Chapter 41
Arabella woke up feeling awful.
Stupid cocktails.
“I’m never drinking again.”
Someone snorted. “I’d worry less about that and more about surviving if I were you.”
She sat up suddenly at that voice. Her head throbbed and her vision blurred as she nearly threw up again.
Nope. Wait.
Rolling over, she vomited onto the floor. A concrete floor. Where was she? Wherever it was, it was cold and she wanted out.
She wanted to go home. And by home she meant wherever Eli, Kellan and Horse were.
Glancing over, she blinked as she saw Ravina sitting on a crate, staring at her.
“Great, not only are we stuck in this bunker with no heating or windows. But you had to vomit and add to the fun,” she said sarcastically.
“What . . . how . . . what is going on?” She sat up, scooting back so she was leaning against the wall behind her.
“God, you’re annoying, aren’t you? And you managed to get two men? Not that I would want those two, and I already have a man.”
“W-who?”
“Liam Neale, but you know him as Lee Newsome. He’s so wonderful. So handsome and smart. And he loves me. Plus, he’s absolutely loaded. We’re going to have an amazing life together.”
“Wow. You’re dumb,” she told Ravina.
The other woman jumped up, storming over to slap her. “Shut up, you dumb bitch.”
Ouch!
That hurt so badly that tears instantly formed and her head throbbed even more.
She wasn’t taking that, though. Getting up, Arabella pushed her back.
Ravina’s eyes widened as she stepped back, wobbling on her high heels. She couldn’t recover her balance and fell onto her ass. Right into Arabella’s vomit.
Arabella couldn’t help but smile as the other woman gasped in horror. Although, gross. She wasn’t wearing any underwear and her short skirt had ridden right up.
Seeing Ravina’s pussy was not on her bingo card for today or any other day.
“That’s disgusting. Invest in some panties,” Arabella told her.
Turning away, she explored the room. Shit. There was a window above them that let in the only light. The rest was all concrete except for a large steel door.
“Why are we here?” she asked. “What does Lee want with me?”
“You’re the dumb one, not me!” Ravina screeched as she slid off her high heels and stood.
“No one was meant to rent that house! I put everyone else off but Auntie Val saw your application before I could get rid of it and put it through to the town council herself. So I had to come up with a plan B. I thought I’d gotten rid of you when you turned up with that dog.
But nooo, you complained to that crackpot sheriff and he contacted Auntie Val. ”
Wow. Did this woman really expect Arabella to feel bad for her?
“I removed a lot of the furniture and damaged the hot water heater before you arrived in a bid to make you uncomfortable so you’d leave. When you were too stupid to take the hint, I hired some idiots to break in and scare you. Only you weren’t there so they trashed the place instead.”
“What?” she asked in shock. “You’re behind the break-in? Just to get rid of me? Do you realize the damage you caused?”
“Well, duh. That was the point.”
“I don’t understand why? Why didn’t you want me living in your aunt’s house. And were the lights and noises your doing as well?”
“Ahh, that. Funny, Auntie Val thought it was a ghost. Which worked in our favor because she decided to leave on her own accord. That saved me trying to pressure her into going. The lights were due to product being moved from the underground bunkers to the river to transport it out. The bunkers aren’t that far from Aunt Val and Abe’s houses so the lights and noises from the screech owls could sometimes be seen and heard. ”
“Screech owls?” she asked. “That noise was from screech owls?”
“Yeah. They sound freaky, huh? There are so many of them in the trees. I told Liam to cut down the trees, but then I realized that meant people would be able to see the bunkers. And there’re too many to shoot.
In the end, though, the screech owls did me a favor since Auntie Val thought the noise was ghosts and decided to leave. ”
Dear Lord. She was such a bitch.
“Abe was never an issue. He sleeps without his hearing aids. Plus, his nephew’s wife does my hair. I’ve been planting ideas about a nursing home in her head for ages.”
Holy heck.
“After you left and Abe decided to sell, I realized that my plan was finally working. I was going to present a good offer for both of their houses. More than they could resist and then no one would come near this property and work out what we were doing on it.”
“Don’t you think the town council would have had something to say about that?” Arabella asked.
“Screw them,” Ravina spat out as she stared down at her dress in disgust. “I would have figured it out. I have some interesting blackmail material on the head of the council. He’s not as good a person as everyone thinks.”
Okay, that was off-topic but still kind of interesting.
“But then I paid a visit to Abe late yesterday and he told me that you’re buying his place. When I told Liam that and how you’d been asking about a Lee Newsome, he got all stressed and angry. Told me that you used to know him.”
“He was my fiancée,” she told her.
Ravina flinched, looking shocked.
“No, he wasn’t!” Ravina screeched. “Take that back.”
“I can’t take it back. You don’t have to believe me but it’s the truth.” So Ravina hadn’t known about their engagement. Did she know that he’d been an advisor to her father?
“He wouldn’t . . . when? When was this?”
“Um, I think it was around six months ago.”
“We’ve been together for over a year!” Ravina cried. “There’s no way he would do this to me, you lying slut!”
Shit.
She was getting red in the face.
Maybe Arabella should defuse the situation.
“I’m the slut when he was the one cheating?”
Hmm. Seems she’d chosen not to defuse.
Ravina ran toward her with a scream but Arabella dodged her, pushing her to one side.
“Face it, you don’t know him,” Arabella told her. “He was probably using you because he needed your aunt’s property. Wait. What product was being moved?”
“Drugs, you dumb bitch. Liam is a genius, he’s developed a new drug and it’s being made right here on my aunt’s property. Nobody ever suspected a thing until you came along.”
Jesus.
Really?
“And then you go complaining to the sheriff and making his deputies do drive bys of your place. Do you realize what you did?”
“Stopped you guys from creating drugs? Wow. I feel so bad.”
Ravina was heaving for breath.
“Where is Lee now?” she asked. “And why kidnap me? I didn’t know anything.”
“I don’t know. Maybe because you fucked with production. Now we’re having to lie low until the sheriff and those FBI agents back off. I know they’ve been talking to other sheriffs in different counties about the drugs.”
Hmm. Interesting.
“So why are you here with me?” Arabella asked.
Would the guys find her? Where was Lee now? What would Horse do if something happened to her?
Panic threatened to swamp her and she tried her best to push it away. She needed to keep a calm head.
“I don’t know. He told me to stay with you and that he’d be back.”
Had Lee/Liam been the clown? She didn’t think so. But there had been something familiar about him . . .
Suddenly, the steel door opened and in walked Lee/Liam followed by a man with traces of white makeup on his face.
“Deputy Doofus?” she asked.
The deputy’s face darkened. Oops.
So he’d been the clown? And was he in on this with Lee/Liam and Ravina?
“My name is Zane, and bitch, I’d watch your mouth.”
“Liam!” Ravina got up and ran to him. “She pushed me over, right into her pile of puke. And she was telling me lies about how you were engaged. Can we kill her now?”
Wow. What a bitch.
Lee/Liam looked Ravina up and down before drawing a gun from the small of his back and shooting her. Right in the head.
Oh God.
Did that really just happen?
Oh God. Oh God.
She couldn’t believe that he’d done that so casually. There was no conversation. No hesitation.
Ravina never had a chance. Although she shouldn’t really feel sorry for her.
“Good, I was getting sick of her voice,” Deputy Doofus said.
Arabella was shaking. She stared down at her hands, then up at Lee/Liam and Deputy Doofus.
Everywhere but at Ravina.
It felt like she was having an out-of-body experience.
“Why . . . why did you d-do that?”
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
Do not vomit.
Was that going to happen to her?
Her breath shuddered in and out of her lungs. “I’m going to need so much therapy.”
Huh. Look at her. Able to joke in the face absolute fear.
“There won’t be any therapy for you,” Lee/Liam told her with a sigh. “What are you doing here, Arabella?”
“Um, you kidnapped me, remember? Or the deputy did.” She nodded at Doofus.
“I meant why are you in Haven,” Lee/Liam gritted out. “Did you follow me here? Did you know about the drugs? Did your idiot of a father tell you?”
“What? No. I had no clue that you were creating d-drugs here. I’ve w-wanted to live here in Haven for years. It was meant to be a s-safe place for me.”
Instead, it might just be the place where she died.
God. The guys were going to be so upset if she died.
“Really? It’s a coincidence that you moved into a house right next to where I’ve been brewing a batch of drugs? Drugs that killed your father?”
“What?” she whispered. “How did they kill my father?”
“I told him he was taking too much of it. But would he listen to me? No. That fucking idiot always did what he wanted even though I made him Governor. It seems if you take small doses you’re all right, but once you take a larger dose you get this feeling of euphoria, of being invincible.”
“What do you mean? You made him Governor? How? Why?”
The more they talked the more time her guys had to find her. And she knew they would be looking. They would be tearing up the town for her.