Chapter 71
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
LOLA
Beau has been gone for a while, and Reese has literally sat watching me the entire time. Like the fucking creep that he is. Every time I breathe, he’s watching. Staring. Waiting to pounce on me. And I feel sick.
When he finally stands, my heart plummets.
“Stay the fuck away from me, Reese. If you touch me, Hunter will kill you,” I warn.
He chuckles, adjusting his crotch, which makes me want to vomit all over his loafers. He stops in front of me, tilting his head.
When he grabs my chin, he forces me to look at him. So I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Closing your eyes won’t make this stop, sweetheart,” he says softly.
I don’t react. I don’t give him a damn thing.
Reese's fingers trail down my neck, and I try to move out of the way, but I can’t. I’m trapped.
“You really are beautiful, Lola,” he breathes out.
“Fuck you,” I snarl.
He chuckles, leaning in and running his tongue along my throat. I swallow the nausea and hold back the tears burning my eyes. The panic burning at my chest.
When I open my eyes, he’s right there. Just a breath away from my face.
“You don’t have to be this man, Reese. You don’t have to do this.”
He drops to his knees and runs his hands along my thighs. I hold my breath, refusing to look at him.
“Eyes on me, baby,” he mutters. “Isn’t that what your husband likes to say?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, my body trembling as he starts working the rope on my left ankle.
“While Beau plays pretend to keep Hunter away, I get you all to myself. Finally get a taste of this pussy that cost me my best friend.”
I clench my thighs. I’m defenseless. And that alone burns me inside. That right now, this creep has power over me.
“You’re a sick piece of shit, Reese. If it hurt what he did to you before, what do you think he will do to you this time?” I look at him now, watching as he swallows hard.
“He won’t touch me. If we pull this off, we will have the Greeks protecting us.”
I laugh. Really fucking laugh. These men are delusional. “You wouldn’t last a day with the mafia, Reese. You’re a pathetic asshole that can’t keep a woman.”
He rips the first rope from me and drags my legs open, despite my resisting with everything that I can. “I hate you,” I spit. “No matter what you do, I’ll always hate you. I’ll always love your best friend. No matter what you do, I’d never get any pleasure from you. I’d hate every single second.”
His jaw twitches, and the door flies open, Wyatt’s cries filling the room.
Reese’s eyes blow open as he throws himself away from me on the floor.
Beau walks in with Wyatt in his arms. My son. Because that’s what he is, that’s what he became the moment he took my hand and led me upstairs to read him a story. When he told me he loved me. My kid is clinging to Beau’s neck with wide, terrified eyes.
He’s been crying. His cheeks are blotchy. His lip is trembling. “Take me back home!” he sobs.
And then, as Beau crosses the room, Wyatt’s eyes find mine. “Lola!”
He scrambles out of Beau’s arms and runs to me. His little hands grab at my legs, my knees, trying to climb into my lap. When he sees the ropes, he freezes.
“Why are you tied up?” His voice is so small.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s a game. I’m okay.” The lie burns my throat. “Just come sit with me.”
He climbs into my lap and presses his face into my chest. His whole body is shaking. I can’t hold him; my hands are tied behind the chair, so I press my chin against the top of his head, close my eyes, and will myself to be enough.
Reese stands, and his face is white. “What the fuck is this?” He stares at Beau. “Why is the kid here?”
Beau sets down a bag by the door. “We need more insurance. I can’t mess this up. And Hunter gave me the perfect opportunity when he went running off looking for her,” he hisses, looking dead at me.
My heart races. Hunter knows something is wrong. That in itself gives me hope.
“Insurance?” Reese’s voice pitches up. “That is Hunter Sterling’s son. His child, Beau. Do you have any idea what he will do when he finds out you took his kid?”
Okay. So, Reese has more morals than Beau.
“Hunter isn’t going to find us,” he says way too confidently.
“You don’t know that!” Reese is pacing now.
Agitated in a way I haven’t seen before.
This isn’t anger, this is real panic, the kind that comes from a man who’s just realized his partner is more dangerous than he bargained for.
“The plan was the wife. Leverage. Negotiation. Not kidnapping a six-year-old! The Greeks can’t protect us from Hunter on a rampage for his only kid! ”
“The plan changed,” Beau says flatly.
“Changed?” Reese rounds on him. “You just put a death sentence on both of us. Hunter will burn this state to the ground looking for that boy. He won’t negotiate. He won’t deal. He’ll come through that door with every man he has, and he’ll kill us both. Not just kill us, tear us to pieces.”
“Only if he finds us. You said this was bought under a shell company, right?”
Reese scoffs.
“He will find us!” Reese shouts. “He always finds people! That’s what he does!
He fucking tracks men for the mafia! This was meant to get us to the table with him.
Sign the ranch over, and we return Lola.
Simple. Clean. Not this! This is war. And the Greeks won’t help us until we do the deal. We’re fucked, Beau. Fucked.”
Reese punches the wall hard, sending the art crashing to the ground.
Wyatt flinches against my chest. I press my lips to his hair. “Shh, baby. It’s okay. I’m right here. Daddy is going to get us, okay,” I whisper.
Beau looks at me and then at Wyatt, curled in my lap. And there’s nothing in his eyes. No recognition that the child trembling against my body is his own nephew.
He is a true monster, created from the greed of a man.
“This is bigger than the kid,” Beau says, turning back to Reese. “Hunter would have torn apart the state for his wife alone. But his wife and his son? He won’t think straight. He’ll make mistakes. And when he does, we’ll be ready.”
Reese drags both hands through his hair. He’s sweating. His composure is cracking.
These two are dumbasses. And that may just save us. Hunter doesn’t make mistakes.
“This isn’t what I signed up for,” Reese mutters.
“You signed up the moment you put your hands on her,” Beau says, nodding at me. “You don’t get to pick which sins you’re comfortable with, Reese. Hunter assaulted you, and you wanted revenge. Well, here it fuckin’ is. We’re in this together. All the way.”
Reese stares at him. And I watch the last shred of whatever morality he had left dissolve behind his eyes. “We need to talk, in private,” Reese hisses. He turns. Walks out and the door slams behind him.
Beau follows without a word.
The lock clicks.
Wyatt is shaking in my lap. I lean my head down against his.
“Wyatt. Listen to me.” My voice is steady.
I don’t know how; it must be some sort of motherly instinct in there somewhere.
“Your daddy is coming. He is coming to get us. And until he does, I am not going to let anything happen to you. Do you hear me?”
He nods against my chest. “What about you?”
“I will be just fine. Okay. Don’t worry about me.” I take a deep breath. “Look at me, Wyatt.”
He pulls back and his little blue eyes, just like his daddy’s, stare back at me, melting my heart. “I need you to be brave. Can you do that for me?”
“Like Daddy is?”
My heart cracks. “Just like Daddy.”
He wraps his arms tighter around me. I can’t hold him back, but I can give him something else.
Hunter is coming. He has to be.
I keep looking around the room, trying to figure out ways I can get him out of here.
Wyatt isn’t tied up. There’s a window. A really small one, except it’s too high for him to get to on his own. I need to lift him out.
“Wyatt. Are you good at untying knots, buddy?” I whisper.
“I am,”
“Okay. Here’s the plan, baby,” I tell him quietly…