Chapter Seventeen #2
He’d sprinted across the street, dodging cars that honked as he ran in front of them. Never in all of his experiences had he been so terrified. The only thing that mattered was getting to them.
My girls are in trouble.
A frigid anger unlike anything he’d ever known pulsed through him. It kept him calm enough to remember to tell the concierge to give his brothers permission to follow him up the stairs, to call the police, and to shut down the building as he burst through the door and ran through the lobby.
Thankfully, at the moment he’d tried to decide which would be faster, the stairs or elevator, the elevator pinged open.
The door to the condo felt like it was a million miles away, and his legs burned as he tore along the carpeted hallway to their front door. Another scream filled the corridor, then a sudden abrupt silence. Fear filled his lungs leaving no room for air.
He reached the door, and grabbed the handle only to find it locked. Seconds felt like minutes as he pulled his key from his pocket and unlocked it, slamming the door open so hard it ripped off its hinge.
The assholes who had his girls were going to fucking die.
Arnie turned, his skin flushed from exertion. “I thought you said he was out all day,” Arnie yelled at Sam, spittle leaving his lips.
Dred scanned the room quickly. Sam had Petal in his arms. Her piercing cry ripped his heart out.
Arnie stood over Pixie, who lay unmoving on the floor next to the coffee table, a bloody gash on her temple.
He was too far away from her to understand the true extent of her injuries.
Dred’s stomach dropped to the floor. He couldn’t even tell if she was breathing, but one thing he was certain of.
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” Dred snarled at Arnie.
“Tell you what I think, lover-boy,” Arnie said, pointing the gun directly toward Pixie’s head. “I think you’re going to let me walk out with Sarah-Jane, if you want to keep her alive.”
Dred swallowed hard and breathed deep shallow breaths.
Dark, crimson blood was pooling on the floor by Pixie’s head, and it took away the limits of his control.
But he noticed her eyes fluttering open.
She turned her head toward the sofa. Relief flooded through him—she wasn’t dead.
But that wasn’t going to save Sam or Arnie.
The building was hopefully locked down, so there was no way Sam was walking out with Petal. Scratch that. There was no fucking way Sam was walking out, period. For once, Dred let the anger fill him, let the icy-cold flood course through him until he was blinded by it.
“Tell you what I think,” Dred snarled. “There’s no way you’re getting out of here.”
He saw Pixie clumsily move her hand toward the side table and could immediately see what she intended to do.
With a cry of pain, she grabbed the scissors she must have been using to make Petal’s dress and jammed them into Arnie’s calf.
Dred seized the opportunity as soon as she started to move.
He charged at Arnie, hitting him with his full body weight to push him away from Pixie.
The side table broke Arnie’s fall, sending shards of glass splintering around them.
Dred went down on top of him, punching him until he hit the ground. The gun skittered away.
They rolled in the glass, and Dred ignored the pain of the slivers cutting into his shoulder.
Arnie fought back, his knuckles glancing off Dred’s jaw, but Dred felt nothing. Insulated from pain, his focus was solely on his girls. Their safety relied on his ability to remove the scumbag who threatened them, and that thought motivated him.
He wrapped his hands around Arnie’s throat, fully intent on strangling him, until Arnie hit him on the temple with something hard. The blow caught him off guard and made his head spin, but he’d received worse over the years. And never had the stakes been this high.
The base of the lampshade fell from Arnie’s hand, but he gripped the cable and attempted to wrap it around Dred’s throat.
They rolled again, Dred ending up astraddle Arnie. He grabbed Arnie’s collar and began punching him. Fuelled by the agonizing memory of Pixie’s blood-curdling screams and Petal’s high-pitched cries, Dred hit Arnie over and over, until he realized Arnie was no longer struggling beneath him.
Dred gasped for breath, and sat back on his knees. He lifted Arnie’s head and let it fall back to the floor. He was definitely out.
“Pix. Fuck, Snowflake,” he cried, crawling over to her and lifting her head onto his lap. He gingerly brushed her hair out of her face and fixed her blouse so she was less exposed. “Please, gorgeous, don’t close those eyes on me again.”
Then he caught sight of Sam out of the corner of his eye as he began to move. “What the fuck?” Dred dragged his bloodied hand through his hair. “Sam. Give Petal to me.”
Sam stepped away. “Dred,” he said. “Let me and Petal go. You know I won’t hurt her if you don’t do anything stupid. Just let me get out of here, and when we’re clear, I’ll tell you where she is.”
“I don’t get this,” he said to Sam while occasionally looking over to where Arnie was lying to make sure he was still down. “Why are you doing this?”
Pixie moaned softly, and he reached for her hand. “I have you, Snowflake. Help is on its way.” At least he hoped it was.
He heard the telltale ping of the elevator, then footsteps thudding down the hallway, and the heavy feeling in his chest lifted.
“I knew when I first saw you at that pathetic dive on the Danforth that you could become the biggest metal band in the world. You were the perfect band to manage, and I was going to make us all rich,” Sam said as he calmly reached down to collect Arnie’s gun.
Fuck. “I saw a way to make a shit-load of money. A perfect partnership, you could say.”
The moment Elliott, Nikan, Lennon, and Jordan hit the room, the color left Sam’s face. He pointed the gun toward them.
“Had I known what a bunch of fuck-ups you all were, I might have thought twice. But it’s only because of me that you guys are where you are. And what thanks do I get?”
“Sam,” Dred said desperately. The sight of a gun so close to his precious baby girl’s head had bile burning the back of his throat.
“I’m sorry. For whatever we didn’t do or say.
Just give me my daughter.” He was on his knees, as close to begging as a man could get.
While he wanted to leap up and tear the fucker apart, it could be the one thing that caused the already jumpy Sam to pull the trigger.
“What you didn’t say?” Sam snapped. “I heard you that day, back at the house. When you asked for your key. You were planning to fire me. To push me even further to the periphery of your lives. That’s significantly bigger than not saying a few words here and there, you ungrateful shit.”
Dred remembered back to the day. Pixie had said she’d heard something, but they’d dismissed it.
Fuck. Sam had only pretended to leave. He’d heard everything before they’d had a chance to formulate a plan to ease the transition.
They would never have just dropped him cold.
They’d have made sure he was taken care of for a while.
Lennon inched closer toward the kitchen, Nikan following him, while Elliot and Jordan deliberately crossed the length of the living room toward the balcony.
Slowly they started to walk toward Sam who pointed the gun from left to right in a wild and desperate arc.
Sweat ran down the side of Sam’s temple, panic replacing the coolness.
“Just put Petal down on the sofa, Sam, and step away,” Dred said gently.
“Don’t come any closer,” Sam shouted. “I’ll shoot you.”
“Yeah,” said Jordan, taking another step closer. “You might, but you only have time to shoot one person before the rest of us are on you. So say your prayers and choose wisely, Sam, because one of us is going to fucking kill you either way.”
Dred was about to stand, to help them get his daughter back, when Pixie’s grip on his hand loosened and he looked down as her eyes fluttered shut.
“Fuck, Pix. Look at me. Stay awake, Snowflake.” She needed help.
And the sight of his brothers putting their lives at risk to save his daughter cleaved him in two.
They’d had his back since the day they’d met, but never more so than today.
The sound of a gunshot reverberated around the room, and Nikan cried out as he grabbed the top of his arm, blood oozing between his fingers.
Lennon raced to Sam and snatched Petal from his arms. Holding her to his chest, he turned his back to Sam and hurried down the hallway. Dred wanted to call out, to hold her himself, but he knew Petal was safest out of sight.
Jordan knocked Sam to the floor and followed him down, trying to wrestle the gun from Sam’s hand. It went off again, firing a hole straight through the back of the sofa. Dred bent over Pixie, and covered her head and chest in case it went off again.
Elliot stamped down on Sam’s wrist, a loud crack snapping through the air. With a cry of pain, Sam let go of the gun. With no protection, and no means of escape, Sam cowered on the floor.
“Don’t,” Sam cried out, cradling his wrist. “Please.”
“What, you honestly thought you were going to get away with this, you fucking asshole?” Jordan yelled before punching Sam so hard, his head snapped backward.
Dred looked around the room. Lennon was standing at the end of the hallway, a phone to his ear and Petal cuddled tight in his arms. She was still screaming, and Dred watched as Lennon kissed the top of her head softly.
“Police and ambulance are already on their way. Pulling up in front of the building any moment,” Lennon said.
Elliot stood over Arnie, who had started to splutter to consciousness.
He looked back down at Pixie. “Oh, Snowflake. Where did you go? Wake up, gorgeous.” He gripped her hand.
The reassuring rise and fall of her chest gave him little comfort. Head injuries were unpredictable. Dred turned angrily to Sam. “Was it all just about the money?”
Sam struggled against Jordan’s hold. “That’s all it could ever be about, because you guys never let me be anything more.”
* * *
Pixie couldn’t figure out who was speaking. There was an echo around the words, making the voices indistinguishable. Why couldn’t she hear properly? She tried to sit up, but her head spun horribly and she couldn’t force her body to move. Where the hell was she?
Someone grabbed her hand. It was warm, which was a good thing because she was freezing. Every bone in her body hurt, and she couldn’t figure out why. She was in some kind of trouble, and panic rippled through her.
“We made you a shit-load of fucking money, asshole.” The voice was closer, deeper. Dred. It sounded like him. What had happened to them? Trying to figure out what was going on was like clutching smoke. As soon has she felt like she had a thread to hold on to, it disappeared from her grip.
PETAL. She’d been trying to get to Petal, but couldn’t quite reach her. Why had she been doing that? Petal’s blanket had slipped through her hand before . . . she’d been hit . . . from behind. Which explained the blinding headache. Sam and Arnie had her.
“We were meant to make even more. Without me creating extra interest in you, you would have flopped.”
Pixie whimpered in pain. At least she thought she did. She needed help because her head hurt, but she couldn’t force her eyes open.
A hand brushed across her forehead. “I have you, Snowflake. You’re safe, I promise.”
It was definitely Dred, she could tell from the low gravelly tone of his voice.
She raised her hand off the floor, and he took it in his. He squeezed it gently. “Look at me, gorgeous.”
Everything was out of focus, the light bright as she opened her eyes and squinted.
“Thank fuck. Never been so glad to see you.” Dred kissed her gently. His lips were warm, a physical representation of everything that was safe in the world.
“What do you mean, you created extra interest?” Nikan asked, clutching his arm.
“You know what I mean,” Sam said. “All the stories. I put stuff into the press to generate interest, then got retractions and apologies, even financial settlements to keep you happy.”
Pixie’s mouth was so dry, but she needed to ask. “Why me?” she croaked.
“Because you distracted them. Distracted Dred. Without you around, he was focused. Dedicated. But around you, he was arranging additional trips, missing meetings.”
The ceiling was beginning to move in circles above her, leaving her nauseated. Pixie closed her eyes again. Her head was still spinning when additional voices flooded the room.
“Please, help her. She’s been hit about the head. She’s been in and out for at least twenty minutes,” Dred said.
“What’s her name? Please, sir, can you step out of the way for us?” a different voice said.
“It’s Sarah-Jane. Sarah-Jane Travers.”
She felt Dred’s hand slip away. Come back. She needed the connection. It gave her something to come back to, something to swim toward. She needed to do something to get Dred’s attention. She put all her effort into reaching out for him.
“Snowflake,” he said as he grabbed her hand. “I’m here, gorgeous. You need to stay calm.”
“Please, sir. We need to check her out.”
“Yeah, well, you’ll have to work around me, because I’m not going anywhere.”
Pixie groaned and forced her eyes open. “No . . . drugs,” she whispered.
“What Sarah-Jane? Can you talk to me?” the paramedic asked.
She tugged on Dred’s hand.
“What, Snowflake?”
“No . . . drugs.” Dred finally came into focus.
“She’s a recovering addict, but she’s been sober for over six years,” he told the paramedic while looking straight at her, his dark brown eyes red-rimmed.
“Is Petal okay?” she asked.
“She’s fine, Snowflake. Let the paramedic do what he needs to do to get you to hospital. We can talk once we’re there.”
Pixie closed her eyes again, aware that for the first time in years, there was no threat, no sword of Damocles hanging over her head. She was free to live her life with Dred.
“Stay with me,” she whispered.
“Where you go, I go,” Dred replied, burying his head against her chest. “Always.”
* * *