28. Chapter 28
Chapter 28
Sylvie
It must have been my preoccupation with Drakos’s strange proposal that made me so careless.
He studied me when I walked into the loft. “You didn’t run.”
I stared at him, wondering why I hadn’t even thought of it. “No, I… didn’t.”
He nodded. “I can work with that.” My head tilted, and I wanted to ask him what he meant, but in the end, I let it be. We both needed time to think.
A few days later, he spelled Milo off and picked me up from the mortuary after a morning funeral service. Neither of us had brought up his “proposal” again. On the way home, we grabbed street tacos from our favorite food truck and sat out on his rooftop patio to eat. A cool breeze nipped at my skin, but the scent of rosemary wafted from his herb garden. I glanced around at the small haven he’d created here. The area had become one of my favorite spots, and I felt some of my tension ease away.
He leaned back and crossed his arms as I bit into a taco. “Do you want a small wedding somewhere like the Wild West Chapel, or a big one at a hotel on the Strip?”
I choked on my taco as my shoulders tensed and my heart rate kicked up. So much for relaxing. But before I could retort, my phone buzzed, the screen lighting up with Alexa's name. I put my half-eaten taco down, wiped cabbage off my shirt, and flicked my thumb across the screen, silently thanking her for the interruption. “What's up?”
“I found something. We need to talk.” Alexa didn’t trust cell phones, texting, or emails. We discussed most things in person unless it was something benign like what to eat for dinner or which show to binge-watch. Her paranoia made sense, considering she could hack her way into almost anyone’s phone or computer. The tone of her voice told me I wasn’t going to like what she had to say.
“About?” I asked, sitting up straighter.
“Where are you at?”
I glanced at Drakos. “I'm at Drakos’s loft. I can meet you at the mortuary or Luigi’s in fifteen.”
He stood, his sheer size suddenly making the patio feel small. “Tell her to come here.”
Alexa heard him. “That will work. I'll be there in ten.” She hung up and I scowled at him.
Shrugging, he bent down and gave me a quick, hard kiss. “Even if you met her at your apartment, I’d still go with you.”
Ten minutes later, I buzzed her in. We stood around the kitchen bar, and I passed Alexa a leftover taco and popped open a seltzer for her. “Spill it,” I urged, foregoing pleasantries as I slid the food over.
She glanced between Drakos and me then took a drink. “Your father has a life insurance policy out on you.”
Her words made no sense at first. “Jeffrey Whitlock? The man sitting in prison right now?”
“Yes.”
“But… how? Doesn’t the insurer need my consent? And how does a prisoner get a life insurance policy on someone?”
Alexa let out a long breath. “He’s had it since you were a child, so he didn’t need your consent, and the yearly premium amount is minimal.”
“Why would he do that?” Anxiety and hatred flooded my system. Whenever I thought my father couldn’t get worse, he somehow managed it.
“How much is the policy worth?” Drakos asked.
Alexa hesitated. “Usually, there’s a maximum amount a parent can take out, but this is an annuity.”
“How much is it worth?” I whispered.
“Almost half a million.” Alexa picked up her taco and took a bite. “We can get the policy canceled now that we know about it. Especially when the policyholder finds out he’s in prison, and why.”
As I reeled over the news, Alexa finished her taco.
“There’s something else. I’ve been… uh, monitoring Ivan’s feeds.” She glanced at Drakos and winced, likely knowing Ivan would soon hear about her hacking into his system. “LeBaron figured out you were with Drakos that night at Titties when the two bikers went missing. He ran your image through a facial recognition program.”
I rolled my shoulders, feeling the weight of my decision settle. “I'm going to find a way to kill that fucking bastard.”
Alexa raised her eyebrows. “Which one? Your father or LeBaron?”
Drakos straightened. “They both need to die. But it’s going to take some planning, so in the meantime, we’re getting married.
“Christ on a cracker. We don’t need to rush into this,” I ground out.
Alexa stood. “Whoa! Married? Who said anything about marriage?”
Drakos’s eyes narrowed. “We absolutely do need to rush this.” He had a good foot of height on me, and I had to kink my neck back to meet his hard stare, but we squared off.
“You think prosecutorial immunity is a good enough reason to tie the knot?”
“It’s just one of the many reasons. But, yes, I do.”
My temper ignited as hurt swam through me. “Yeah? Well, I’d rather—”
“What the hell is wrong with you guys?” Alexa cut in as she turned to Drakos. “I swear, you and your partners may be richer than most small countries, but you’re all emotionally stunted. Seriously. Why can’t you just tell Sylvie she’s the most unique, intriguing woman you’ve ever met, you love her and want to marry her, and she’d be safer if you do it sooner rather than later?”
Alexa turned to me and pointed. “And you.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“Why don’t you admit that you love him too, but you’re scared shitless of commitment after watching your mother make a mess of it over and over? But you’re not your mother.” She stopped short and winced.
“That hit a little too close to home, didn’t it?” I taunted and turned to Drakos. “We shouldn’t get married for marital immunity,” I argued.
Drakos raised an eyebrow. “That isn’t what I said. Don’t put words in my mouth.”
Throwing up my hands, I turned to Alexa. “That is exactly what he said.”
She gazed at both of us and shook her head. “I’m going next door to talk with Ivan. It’d be better if I’m the one to tell him I hacked his feeds.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Don’t leave without a bodyguard,” Drakos called out.
“I won’t, but if I don’t get some air and a few minutes away from you, my head is going to explode.” We walked out of the loft together and stopped in the garage.
Alexa turned to me and studied my face. “You love him. I can tell.”
Sighing, I hung my head. “It’s not that simple.”
She nodded. “It never is.”
We both jumped when loud screams erupted on the street in front. “What the hell?” I muttered.
Alexa and I ran to the garage door, and I hit the button to turn on his security feed. What I saw chilled me. Two men dressed in regular street clothes were dragging a woman to a shiny black SUV. Without thinking, I started to unlock the deadbolts.
“No! Sylvie, wait.” Alexa rushed toward me, but I was too angry to stop. As I stepped outside, I felt her grab the back pocket of my jeans, but I pulled out of her grip and moved forward when one of the men slapped the woman, a white-hot rage filling my vision.
As I ran to help the woman, the other man turned. He had a big gut and bad teeth. He was also one of Terrance LeBaron’s lackeys. The lady abruptly stopped screaming and smiled wide. Her lip bled onto her teeth, giving her a psychotic clown look.
“Your daddy said you’d come out,” the second man smirked and lunged for me. He had a receding chin and greased-back hair. I quickly backed up, but the guy with the gut circled behind me. I turned to keep him in my sights. When he rushed me, I stepped aside and kicked out, hitting his thigh. He didn’t seem to have any training, but he had a good eighty pounds on me. Another man swung out of the driver’s seat of the black Escalade. Terrance LeBaron strode over, wearing his OutKast vest, and the blood drained from my head. Fuck, I was in so much trouble.
“‘For the Lord of armies will have a day of reckoning.’ It’s a reckoning day for you, Sylvie Spade. Are you going to come quietly, or do we need to put a bullet in your thigh like you did to Tank?”
One of his men pulled a gun and aimed it at me. I tensed when I saw Alexa step out, and I shook my head vigorously at her. I couldn’t protect us both, and I needed her to tell Drakos and my cousins what was happening. She gazed around and summed up the situation in a split second. Her face went bone-white, but she nodded and backed into the garage quietly. They didn’t spare her a glance.
I held my hands up and tsked at Terrance. “You keep forgetting about the cameras, old man. There’s surveillance all over this block. If you shoot me, the police and the entire Spade clan are going to hunt you down.”
He chuckled and tilted his head. “I don’t care. Get in the SUV—now.”
When I didn’t move, Terrance strode over to me, cocked his fist back, and punched me in the stomach. If his friend hadn’t been holding a gun on me, I would’ve fought back. Instead, I swiveled sideways to lessen the blow. But the pain still burst through my gut, and I landed on my ass.
“We gotta go,” the stocky one muttered nervously.
Terrance leaned down and felt in my pants pockets as I hunched in on myself. He fished my phone out and threw it over his shoulder, then he and the greasy-haired man lifted me up as I started to struggle, and threw me into the back of his SUV. My knee whacked the side, and I groaned in pain as Terrance roughly pulled my arms in front of me and duct-taped my wrists together. I started screaming for help, but he grabbed my shirt, pulled me up, and punched me in the side of the head. My mind blanked and I fought to stay conscious as he ripped off another long strip of tape and wrapped it around my head, covering my mouth. He’d caught my hair in the tape, and it was going to hurt like a son of a bitch when it came off.
Grinning, he slammed the back door down and they quickly piled into the vehicle, speeding off less than two minutes after I’d run out of Drakos’s front door. A wave of panic and abject fear threatened me, but I swallowed it back.
I was a fucking idiot. But if I wanted to get out of this alive, I needed to stop being stupid and use my head. Because there was no way I’d let that psychotic, Bible-quoting prick take me out without a fight.
My head pounded, and the smell of exhaust and the motion of the vehicle made my stomach roil, but I knew if I threw up, I could suffocate. Swallowing, I got control of myself. Were Drakos and Ivan looking for me? Would they call my cousins and get them involved? I hoped to God Alexa had gotten Terrance’s license plate, but her angle hadn’t been good.
I was so stupid. If I did get out of this mess, Fennick was going to rip me a new one, and Kilian would be so disappointed. I wondered if I’d ever see them again as tears pricked my eyes.
The SUV's cargo area smelled like a wet dog, and when I looked up, I noticed a mesh barrier between it and the back seat. However, I could clearly hear them talking.
“You gonna let us have at her before you kill her, Boss?” one of the men asked Terrance.
“The Lord rewards those who are faithful and righteous.”
“Is that a yes?” the other man whispered.
The woman giggled. “Earl, you ain’t been faithful or righteous a day in your life.”
“Shut your mouth, girl,” Terrance snapped. “‘Suffer not a woman, but to be in silence.’ We’ll all get a go at her, boys.”
Terrance continued talking, and I got the feeling it was more for my benefit than Earl’s. “She’ll be nothing but bleeding, broken bones and carved up flesh by the time we get done with her. It’s the least we can do since they turned Carver into a maggot-infested pile of shit.”
My stomach roiled again, and I laid my head back. Drakos’s marriage proposal—if I could call it that—floated through my mind, and I admitted to myself that buried deep in my heart, there was a tiny flicker of hope that maybe we could’ve made it work. A few tears ran down my cheek, and a sob worked its way up through the bile in my throat. I stifled it back. There was no way these fuckers were going to hear me cry.
My knee throbbed, and I decided to give myself five seconds to wallow. Okay, maybe another ten seconds after that. Then I sucked in a breath and worked to calm my fear and panic. As Terrance would probably say, the Lord helps those who help themselves. Ruthlessly, I yanked my mind back to my problem and mentally analyzed the situation.
Strange scents worked their way through the SUV. The smell of alcohol, marijuana, and… fried chicken assaulted my nostrils. I wondered if I was hallucinating.
“Don’t backwash in the bottle, Ducky,” the woman whined. “And don’t drink it all. Pass me a piece of chicken.” Had these dumb fucks gone through a fast food drive-thru before kidnapping me? It smelled like Kentucky Fried Chicken and maybe tequila in here.
“Don’t get your panties in a wad. We got the sixteen-piece bucket,” Earl griped.
“Jolie don’t wear panties. She likes goin’ commando,” Ducky drawled out. They discussed the merits of wearing underwear, and the conversation devolved into Earl wanting to know how Ducky knew she didn’t wear panties. The whole conversation grossed me out.
Where were they taking me? After listening to their last church meeting, I didn’t think they were going back to the MC compound. That left one of their homes, or maybe a motel room somewhere. Or the desert, where it would be easy to bury my body after they raped and tortured me.
My thoughts started spiraling again, and I mentally slapped myself. Should I try to fight my way out of this mess when they opened the hatchback, or cooperate and attempt to stall?
Terrance might be a crazy zealot, but he wasn’t stupid. I needed a plan. Angling myself, I rolled over on my knees so I could peek out the back window. We were on the beltway, and it looked like we were heading southbound. I thought about trying to kick out the back window, but it looked solid, and I doubted I could get two good kicks in before Ducky or Earl crawled back here and stopped me.
“What if the Prez finds out we took her?” Ducky asked. I involuntarily ducked down at his voice.
“As long as everyone keeps their mouths shut and we follow the plan, he and his brother will be dead, and I’ll be your new President by the end of the week. You think you can do that? ‘Words kill, words give life. They’re either poison or fruit.’” Terrance sounded like he was giving a sermon. I also wanted to remind him that committing murder violated the Ten Commandments, but duct tape covered my mouth. It was probably a good thing.
Jolie sighed. “It’s too bad you have to take Axel out. I like him.” I heard a smack, and Jolie cried out. “I didn’t mean anything by it. He’s always been decent.”
“He’d never want anything to do with your skanky ass anyway,” Earl muttered.
Glancing up, I studied the mesh barrier between the cargo area and the back seats. It looked like it snapped on. The vehicle was a new model and probably had an electronic key. An idea started forming. After what felt like minutes—or maybe hours—the car slowed down, made several turns, and then stopped. I heard a garage door start opening, and my heart thumped in my throat as I squatted on my toes.
At least I had a slim fighting chance with my hands duct-taped in front of me. It wasn’t a lot, but I’d take it.