city, lined with rows of similar-looking houses. They parked the car inside the garage, closing the door behind them before they pulled me out of the van.
The larger man with the gun held a tight grip on my arm as they pushed me forward. We walked through the kitchen, which had a single broken light bulb, smelling like old food and dirty socks from probably the number of empty beer cans and takeout boxes lining the counter.
This was their home, and that only made my fear grip me alive.
I forced my shaky knees to move forward past a small living room and toward a door that led down to the basement.
“Move.” He nudged, and I carried my feet down the steep stairs.
My heart thrummed with each step I took, shaking with unshed tears.
A single flickering light bulb came into view, illuminating the room with a huge computer monitor set up at the side and a singular high window taped shut with sheets.
“Hold out your hands.”
I swallowed. “Why?”
“Just hold them out,” he snarled.
I brought my shaky hands forward, and the other smaller man gave him a zip tie that he tied around my wrists, then lowered me to the floor. “Stay right there, and don’t say a word.”
I nodded, licking the dryness on my lips, and took deep breaths to calm myself. I needed to stay rational and logical if I wanted to get myself out of this situation.
Leaving me there, they both murmured among themselves, and I watched them intently as the questions swirled inside my head. Who the hell were these people? And what did they want with me?
Something about the way the smaller man adjusted his glasses as he spoke flashed a memory in my head. “Dennis,” I whispered.
And my heart leaped to my throat when they both snapped their head toward me and scrutinized me with a hard glare.
“Fucking hell.” The larger man screamed, shoving the smaller one. “I told you to get rid of the fucking glasses, and now that bitch found out.”
Dennis stepped back, removed his mask, and threw it aside. He regarded me with his beady eyes. A chill wrecked through me. For some reason, his quietness scared me more than the loud fury the other one was exhibiting.
“Weren’t you supposed to be in jail?” I asked, braving through. I needed to stall and buy as much time as I could. Even if Jay didn’t know where I was, he would know who had taken me. That was the only thought that kept me going.
“We don’t have to answer to you,” the larger man shouted, cruising as he paced the floor. “Fucking hell. Fuck this,” he said, throwing his mask aside.
T? What was T doing with Dennis? Wasn’t T supposed to be working for David? How did the two even know each other? I thought I was done with David after Jay put T in place and paid him the cash my family owed.
“Get to the job,” Dennis replied in a calm tone—deadly calm. “We don’t have much time.”
Much time for what?
“Fine,” T grumbled, digging his fat hands into his back pockets, his lips thinning as he came up empty. “Fuck, where’s my phone?”
“You lost your phone?” Dennis looked at him like he was on his last resort with him. It was clear who called the shots.
I schooled my expression to act innocent as I scanned the room for any escape strategies. The window to my right would be my safest bet, that is if it weren’t boarded shut under the sheets.
“I’ll go check in the car.” He walked away.
I put aside my nervousness and looked up. I had no chance against the two of them, but maybe with one of them, I could try. “Why are you doing this? Whatever you want, Jay will give it to you.”
Dennis smirked, leaning against the table. He wasn’t the quiet, dorky assistant I knew him to be. He was cold and calm, and there was almost a sinister energy radiating from him.
“Will he ruin your life?”
My eyes widened. “Wh.. what?”
“I want your life destroyed.” He advanced toward me, and fear unlike anything froze my bones. He crouched down and grasped my chin. “Every single day, I want you to regret the fact that you were born. Regret the fact that you’re taking up space on this Earth. ”
“Why?” A single tear fell down the corner of my eye. “What did I do?”
“Your blood took everything from me, and I’m just repaying the favor.” He scoffed, laughing dryly. “But it’s too late for that. Everything ends today.”
Just then, T arrived. “I can’t find it anywhere.”
“Remind me why I keep you around,” Dennis snarked, moving away from me. It was only then I felt like I could breathe again. He took another phone from one of the drawers and threw it at him. “Use this.”
T nodded, dialing something before his eyes locked on me. “You’ll do exactly as I say or else you’ll know what it’s like to have a bullet inside you.” He waved his gun, and I whimpered, nodding.
“Here, you’ll call your boy toy and ask him to wire fifty million dollars to the bank account I’ve sent him.”
My fingers shook like a leaf when I retrieved the phone from him.
“No funny business, you hear me? You have two minutes.” He was still holding the gun to my head.
I nodded, pressing the dial.
My frantic gaze volleyed between the gun and the man holding it as the phone rang.
“Who’s this?” Jay’s furious voice came through the line, and just hearing his voice choked the sob out of me.
“Sweetheart, is that you?” he asked in a panicked voice.
“Yes,” I whispered, my voice cracking.
“Where are you? Who took you?”
The gun dug deeper into my forehead, and I openly cried, “I can’t say. ”
An anguished exhale left him. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly. “Did they hurt you?”
“No, Jay. I’m fine,” I hissed as the zip tie dug into my wrist at the awkward angle I was holding the phone. “I don’t have much time, but they want you to transfer fifty million dollars. They’ll send you the information.”
“Okay,” he replied in a steady tone, but the underlying nerves remained. “Stay put, baby. I’ll find you. I swear.”
“I know.” My eyes darted warily to Dennis and T. “I’ll be home in no time, Jay. My heart is never that far away from you. I love—” The phone was yanked from me before I could finish the sentence.
My heart dipped as I heard Jay yelling on the other end.
“Enough,” T snapped, cutting the call. “Now what?” he asked Dennis.
“We wait,” he replied, his gaze sliding to me. “Let’s hope for her sake her man sends us the money.”
Minutes passed, and my brain was on fire as I thought of the words that Dennis told me.
Why?
Why me?
I needed to know.
Feigning bravery, I lifted my chin toward him. “Why do you want the money?”
Dennis smirked, swirling in his chair. “Why, you ask?” His tone dripped with venom as he leaned forward. “Because I deserve it—all of it.”
I swallowed hard. “Deserve what?”
“Everything.” His tone sharpened as his lips curved into a twisted smile. “That loser Dorian fucked up his father’s legacy and dragged the label through the mud. Guess who fixed it? Me.” He jabbed a finger at himself. “And what did I get in the end—nothing. Not even a single penny.”
“But he left White some money.” I shot back. “You could’ve had—”
“It was all gone,” he yelled so loud that I flinched. “All of it. Wiped clean. Even his daughter’s trust fund. Fucker was terrified that the Storms were onto him and gave it all away to buy some time.” His eyes clouded with a sinister gleam. “Too bad I only found out after I killed him. That only made me want to kill him all over again.”
I froze. “You killed him?”
T shifted in his seat but didn’t say a thing.
Dennis shrugged nonchalantly as if he didn’t just admit to killing someone. “He wasn’t of use to me, so I disposed of him to take what was mine. Only that didn’t go as planned.”
A chill ran through me. “And White knew,” I whispered as the pieces clicked. “That’s why she was so scared. She wanted you to get the money so she could be safe.”
“I offered her a share if she could get it done,” he bit out. “But she failed.”
“Still doesn’t explain why you want to ruin my life,” I pressed, narrowing my eyes.
His jaw ticked before his expression turned murderous. “Remember David?” His cold, hard voice made my spine tingle.
My breath hitched. “The man my mother owed money to?”
“The man your mother ruined—my father,” he sneered with hatred.
I gaped. “Your father? ”
“I had it all—a home, a family, everything.” He waved his hands frantically. “That is until your mother came along and destroyed our lives.”
“But I didn’t even know her,” I whispered, still reeling from the shock.
“You look just like her,” he snarled. “I knew from the moment I saw you that you were hers. And all I wanted to do was ruin your life.”
“But it wasn’t my fault,” I shouted. “She abandoned me and my family. We spent years paying for her.”
“Yet you still turned out fine. Living in a tower with your rich boyfriend. My father used to be the most powerful man in the city until that bitch married him and made him the laughingstock of the fucking city. He just couldn’t take it anymore and killed himself.”
My heart hammered. “And my mother?” I whispered.
“Bottom of some ditch. Her little heist went wrong—the shipment, the warehouse, everything burnt to a crisp—including her.”
“So you did all this for some kind of twisted revenge?” The adrenaline in my blood was fading to exhaustion from all the revelations. My dress was sticky, my arms hurt, and my heart had enough for today.
“I never wanted revenge. I want what’s mine—what’s owed to me, and now I’ll have it.” His expression grew animalistic as he explained, “I thought I was done with you when I tricked your family into paying me for years, but when you showed up happy and giggly in love, I just couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand you. So I played a little game with Cece, and it worked. You were out—lost the one thing you loved the most, and now you know what that feels like. Then God worked his magic and took the only other person you loved. But that brought you right back to LA, and we can’t have that, can we? I wouldn’t let you ruin my life for the second time. So I arranged a little something to scare you off, but you ended up in a hospital for months. Do you know how hard it was to cover all that up!?”
I had no words left in me. Everything he said felt so twisted and painful. All this because I was born to the wrong woman—a woman who didn’t even acknowledge my existence.
“Then everything was going perfectly until you two had to meet again and fuck everything up. If only that bitch Cece had locked in J.J., none of this would’ve happened. I would’ve had it all. I sent you threats and made the media hate you, but still, it wouldn’t get inside your head. All stupid, stupid, stupid people around me,” he hissed, pacing as he pulled his hair almost out of its roots.
And I whimpered, fear freezing my bones.
His eyes snapped to mine. “All because of YOU,” he yelled, edging toward me, and I cowered. The resistance of the wall hit my back, and he closed in, clamping his hand around my neck.
“Let me go.” I writhed, clawing at him, hating the feel of his slimy touch on me. I hauled my leg forward, but with the restriction of my dress, I couldn’t lift it much. But my heel caught onto the side of his thigh and I pushed hard.
“You bitch.” He squeezed his hands tighter before clocking me square in the face. I could feel my lips busting open from the pressure. My ears buzzed as I blinked back the white dots. The metallic taste of blood hit my tongue as the pain started to fire up my nerve endings.
“Let her go, man,” T’s voice reached us. “Looks like the transfer is done.”
His eyes glinted, and, in an instant, his grip loosened, and I folded forward, my chin hitting the cold, hard floor.
I coughed as the air started to flow back into my lungs, wailing. My ribs hurt as my breathing returned. Biting through the pain, I slowly heaved my body up.
“Get the car ready,” Dennis ordered T, who nodded, walking away. But just as he turned his back, Dennis pulled the gun out of his waistband and shot him point-blank in the back of his head.
I jolted at the sound of the gunfire echoing through the walls and watched wide-eyed as T fell with a loud thud, a crimson pool forming around his head.
“You killed him,” I gasped in disbelief as I stared at Dennis.
“He is of no use to me anymore.” He gave me a chilling smile, wiping the edge of his gun with his jeans. “Soon, you’ll be of no use to me either.”
Tears were flowing freely from my eyes—I just knew the next person was going to be me.
“Get up. We need to go,” he commanded, fiddling with his computer before he shut it down and pocketed a pen drive. Gripping a packed duffel from the corner, he brought his attention back to me. “I said, get up.”
I nodded, stumbling and falling as I willed my feet to stand. And when I finally did, he pushed me forward, keeping the pistol trained on my back. I tried hard not to look over at T’s lifeless body as I took my shaky feet up the stairs .
The helplessness and fear paralyzed me into a frozen, robotic state as I forced my legs to work.
The quiet was deafening when we reached the threshold. My quivering fingers opened the basement door. One step out in the hallway, and a flicker of movement caught my side-eye. Before I knew it, a heavy mass slammed into us, knocking me to the side.
I lost my footing, hitting the wall. It took me a moment to steady myself. I spun around, and through a blur of motions, I saw two figures fighting on the floor, grunts, and the sickening sound of bones cracking slithered through the air.
Jay .
He was beating the shit out of Dennis.
Even though he had the upper hand, I shot forward to help him, but just then, several other people clambered into the room, separating them both, while they pulled a battered Dennis away.
Only then did I hear the distant wail of the sirens in the background, and I knew that it was all over—they were here. They found me. I was okay.
In an instant, I was engulfed in a protective embrace, holding me so tight that I could barely breathe, and relief unlike anything poured into me at the thought of being back in his arms—warm and safe. “I thought I’d lost you.” His voice cracked, his eyes sweeping over every inch of my face. “Did he hurt you?”
“No, Jay. I’m fine,” I cried, squeezing my arms around him. His familiar scent seeped into me as the fear dissipated. “I’m okay. ”
“Good,” he muttered, burying his face in the crook of my neck. “I was so scared.”
“But I’m okay now.”
We just held each other for a long while, not caring about the outside world. Nothing else mattered more at that moment as we sought comfort in each other’s arms.
Seconds turned to minutes as we just stayed there.
The adrenaline was probably dissipating from my body when I felt something cold and sticky seeping through my dress. Frowning, I tried to shift my weight, but Jay wouldn’t move an inch.
“Hey, I think it’s time we go home,” I whispered, softly trying to get his attention, but his head just rolled to the side.
“Jay.” My stomach churned as I shook him. “Jay, what’s wrong? Are you all right?” I pushed against his shoulders, and I gasped when he landed on my lap with a thud. His weight made me sway backward, losing my balance, and only then did I notice that his shirt was soaked red.
And my heart froze.
“No, no, no, no,” I pleaded, my fingers fumbling over him, searching for the source of blood. “Somebody, help us,” I shouted, cradling his cold cheeks. He looked ashen and gray—lifeless. “Please, wake up, Jay. Please, please, please God.” My hands trembled as I shook him. “You can’t leave me like this. You listen to me. I love you so much.” My voice broke as I sobbed.
My heart felt like it was shattering into a million little pieces with each second as the man who was my everything lay in my lap, cold .
“Ma’am, you need to move.” Hands grabbed my shoulder as I clung to him. “We can’t help him if you don’t move, ma’am,” they insisted.
I jerked away but remained by his side, holding his hand as the paramedics swarmed over him and prodded.
Heavy footsteps approached us, and through my watery eyes, I watched Mikey kneel beside me. “He’ll be fine, E,” he said in a distraught tone, almost as if he didn’t believe his own words. “He has to be.”
Everything froze in me as I watched them haul him onto a gurney, and the women spoke over the radio as they rushed him out while I stumbled after them.
“We got a twenty-eight-year-old male, with a GSW to the chest, unconscious with a faint pulse. No exit wound and bleeding rapidly, GCS five, we’re bringing him in now.”
“Ma’am, you cannot come inside.” The lady stopped as they strapped Jay to the ambulance. He looked so pale and lifeless that it was killing me. “Every minute is important, ma’am.”
I nodded, instantly stepping away. My feet were rooted in the spot as I watched them sail away with the one person who kept my heart beating.
I stood almost at a standstill.
How the fuck did everything change in a moment?
He was there, right there with me. I had it all. I had him. And now I didn’t even know if he was coming back to me.
A scurry of motion caught my attention, and my head snapped as I watched two policemen bring Dennis out in handcuffs. He gave me a leering smile as they walked him toward the squad car .
I didn’t know what snapped me, but my feet moved on their own accord. My pulse roared in my ears as I found myself in front of him. “You fucking pig,” I screamed, fisting my hand as I hooked it hard across his face, and his cracked glasses went flying on the ground. He cursed, holding his already broken nose that was bleeding.
“Ma’am, you need to step—” They stopped short when Julian, who I didn’t even realize was standing beside us, held a hand, and they all cowered back.
“You will now regret the day you were born,” I sobbed, pointing a shaky finger at him. “For the rest of your pathetic little life.”
“E, come on.” Mikey circled my arm, gently tugging me away. “He’s not worth it.” He gestured for the cops to take Dennis away.
I nodded, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. I didn’t like the growing distance between Jay and me. It clawed my heart. He was right now at this moment fighting for his life, and I felt empty.
“Take me to him. ”