Chapter Twelve
Maybe Ms. Rae’s message had been a warning—maybe that was what she had meant when she’d dropped Ava’s real name.
Either way, Ava hadn’t read it correctly. Which, story of her life. Any messages she had to read between the lines were left firmly on read—
And now she was in the trunk of some fancy SUV driven by some big broad-shouldered white men who looked as though they would like nothing more than a chance to swing those meaty fists of theirs.
She had kicked out the taillight as soon as the SUV started moving, and now she was reaching one arm through the back taillight, waving it frantically.
There was a man in the alley—a potential ally? Someone who would call the cops?
Shit, it was Jack.
Jack, whose car she had both keyed and hot-wired, all in a twenty-four-hour period.
Ava waved at him anyway, but her heart sank.
Her ankles were tied, the paracord digging sharply into her skin, her feet already tingling from the lack of blood flow.
Her shin was bleeding, a jagged cut from kicking out the glass taillight.
They hadn’t bothered to tie her wrists, maybe for the sake of time, maybe because they thought the knots at her ankles were enough to hold her.
They hadn’t gagged or blindfolded her, either.
Maybe because they fucking underestimated her.
She tugged at the knot holding her feet, which did not budge. If only Ava had this kind of knot-tying skills, she’d never trip over an untied shoelace again.
If circumstances were different, she would be delighted to be immobilized by rope this way.
But these men were not Ms. Rae or Ari or anyone pleasant.
A man claiming to be her husband had entered first, followed by a menacing entourage of security guards.
These men had dragged her out of the back room at Dynamo into the dimly lit alley and then tossed her unceremoniously into the back of the SUV.
She would remember the sound of the trunk slamming shut for the rest of her life.
However long or short that was.
Ava waved for at least three city blocks, but when they turned down a quiet road with no streetlights and no cars, she lay back on the floor of the trunk with a little thump. Her heart was thundering in her chest, her head pounding.
Had she had anything to drink at Dynamo? She couldn’t remember now. It was all hazy and getting hazier. Or maybe they’d hit her over the head.
Why couldn’t she remember?
In the distance, the roar of a motorcycle cut the night. The SUV swerved, and when Ava peeked out the back light again, fighting the droopiness of her own eyelids, the SUV had turned off its lights.
Far down the road, a motorcycle swerved, avoiding the pop pop pop of gunshots.
Gunshots?
And then Ava’s eyes blinked shut.
When Ava woke, her head thundered painfully and her ankles and wrists were tied to a chair. An experience she usually found stimulating, arousing, and a damned lot of fun.
But, in this context, utterly terrifying.
Everything else was dim—one single light bulb hanging above her head.
“You’re so cliché,” she said. The words came out a little slurred. They must have drugged her, then, but she couldn’t remember how, or when, or even having a drink to begin with. “Whoever the fuck you are.”
“That’s no way to greet your host,” a man’s voice said.
Ava blinked, her vision clearing a little.
She was in a warehouse—wow, even more cliché—that had nothing but a few men with guns at one door, and another man in a chair a few feet away from her.
He was not dressed in the plain clothes the men who had dragged her away had worn.
He was tall and white, looked to be mid-thirties, and had a square, clean-shaven jaw and icy blue eyes.
He was also wearing a suit, and he had those cold blue eyes locked on her.
“Your henchpeople were very rude,” she told him. “Why am I here? Did that awful man send you?”
“I’m not sure which awful man you mean,” he answered. “My name is Devin, and I’m the head of security for a private firm. We’ve been hired to get some answers, and you have them, Ms. Cavalcante.”
“Are you one of Cale’s henchpeople, then?” Ava asked. “How much did he pay you to kidnap me? Isn’t kidnapping still illegal if you’re a billionaire, or are they just allowed?”
“Have you ever worked for Jacobson Health?” Devin asked. He sat back in the folding chair, setting his ankle on his opposite knee. He looked very relaxed.
Maybe he did this often. Kidnap mostly innocent women off the street (or in the club) and drag them away to shady warehouses to engage in the most cliché intimidation tactics in the books.
“You couldn’t have picked somewhere with a better view?
” Ava complained. Her head was clearer now, and she’d taken enough ropes courses—even topped during some of them, though topping wasn’t really her thing—to know how most knots were constructed.
In her panic in the SUV, or in her drugged state, she hadn’t been able to summon that knowledge.
She eased her ankles side to side, covering the motion by leaning forward a little in her chair, and then back again. Keep his eyes firmly up here.
“Tell me, what view would make you happiest, Ms. Cavalcante?” Devin pulled a handgun from a holster at his waistband and set it on his knee, his hand still resting on it, the barrel facing her.
If Ava was normal, if Ava was good, if Ava had anything at all left to lose, she wouldn’t have laughed.
But Ava Cavalcante had watched a heart monitor go flat in front of her, had held the hand of the person she loved most as that hand went cold and slack in hers, and there was nothing, nothing here that scared her.
Somewhere along the way, she’d broken too completely to ever be whole again. Certainly to ever be scared.
“Do you think I won’t use this?” Devin leaned forward, hand still resting on the gun. “What do you know about the investigation?”
“The—wait, what?” Ava’s left foot was almost free of the knot, the cord loosening. She laughed again, the sound echoing in the empty warehouse. “You think I know anything important?”
The second the words left her mouth, she regretted them. If they thought she knew something they needed, they would keep her alive. And while the bullet waiting for her in that gun didn’t scare her, not anymore, she did need it to wait at least until she’d taken everything from Cale Jacobson.
A flicker of confusion crossed Devin’s face before he schooled his features into that mask of calm.
“The investigation is public knowledge,” he said.
“The Jacobson family has been accused of insider trading, and the DOJ is investigating. You seem to be holding a grudge about something, which is why Mr. Jacobson has a restraining order. Which you have now violated, of course.”
Ava bit back a comment about how her glitter bomb and threatening letters were nothing in comparison to what Cale himself had done. “You think I’m mad at him for insider trading?” she asked.
It was such a wild leap, but of course they had made it. If she could laugh about this with Ari—
Ava stopped the thought short. She’d had a good, good life. Not an easy one, but so good it had left her breathless with gratitude.
And then it had all been gone. And maybe she hadn’t ever been a good person, not really, because as soon as that goodness was gone from her life, she’d become . . . well, this.
“Do you have another reason you’d like to share?” Devin asked.
“Not particularly.”
His foot hit the floor with a thump, and he was on his feet before she could really register how quickly he moved, the gun leveled at her forehead.
The barrel was cold where it pressed against her skin.
“Is this motivation sufficient?” Devin asked. “Or should we add pain?”
“If you’d done your homework, darling,” Ava said. “You’d know that pain would be a reward.”
Disgust wrinkled his face. “I can make sure it’s not,” he said.
“I do love to test my limits,” Ava told him.
She couldn’t say that her strategy was working, exactly, but it was both buying her time and horrifying him, if only mildly.
A stay of execution, and she got to annoy a man in the process?
11/10 strategy, would use again if the opportunity presented itself.
Though somehow she thought that using this strategy on Jack might backfire on her.
“Not the way I do,” Devin growled.
“Oh, does it make you feel more masculine?” Ava asked. “Growling like a little doggie?”
He moved like lightning again, kicking out the leg of her chair.
She tumbled forward, catching herself with her face on the unforgiving concrete floor.
Blood spurted immediately from her nose, coupled with a crunch Ava would worry about later. If she lived long enough to have a later.
“Is that the kind of pain you like?” He towered above her, his hefty leather boots at eye level. “I could break every rib in your body. Is that the kind of pain you like?”
“Well, I haven’t tried that sort of thing yet,” Ava managed, blood running into her mouth as she did. And fuck, that hurt, but the anger burning through her like a wildfire remained brighter. “I’m sure we could, just to—”
Her words were cut off with the kick to her ribs that robbed her of breath.
But—her left leg was free.
Another kick to the ribs, another crack that left her breathless.
Devin’s phone rang sharply, and he stepped away, shoulders angling away from her. “She’s close,” he said into the phone. “I’ll get what she knows and then—”
Ava fought for a strained breath, her ribs aching, and then returned to the task of untangling herself from the paracord.
A few feet away, someone was speaking to Devin on the other end—the voice was garbled and unnatural, but they were saying something about cut the losses and knows too much and shouldn’t have been able to make that escape—
And then Ava’s right leg was free, and Devin was still angled away from her.