Chapter Fifteen
I get about three strides before Ryan grabs my hand and pulls me around to face him. “I can arrange that.”
“Can you?” I ask. “Because I’m kind of bored of this place.” I look down at the hand holding my wrist. Each finger has a ring on it and I can’t help but wonder how hard it would be to steal one or two.
“I have a room in the back,” he says.
“Ew, gross. No. I’m going to my hotel. You can join me or not. Your choice,” I say as I pull my hand away from him and push my way through the sweaty dancing bodies. I slip through the door as he steps up next to me.
“Do you always get everything you want?” he asks as we step outside.
“More often than not. Just ask this guy. You like me too, don’t you?” I ask the bouncer.
“Hey Ryan, you should see this kid’s magic!” the man says.
“Yeah…the thing I’m very concerned about is my bouncer being swayed by a magic trick,” Ryan says as he follows me down the road. “I can drive.”
“No, but thanks.”
“You just have to have everything your way, don’t you?” he asks, but I can tell he’s enjoying it.
“Oh, wait until I have you in bed,” I say.
He stares at me for a moment and then grins. “Oh, I can’t,” he says as he slides his hand around my waist and pulls me tighter against him. My hip presses against his as I grin up at him.
Alright…now I’m putting all my hope in Lane.
What if he can’t even find the car? He’s so damn stubborn that I could see him refusing to ask anyone to help him to the car or, knowing my luck, he was probably hit on the road.
If something has gone wrong on his end, what the hell do I do with this guy? Run away?
This is a bad idea. Why do I have such bad ideas? It’s because I never think. I think I have an idea, but I don’t think it through, I just do it.
“Where’s your car?” he asks.
Oh my God. What if I don’t recognize the car? I don’t even remember what color it is!
I’m going to die. I’m going to die.
“Uh…in this area,” I say as I keep walking.
Was it green?
No!
Blue…ish…black?
Fuck.
I stop at a crosswalk and look around as I try to remember where we parked.
It was along a road, I do know that. The light changes and I step across the road as Ryan starts blabbing about something.
It’s probably something about how awesome or rich he is, but all I can think about is not letting the panic show on my face.
“What hotel are you staying at?”
“Hilton,” I mutter.
“We could have walked there by now,” he says as he points behind him.
“Not that Hilton,” I say.
“There’s another in the area?” he asks as he tries to think.
“Are you questioning my memory?” I ask.
“Of course not,” he says as he holds his hands up in mock defense.
Well…I am.
I see a car that I think might be the car we borrowed from García, but Copper isn’t in the back seat. Did Lane put him somewhere?
I look around to see if Copper is waiting anywhere. I don’t see him, so I turn my attention back to the car. It must be the right car.
Please be the right car!
“Is this your car?” he asks.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah? Are you asking me?” he asks as he stares at me like I’m something to be curious about.
“It’s a rental…I kind of forget what it looks like,” I say.
“Hit the beeper on the keys.”
Yeah…those are with Lane.
“No, this is it,” I say, trying to sound confident as I walk up to the driver’s door.
Please be it, please be it.
He walks around to the passenger door as I look around a bit nervously. What is Lane’s plan? Maybe he didn’t have a plan because I just jumped up like an idiot because I wanted to prove myself to him. I wanted to prove that I can be useful.
I pull on the door and it gives, so that is a good thing. I’m pretty sure not too many cars in this area are left unlocked. But what now? I don’t have the keys and I don’t know what I’m doing.
Ryan opens the passenger door and gets inside as he grins at me. “Where are we off to now?” he asks as he sets a hand on my upper thigh before sliding it up until I can feel his fingers brush my cock.
“It’s a secret,” I whisper as I see something move behind me.
I turn to look, just as Ryan is slammed back against his seat. He jerks his hand away from me and grabs for his throat as Lane holds a thin rope against it.
I just stare in shock as Ryan’s body jerks and flails as he digs at his neck, trying to grip the rope enough to pull it away.
Then, with one last jerk of his hand, his body stills and he slumps down into the seat.
Lane quickly loosens the rope and Ryan’s body falls forward.
His head slams down onto the dashboard as I slowly look over at Lane.
“You alright?” Lane asks.
“Ha ha!” I say, but I’m not sure why because I’m not sure what part of this is funny. “Oh my God, Lane. Why did you let me be such an idiot?”
He looks over at me, alarmed. “Are you alright?” he asks. “Did he hurt you?”
“No! No! I’m fine. I was just…there was no plan. I had no plan. I just jumped up and ran off,” I say.
“Yeah. I know . And if you ever do that shit again, I’ll strangle you instead. What if you got hurt?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, really meaning it. I should have listened to him.
“Good,” he says as he pulls me toward him and kisses my forehead. “But…if I’m being honest, this worked out really well.”
“How long will he be out for?”
“As long as I didn’t kill him, probably not long,” he says nonchalantly.
“What?” I ask in alarm as I reach over to Ryan, but when I press my fingers under his nose, I can feel his breath. “Okay, what’s the plan?”
“Oh, you’re going to ask for a plan this time? You’re not just going to jump out of the car and do it? It’s kind of weird to ask about a plan with a man who has dedicated years of his life to this kind of work. You’re going to ask him?”
“No…I just thought I’d give you a chance to make a plan, so you would feel better about yourself.”
“Great, thanks. He’s going in the trunk.”
“Awesome, so when I get pulled over, I won’t just go to jail for assault but also kidnapping because no one is going to believe me when I tell them the blind man did it.”
Lane feels around in the back seat until I hear a crinkling of a bag. He holds it out to me, so I look inside at the duct tape and cable ties.
“Where’d you get this stuff?” I ask.
“García grabbed it for me.”
“And when he asked why you needed it, what did you tell him?”
“That you were into S and M.”
“Great. Great,” I say as I grab the bag and drop it into my lap.
“Put the cable ties around his wrists. Make sure they’re tight,” he says.
I pick up a thick cable tie before reaching over and pulling his hands together. I wrap it around both wrists and tighten it, but I’m kind of scared it’s going to cut the circulation off.
“Now wrap duct tape around them just to make sure,” he says. “Duct tape all the way down to his fingertips so he doesn’t start playing with shit in the trunk.”
“Okay,” I say as I start it at his wrists, and then wrap the duct tape around his hands until none of his fingers are showing. “Now what?”
“Put tape over his mouth, but make sure it’s not obstructing his nose in any way,” Lane says as he hovers over the seat.
“Okay…” I rip off a big piece of the tape and press it against Ryan’s mouth. I press it down firmly as I hold him up against the seat.
“Pop the trunk. I’ll carry him to it while you make sure no one is looking, alright?”
“Yeah,” I say as I look around until I find the button. I push it and hear the trunk pop. Ryan moans, so I quickly get out and look around. The street is dark this far out, and most life seems to be asleep, but there are cars driving by every few moments. “Lane…there are cars…”
He gets out of the car with the duct tape and holds it out to me.
I take it from him, unsure of what I am doing with it.
“Inside the trunk is an emergency pull. It’ll look like…
a glow in the dark oval. I want you to tape that up against the trunk lid.
He shouldn’t be able to reach it anyway, but just in case, we need to keep him from seeing it right away.
Then, while you’re looking around, there should be a knob to pull that will release the back seats. Pull that.”
I scavenge around until I see the glow in the dark pull that Lane is talking about.
I rip off some tape and press it firmly against the trunk lid.
Finding the seat release takes me a bit longer because it is hidden where I can’t see it in the shadows of the trunk.
I pull it and hear the seats give as light from the interior of the car peeks in.
“Close the trunk,” Lane says as I hear him doing something in the cab of the car.
I slam the trunk closed, and then I rush back to the car where Lane is trying to roll Ryan into the back seat. He has the back seats down, so we can push him into the trunk from the inside. I open the back door and start helping him tug as Ryan moans again.
Ryan’s boot gets stuck on the front console, so I yank at his leg and the boot pops free, letting him fall into the back seat like a rag doll. Then we shove his head and chest into the trunk. He’s tall and barely fits.
“Before his legs are in, tape them.”
I nod and quickly set to work winding the tape around his ankles.
“Now you’re going to tape his hands to his ankles.”
“More tape? Lane, this guy isn’t going anywhere!”
“You’d be surprised what a person can do when they think death is near,” Lane says.
“Fine, hold him for me,” I say as I force the man into the fetal position. I tape his ankles to his wrists and then push him the rest of the way into the trunk. “Good?”
“Hopefully. Since I can’t actually see your work, I’ll deem it as mediocre.”
“Thanks, doll,” I say, and he smiles.
He pushes the back seats up and gets out of the car, and into the passenger seat. I get into the driver’s seat and look over at him.
“Alright, now that we have our victim, where exactly are we going with him?”
“Reed’s house,” Lane says.
“Didn’t Mick just try to kill us?” I ask.
“Yes, which is why he won’t be at his house. There will be someone watching his house, but when I asked García who was on night watch, he told me it was Yates. And one thing I know about Yates is that he’s a shitty-ass worker. He’ll either be asleep or playing on his phone.”
“He’s not going to notice us dragging a human being into the house?” I ask.
“Not at all,” he says.
“Okay…” I say suspiciously.
I glance over at the screen on the dashboard of the car and click for the GPS before typing in the address as Lane tells it to me. The back of the car is starting to bounce a bit as I put the car in drive and start down the road.
“This is a bad idea,” I say.
“No, we’re doing good,” Lane says.
“Are we? Because I’m convinced this is a bad idea.”
“Don’t be.”
Sure. Sure.
Lane holds his hand out, so I reach for it. As soon as my fingers brush against his, he squeezes them tightly. I try to pull comfort from his touch.
“Hey, are you doing alright? If you want to back out of this, I don’t blame you,” he says.
I slow the car as I near a red light. “No…I don’t want to back out. I want to help you.”
“If you back out of this, you do understand that doesn’t mean I’ll leave you?”
My stomach tightens as I listen to his words.
It’s like I hear them, and I understand them, but I’m just not sure I believe them.
Everyone leaves me behind eventually. Why wouldn’t he?
So, despite his assurances, I know that I can’t leave.
I have to prove to him I’m worth something, that I’m worth keeping around.
“Felix. I’m serious. You could stay with James’s wife for a few days and García can help me. I won’t leave you,” he says.
“I’m fine,” I say as the light turns green. “I want to help.”
He sighs, and I hear a loud thump coming from the trunk. “Felix…”
Something dawns on me at that moment, and I quickly look over at Lane. “Where is my dog? ”
“Ah…shit,” he says.
“ What? What does that mean, Lane ?”
“It means we forgot him,” he says.
“Where’s he at?”
“I put him in the alley, so he didn’t draw Gibson’s attention to the back seat. He’s fine,” he says.
“If someone stole my dog, you’re going in the trunk with Ryan,” I say as I do a U-turn right in the middle of the road, which probably isn’t the brightest idea since if I got pulled over, they’d hear Ryan making a ruckus in the trunk.
I’m not sure any amount of flashing García’s badge would get me out of that one.
“First off, he’s not your dog. You stole him. Second, he’s a trained dog, he’s not going to wander off from his command unless he knows the person asking.”
I park in the same spot I’d just left, although the car is now facing the wrong way. “Where is he?”
“Just call him,” Lane says, as he rolls the window down. “Copper, come!”
The dog rushes out of the dark alley, and without missing a beat, leaps through the open window onto Lane’s lap. He wiggles his tail when he sees me.
“My baby!” I coo.
“You’re scrunching my nuts, dog,” Lane says as he tries to push him off.
“My poor Copper. Did you think Daddy was going to leave you? No! I wouldn’t,” I say as I kiss his forehead. He wiggles a little harder as his tail bashes Lane in the face.
“Alright, make out with the dog later,” Lane says as he shoves Copper into the back seat.
Copper lands in the back seat and tilts his head as he listens to the ruckus in the trunk.
“I can’t believe you,” I hiss at Lane.
“The thing is, I can tell you’re trying to push all the blame onto me because you feel guilty that you never thought about the dog as you drove away,” Lane says.
“No, I’m not,” I lie.
He laughs. “Sure.”