26. McKenna
McKenna
M y head was trapped under the current of an unseen ocean, waves tossing me side to side in a boat as unsteady as my mind.
Water rushed in and out of my ears, ringing one moment and muffled the next.
My temples pounded, eyes dried shut despite the sea surrounding me.
But as I peeled them open, I found there was no water.
Only vast darkness, enveloping me in cold.
The hard surface beneath me bit into my cheek, and when I moved my palm along the concrete floor, tiny rocks scraped against my skin. The moon beamed through a window in a towering wall, illuminating the space just enough to see that I wasn’t alone.
A man, dressed in all black, sat in a metal chair nearly twenty feet from me. A gun was gripped in his hand, a finger on the trigger like he’d be happy to pull it.
I tried moving my other arm, but when it wouldn’t budge, I swiveled my head from where I was laying on my side to find a rope around my wrist. The other side was knotted onto a metal ring bolted into the floor .
I was stuck.
“You won’t be getting out of that,” the man announced.
“That’s real fucking obvious,” I shot back, words not as biting as I’d like them to be in my vulnerable state. My vision shifted, my body feeling like it was floating before I blinked away the dizziness.
“Even in this condition, you’re still a raging bitch.” Two footsteps sounded, signaling the man was standing now.
Slowly, I turned to watch him approach before he was crouching before me.
“I’ll be pretty damn pissed if I have to get my last sweatshirt dirty with your blood again.”
A shiver coursed through me at the thought of him making me bleed while I was unconscious. I fought the urge to check myself for injuries. Wherever I was bleeding, I’d deal with it later.
“Real mature of you to hurt a girl while she’s knocked out. Does that get you off?” I morphed my groggy features into an innocent look as I stared up at him. “Does that make you feel big and strong?”
The pain hit before I even saw the weapon coming.
The butt of his gun slammed into my already pulsing temple, sending my face into the unforgiving floor.
Stars burst behind my eyes, blinding me.
I felt something wet, and assumed my still-healing cut from the car accident had split open.
That, or he’d torn a new wound in my head.
The man said something but I couldn’t hear it past the ringing in my ears. Through it all, I refused to make my pain known. I wouldn’t whimper. Wouldn’t cry or groan or let him see that I was weak .
“I thought I told you not to touch her until I arrived,” a familiar woman’s voice said, filtering in past the ringing.
A lock of my hair was shoved away from my face by the barrel of a gun. I fought the urge to spit at the man. “Just having a little fun, Monica. Calm down.”
The name had my eyes going wide before I sighed. I fucking knew I didn’t like that bitch.
The man stood, receding back to his chair. When I turned to face Monica, I found he was still standing. Still holding his gun with his damn finger on the trigger.
I’d be surprised if I made it out of this without at least one bullet wound.
“Happy to see me?” Monica asked, white teeth on display in a catlike grin. She was still wearing the outfit she’d been in when I left the diner. Slacks and a blouse, as if this was some sort of normal business meeting for her.
“I think your ego’s a little too high for that assumption.
” I hated how raspy my voice sounded. How tired I felt, like every breath was an effort.
I could only hope I could keep up the facade long enough for Austin to find me.
If he found me. Right now, I was clinging to the knowledge that at least Brynne wasn’t here with me. He’d keep her safe.
Monica ignored my comment, instead facing the man. He had short black hair, almost completely shaved to show off the tattoo that spanned his forehead, neck, and upper cheek. I had half a mind to assume he got all three of them in prison. But maybe I was profiling him a little too hard.
“Did anyone see you take her?” she asked.
He started to shake his head. “She was with her friend?— ”
“The girl with the blonde tips in her hair?” Monica gritted out.
The man shrugged like remembering the details wasn’t important to him.
“Yeah, I guess. What about it? She was in the way. I accidentally drugged her food instead of this bitch’s.
” He gestured the gun in my direction, and I nearly rolled my eyes at how careless he was with the weapon.
“I’m sure the bears will find her friend soon enough. All’s good. No witnesses.”
Monica’s lips rolled together before she grabbed the gun from him, thankfully not setting off the trigger in doing so. “I told you that if you have the opportunity to grab both, grab both .” The end of her sentence was so loud, I winced at the sound.
Fuck, my head hurt.
He held his hands up in surrender, eyes darting between her face and the gun now aimed directly at his forehead. “I forgot. Shit. I’ll go back and?—”
“No!” Monica screamed, and then a gunshot echoed throughout the building, sending needles straight through my ear drums.
The man careened sideways, his body landing directly on my lower leg. I bit my tongue to hold back the scream building from the pain that came with it. He had to be at least two hundred and fifty pounds of dead weight, and all of it was on my calf and ankle.
“There’s no going back to make it all better,” Monica spat at him.
I almost reminded her that he was dead and couldn’t hear her, but it was better to keep her attention off me and on the corpse bleeding out all over my bare legs.
Her venomous gaze fell to me. And I thought I had a resting bitch face.
“Would you like to know why you’re here, McKenna?”
“That’d be nice.” My voice quivered, tone high.
Monica tucked the gun into the waistband of her slacks and brushed her hands on her black blouse. Instantly, like she’d been wearing a mask, a sort of fake pleasantry seeped into her being and she began pacing, arms draped lazily behind her back.
“Your boy toy killed my boyfriend.”
There was no hiding the fact that I was fucked now.
“That night he took your precious little friend to get back what was rightfully his?” She pinned her gaze on me.
“Your stupid little boys shot him and his men. I was going to get revenge for Lance no matter what, but then my father died—” Her sentence cut off on a maniacal laugh.
“It was almost perfect.” Then she turned serious.
“I had no doubt one of them killed him. Which was naive of them, really. Because all it did was bring me right to your doorstep.”
She took slow, drawn-out steps toward me, like she was a cat playing with a mouse caught in a trap with nowhere to hide. Despite Austin’s nickname for me, I was, without a doubt, not the cat in this situation.
I was the fucking mouse, and about to get eaten whole.
Less than a foot from me, she crouched so I had nowhere to look but straight at her.
“You left the notes,” I concluded. From the beginning, I’d suspected it had to be someone who’d been close with Lance. But Marv’s daughter being behind it? I would have never guessed that.
A sadistic smile painted her face. “Only one. Lance’s men did the rest of the dirty work for me. I’m not the only one pissed about his death.”
Figures .
She’d killed the man helping her tonight, though.
“Let me guess—there are others in on this too,” I surmised.
Her smile only grew. “Like I said, McKenna, I’m not the only one. As flawless as you may think they are, your brainless boys make mistakes.” She tsked three times, cocking her head to the side. “Lance never worked alone. He had connections everywhere. He kept me hidden?—”
“So he could fuck other women,” I interrupted. If I let her keep going, she’d talk herself in circles. And even though my life was on the line, I was growing bored.
Her lips twitched as pure malice lit up her eyes. Her mask was slipping. “No.”
“Yes.” I tried to slide my leg out from under the man’s body, but it was no use. “I saw him talking with them outside the diner. At least ten others, if I remember correctly.”
“Talking—”
“Touching. Feeling. Kissing.”
At the last word, she struck. Pain bloomed in my cheek, and I swallowed the metallic taste in my mouth. How many fucking times was I going to get hit today?
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.” My now-slick tongue ran across my lower lip. “Your revenge plot is all for a fucking cheater. How does that feel?”
Her lip curled back as she seethed. “If you think making up little stories will save you, you’re wrong.” She pulled out the gun, running a finger along the barrel before aiming it my way.
I was possibly exaggerating the number of women I saw Lance entertaining around the diner, but he was in no way loyal to her, regardless of the number.
I had hoped, though, that she’d spare me, given the way she clearly had no idea about his other flings.
But as I stared at the tip of the gun, I was certain my hope was futile.
I wasn’t afraid of death. In fact, I sometimes thought the concept of it was beautiful.
To fall into eternal peace seemed almost blissful.
But there was no guarantee of where I’d go or what the outcome would look like.
And that hit me as I refused to blink—refused to breathe—with the gun pointed at my face.
There’d be no more laughing with Brynne.
No more hating Mondays or feeling the rain on my skin. No more hot baths or late-night movies.
There’d be no more Austin.
That realization hurt the worst. It stained itself on my heart, blackening the organ where it’d become accustomed to the beat of his. His would go on, though. Mine would just…stop.
Maybe that little slice of fun I had with him was enough. Perhaps I was greedy, and this was the world’s way of showing me I’d bitten off more than I was allowed to chew.
“Shoot me, then.”
A hideous smile crept onto her face, so unlike the overly flashy ones I’d seen her wear before. “Your begging is sweet.” She ran the barrel down my neck, the cool metal leaving a trail of goosebumps. “Maybe I’ll draw it out. Have my fun like Lance would have. ”
“That sounds like fun. Wanna experiment?” Sometimes, I really needed to hold my tongue. But fuck it. I was already knocking on death’s door.
“Where should I start?”
If I hadn’t been dizzy from the head trauma, I’d have thought she drooled.
“The hands, maybe,” I suggested. “Oh, that’s right.” I yanked on the rope. “Too bad they’re tied.”
“Nah, start with the tongue,” a deep, comforting voice offered. One that felt like home. One that made my heart kick up its pace while simultaneously making my mind whirl.
My head whipped up to find Austin standing by a wooden crate about thirty feet away.
Behind the skeleton mask, his eyes met mine. “She’s always had an attitude.”
Monica couldn’t hide her smirk before she turned to glare at him. “I assume you’re here to save your little bitch.”
Austin shrugged, tucking his hands into his hoodie pocket so casually it almost hurt. “You’re just taking care of a problem for me.”
A fissure threatened to split my heart in two. What the fuck was he talking about?
Monica’s teeth showed then, her wicked smile on display. “It seems we both have a problem to eradicate here.”
He didn’t bother responding as his eyes roamed over me from afar. I hadn’t realized my hands were shaking, or that my foot had gone numb. I could only feel the treacherous pounding of my heart.
Monica faced me again, grabbing my hair and yanking my head back. I bit back my shriek, fighting off the urge to squeeze my eyes shut.
“Hear that? Your little boyfriend wants you gone, too.” She laughed, the sound anything but nice. Then she forced a dramatic pout. “How sad for you.”
But he couldn’t, right? He had to be bluffing, but?—
He’d told me he loved me, but was he lying? Had he faked all of this?
I shouldn’t have trusted him so easily. I was a fucking fool.
“Then do it,” I gritted out. “Fucking do it.”
She pressed the gun to my lips, her smile never dissipating. “Like he said. I’m starting with your tongue. Open up.”
Of course, this was my fucking fate. Luck was never on my side, and tonight only proved it.
I parted my lips, allowing death past the confines of my fear. All my fight had left me. There was no getting out of this. I’d been a fool to hope Austin would come for me. Instead, he made the trip simply to join in on Monica’s twisted fun.
The cold metal of the gun pressed against my tongue, and an icy tear slipped down my cheek as I clamped my teeth down around the barrel.
A loud bang ricocheted off the walls of the warehouse, and now, I let my eyes close. Or maybe that was death pulling me into its sweet embrace.
The life seeping out of me didn’t hurt as badly as I’d expected.