52. Mine
mine
. . .
Davian
My hit list had grown exponentially as the day progressed. My father. Vince. And now, the Ali brothers.
Vince had given me a few unnecessary warnings to remain calm while we’d set up the safe house’s computer equipment. Now, he sat across from me at the old desk with a scowl and a phone to his ear, still trying to get ahold of Nasir.
But it must be amateur hour in Zain’s slice of the city, because he and Fessy looked like they’d been caught with their hands in the cookie jar when I joined the video call.
I didn’t allow my gaze to linger on where Sadie sat, but she didn’t seem too upset.
Fessy scrambled off to stand in a corner, while Zain straightened next to Sadie. “Reed.”
I cocked a brow and waited for him to continue.
A lengthy, awkward pause settled in before he lifted his chin. “Well, I see you were smart enough to join the call. Good.”
He had no idea what he was doing.
“Can we pick up the pace here, Ali?” I leaned back in my chair and checked my watch, knowing it would piss him off more than anything. “I’ve got other things to do. You interrupted my schedule and demanded I join. I joined. Let’s move it along.”
His dark eyes flashed, but he didn’t take the bait.
“Didn’t think you’d be in such a hurry,” he said instead, gesturing toward Sadie. “Not even going to check in on your girl here? Say something to her?”
I could feel Vince’s glare boring a hole into my head. “What do you expect me to say? You abducted a woman I met twenty-four hours ago. I barely know her name.”
He scoffed. “Cut the crap. Fessy saw you with her, and you cared enough to join this call.”
I made a show of sighing and looking at Sadie—but the sight of her stopped me cold.
She was staring straight at the camera and blinking like a maniac.
A flurry of quick blinks. Then five slow. More quick ones.
My brows pulled together in a frown.
I couldn’t tell if she was having a seizure or trying to blink back tears, and I had to stop myself from asking her if she was all right.
Luckily, I wasn’t the only one to notice her sudden tic.
Zain clapped his hands in front of her face. “What the hell is wrong with your eyes?”
Sadie immediately stopped blinking. “Huh? What do you mean?”
“You’re blinking like a spaz.”
“Oh. Um, I think something flew into them,” she lied through her teeth. When Zain eyed her doubtfully, she looked up at him with her big, innocent eyes, which didn’t fool any of us. “Don’t worry. I’m not trying to get any coded messages to Davian or anything like that, if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t even know Morse code.”
Vince stifled a snort, and I wanted to hit my forehead against the desk. Coded messages?
What the hell.
When Zain only stared at her, Sadie slowly faced the camera again. After a pause, she quickly blinked twice.
“You’re doing it again!” He scowled. “Stop it.”
She immediately stopped. I wasn’t sure what she was even trying to say to me, but a new distraction stopped me from thinking about it too hard.
“What’s that brown thing on top of you?” I asked. It looked like they’d covered her with an old tarp.
Sadie glanced down at it and cleared her throat.
“Oh. It’s a little chilly in here, so the boys gave me a blanket,” she answered brightly. Only her head was moving, and my unease grew. “It was very hospitable of them.”
This time, I was the one staring. Had she just shown gratitude toward her captors?
“Let’s cut to the chase, Reed.” Zain stepped closer to Sadie and spun a blade around his fingers before deftly catching it. “How much is her pretty face worth to you?”
My eyebrow rose. “You want money?”
“Just answer the question,” he shot back. “What are you willing to offer to get her back?”
Like I said. Amateur hour.
“That’s not how this works, and I don’t have time for games.” My thumb tapped the armrest. “You have the hostage. You make the demands. State your price, or we’re done here.”
I’d said something similar to Sadie at Bruno’s ice cream shop, but it’d been almost playful then. There was nothing lenient about my tone now.
Zain took it in stride, even if he did grit his teeth and give me a look that told me he’d love nothing more than to see me dead. “I want everything from Rex’s border all the way to downtown. The territory’s rightfully ours.”
I chuckled. I couldn’t help it. The boy wasn’t just delusional—he’d lost his damn mind. Over half that area was mine, and I wasn’t giving him even a single square foot. “Yours? According to who?”
“Our father?—”
My laughter abruptly cut off. “Your father was a drunk who gambled away anything he could get his hands on. My old man helped him out by buying the properties off him instead of taking them. What makes you think I’ll ever give them back?”
He grabbed Sadie’s shoulder and brought the blade he’d been flashing closer to her—earning a squeak from her. “If you want your little girlfriend to live, you will.”
My eyes narrowed at his hand touching her. From behind the laptop screen, Vince was giving me hand signals to stay calm, but he didn’t need to remind me.
I knew what was at stake.
…My mouth just didn’t seem to get the memo.
“I’ll give you a chance to do yourself a favor here, Ali,” I said flatly, ignoring Vince’s pantomiming. “Take your hand off her.”
“ Davian, ” Vince hissed, but I was too focused on Zain’s hand to listen to him.
Unfortunately, the older Ali brother wasn’t feeling very smart today. Instead of listening, he tightened his fingers on Sadie’s shoulder—making Sadie wince. He was just lucky the blanket separated his grubby paw from her. “You don’t get to make any demands here?—”
But I was done playing around. “Unless you want me to remove your head from your body, get your goddamn hand off her. Now .”
Vince sighed, but the order spooked Zain into letting go of Sadie—knocking the blanket off her front so it dropped to her lap.
It felt like I’d been punched in the gut.
Underneath the blanket, Sadie’s wrists were tied to the chair’s armrests. But it wasn’t the ropes that made me see red. It was her torn shirt gaping open and showing the tops of her breasts popping out of the silly cartoon bra I’d picked up for her.
Nobody moved for a long moment.
“What happened to your shirt, Sadie?” I asked, not recognizing the chill in my own voice.
Sadie glanced down and chuckled a little hysterically. “Oh, that? Um, there was a little scuffle earlier. My shirt got ripped. You know how these things go. Not a big deal.”
She was lying. The tear was too clean-cut to be a rip.
And Zain was holding a blade in his left hand.
“You cut her shirt?” I asked evenly, but my voice no longer sounded like it belonged to me.
“I’ll do a lot more than that,” he threatened, raising his voice and grabbing her again. “You don’t have any leverage here, Reed. Either agree to our terms, or—or I’ll cut her nipples off!”
Sadie sucked in a breath and stared up at him in betrayal. “Seriously, Zain? That’s the one thing you promised not to do!”
My mind shut down. I must’ve misheard him, because I could swear he’d just threatened her nipples.
“The hell did you just say?” I bit out. Any last traces of my facade shattered, and my chair legs screeched against the hardwood floor as I stood and loomed over the laptop.
I wanted nothing more than to reach through the screen and wrap my fingers around the little bastard’s scrawny neck.
Vince waved his hands at me, but I focused on Zain jabbing his blade toward the camera. “You heard me. I’ll chop them?—”
“Let’s get one thing straight, Ali. I’m going to kill you. That’s a done deal.” The words left me in a growl, and I didn’t even try to cover it up. “But if you dare lay a single dirty finger on what’s mine, I’ll fuck you up in ways you can’t even fathom. There won’t be anything quick about it. I’ll take my time—probably even enjoy it a little—and when I’m finally through with you, your own mother won’t recognize what’s left. Understand me?”
Vince face-palmed in my peripheral vision before stepping away, but it didn’t matter I’d shown my hand. I was done playing games with kids who didn’t even belong at the table.
When Zain turned pale as a ghost, satisfaction filled my chest.
He wouldn’t be a problem.
Instead of waiting for him to get ahold of himself, I looked at Sadie—who stared wide-eyed at the screen.
Forcing myself to sound calm, I asked her what I’d been wanting to know since before the call started. “Are you hurt?”
Her lips parted, but only a squeak came out. Instead of speaking, she shook her head rapidly.
“Sadie, are you hurt?” I repeated gruffly. “I need you to answer me out loud, sweetheart.”
She visibly swallowed before trying again.
“Um, no,” she croaked. “No. I’m not hurt.”
It wasn’t enough. Even if she wasn’t harmed, she was still practically naked and tied to a chair in enemy territory.
And as much as I wanted to rip into Zain for treating her like this—for even thinking taking her from me was a good idea in the first place—reassuring Sadie was more important.
“I know why you ran,” I told her, ignoring the other two in the room, along with Vince. These words were for Sadie. “You were scared. Scared of what you were feeling or what it meant. So, you ran away with your tail between your legs.”
I’d never thought I’d use a dog metaphor in my life, but I’d never thought I’d get so attached to a pint-sized baker with pink hair who’d taken me hostage, either. And it felt like the right call when Sadie’s face softened.
I flexed my fingers at my sides before flattening my hands on the desk. “And that’s all right. I don’t blame you. I know my life can be scary.”
My gaze dropped to her wrists bound to the chair, and I paused. This was a perfect example of why she was right to run as far from me as she could.
Too bad I wouldn’t let her.
“But you’re not a distraction. You’re the furthest thing from a mistress.” My eyes flicked back up to hers, and I stopped caring who was listening as I laid it all out on the table. “And we may not be meringue, but don’t let that fool you, because you are mine. The moment you pointed that gun at my chest, you became mine. That isn’t something you can just run away from.”
Sadie’s eyes were bugging out of her head. And for the first time since I met her, she seemed truly speechless as she gaped back at me.
I glanced away from her long enough to see Vince hang up his phone and give me a thumbs-up—accompanied by a disapproving glare.
But I got the message. We had Nasir.
When I refocused on Sadie, she had that cornered bunny look again. I couldn’t resist giving her one last reassurance. “Sit tight. I’m coming for you.”
All three of them stared in stunned silence as I hit the button to end the call.
We already had what we needed, and there was no point in staying to chat.
I had a partner in crime to bring home.