Chapter Seventeen
Damion
Walker’s monitoring my calls, so I’m not surprised when Adam’s phone rings and he announces, “Blake,” before answering the line on speaker. I’m expecting him to have plenty to say about the ransom, but that’s not where he starts. “There’s an out-of-use basement in the building,” he announces. “It’s not included in the architectural designs and can only be reached by a service elevator that’s been broken for six months. We’re guessing it’s been repaired and used to hide Alana. That elevator is the only entry or exit to that space, which makes the odds of Alana being down there really fucking good.”
Hope flares inside me, and I don’t ask how he knows any of this. I just want Alana back, and unfortunately, that call I just ended is part of the equation. “The kidnapper called, asking for a ransom, and I have no doubt that’s at my father’s direction. He’s hiding behind the fa?ade of a kidnapping while forcing me to pay the assholes who did it for him.”
Blake must have already known about the exchange because his answer is not only instant but calculated. “Grab the money, and then let Adam do the drop. He’s a master of disguise. He can make them think he’s you.”
Adam’s a big guy, and I cast him a skeptical look, not sure how anyone his size disappears. “I could make you think I’m a little old lady if I wanted to,” he explains. “A scrunched over, six-foot old lady,” he adds, “but an old lady.”
Ignoring our exchange, Blake adds, “We need you to be here for Alana if we pull her out, Damion. Which is why our actions and Adam’s actions must operate in unison. Savage is with me in case Alana needs medical attention when we pull her out of the basement.”
In case Alana needs medical attention …This statement punches me in the chest and then reaches inside me and rips my heart out.
“One of our men is nearby,” Blake continues, not allowing me time to linger on the implications of Alana’s captivity and potential injuries. “He’ll pick you up after you do the handoff with Adam. Be careful, both of you. We have to assume they’ll be watching. Go now.” He disconnects without my approval of the plan, but he has it. Blake was right from the beginning. Alana never left the building, and my gut instinct otherwise was both right and wrong. My father would never approve any action that was obvious.
That basement was off the grid.
It’s not at all obvious.
“What’s our plan?” I ask, with Adam already cranking the engine.
“As Blake said, you’re being watched. You drive to the bank on your own. Withdraw the money. I’ll be in the bathroom. We’ll switch clothes and do the money exchange.” He, too, doesn’t give me time to answer. He exits the vehicle, and I follow.
By the time I’ve rounded the SUV to claim the driver’s seat, he’s gone.
***
Fifteen long as fuck minutes later, I’m finally in possession of a leather bag filled with cash when I enter the men’s room at the rear of the bank lobby. As promised, Adam is there waiting on me, and wordlessly, we exchange clothes—him changing into my suit and me into his jeans and a T-shirt, as well as a baseball cap—before I hand him my keys and the bag of money. “Wait five minutes before you exit,” he instructs. “You must give them time to follow me. One of our men, Casey—he’s an ex-black ops agent and damn good at what he’s doing—is waiting on you. He’s in a black SUV, one block down, in front of Starbucks.”
“And Alana?”
“Blake’s going in as soon as I tell him I’m in your vehicle. Casey will park two blocks from the building and wait for Blake to call.”
There will be no waiting, but I keep that to myself.
As if he reads my mind, his jaw clenches, and he points at me. “Listen to me, asshole, and wait five minutes. Do not cross me on this. We can’t risk anyone watching to figure out I’m not you. Wait ,” he repeats, and then he heads to the door and exits.
Fuck.
I have to wait.
I grind my teeth and glance at my watch, hitting the timer button for five minutes before I start pacing. Five minutes that feel like an eternity to me right now. I can only imagine what it must be like for Alana. Every second ticks by with excruciating pain until the buzzer goes off, and I’m already at the door when it does. It’s all I can do to pace myself as I walk through the bank lobby and exit to the street. Once there, I weave in with the bustle of the crowded walkway, and it’s not long until I’m inside the black SUV with Casey introducing himself and offering me confirmation of who I’m with. He’s a big guy with dark hair, and a deadly enough stare for me to find his involvement acceptable.
“Anything?” I ask, not wasting words at this point. I don’t want niceties. I want Alana back.
“We’ve entered the basement,” he says, pulling us onto the road. “And no, I don’t know if she’s there. We’re in operational silence until they clear any hostiles.”
Hostiles.
The one who’d use and abuse Alana in their captivity.
I curse and curl my fingers into my palms, needing to punch someone right now, and that someone would be my father. My jaw tics, my head throbs, and when the vehicle once again ends up trapped in hellish traffic, I’m not living this shit again. I open my door. “I’m taking the subway,” I announce, and this time, I don’t wait for approval.
Five minutes later, I’m already on the train. Another five, and I’m exiting the tunnel a block from Alana’s mother’s building, and one glance at the packed roadways in all directions and I doubt Casey has moved at all. I run the remainder of the distance between me and what I hope is Alana. I arrive at the front door of the building, and one of the Walker men waits on me, introducing himself as Smith. As expected, he’s on par with the rest of the Walker crew: tall and fit, with sharp, unreadable eyes, but unlike the rest of them, he has a whole hell of a lot of good news to deliver. “Alana’s down there and alive,” he announces. “We have one hostile in custody and currently cuffed to a chair.”
Relief washes over me hard and fast. “What does safe mean? Is she injured?”
“She’s talking to us, but she’s in a locked room that we’re trying to get inside.”
“Make the bastard give you the key.”
“It’s electronic, and he swears he doesn’t know the code. Blake’s hacking it now.”
“Holy fuck,” I murmur, scrubbing my jaw in utter consternation. I can barely believe the way history is repeating itself, and not in a good way. Alana’s locked in a room with a password-protected door that isn’t working. I can only hope like hell it’s not pitch dark in there.
“Can I go down?”
“Yes. Blake is asking for you.”
Blake, but not Alana. I don’t miss his word choice, which is no accident, but he’s already walking away, and I’m fast on his heels, impatient for the answers I will only find with Alana. We travel through the wide girth of the lobby, and in the process, my mind slips back into the past, to the night when Alana ended up trapped in that wine cellar. I’d quickly ushered her away from my father and out of our house to walk her home. I’m back there now, living it all over, hyperaware of her silence, concerned with how withdrawn she’s become.
She’s silent when she normally chats me up, I think, and when I stretch my arm and wrap it around her, she doesn’t pull away or object, when she’d never allow such an action any other time. We’re “just friends,” after all, and it’s not appropriate.
But she doesn’t just let me hold her. She leans into me, and she is soft and delicate next to me. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted from Alana.
We travel the six steps to her porch and halt at the top. It’s then that she seems to realize the intimacy of our bodies, and she abruptly rotates to face me, a doe in the headlights look in her eyes. Everything about her is in a state of alertness and panic right now, and guilt stabs at me for allowing her to get locked inside the darkness.
I attempt to drive away her panic by just getting back to us. “We never got that pizza.”
“No,” she whispers, “no, we didn’t.” Her eyes flicker with trepidation, and I know then that our little exchange has reminded her of why our evening was abruptly halted. It’s reminded her of being trapped in the pitch-black basement.
I dare to catch her hand and walk her to me. “I never got my kiss. If I’d kissed you when I wanted to, I would have been locked in the cellar with you, and we could have made out until the lights came on.”
Her laughter is soft, and it fills me with relief. She’s not all fear right now. I’m breaking through the darkness now. She even pokes my shoulder. “You know that wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“Why is that, Alana?”
“You know why,” she chides, but when her hand settles on my chest to push me away, there’s a moment of pressure before her palm settles softly against me, signaling how conflicted she is with her words. “We can’t ruin a good thing,” she whispers.
“What if we make a good thing better?”
It’s right then that the headlights flicker and blast across the driveway as her parents return home. The moment is lost, and this night has officially gone everywhere I didn’t want it to go, and nowhere, I’d hoped.
I blink back to the present and follow Smith down a set of stairs to some kind of utility room. Smith opens a steel door built into the floor. “There’s an elevator down there. You go. I need to keep watch up here.”
Staring into the narrow passage, I’m stunned this path leads anywhere but a crawl space. If I was looking for an illogical hiding place worthy of my father’s version of deception, I’m right there now. The idea of Alana being forced down this hole guts me. I race down the stairs and waste no time stepping onto the smallest elevator I’ve ever seen, which in and of itself, would have freaked her out. Alana hasn’t tolerated small spaces since the wine cellar, and would never talk to me about it, but per all I’ve read on the topic, and I’ve read plenty, darkness feels like a small space to many people with claustrophobia.
The elevator travels at a rate I can only call a snail’s pace, and by the time it hits bottom, I swear it’s all I can do not to yank the slow-cranking door open. I step off the car, but there’s nothing except a wall to my left. I cut right and find Blake in the center of a concrete-lined room, his MacBook open and sitting on top of a stack of boxes. If the guy they captured is here, I don’t see him, and Alana is all that matters to me right now.
Blake motions to a door a few feet in front of me and says, “She’s in there, but—”
Already, I’m stepping in that direction, halting as Blake curses and yells out, “Wait,” with authority.
I grimace and whirl on him. “I do not want to wait , Blake. I’ve waited long enough.”
“I get it, man. You want to see her, but the door was booby-trapped. I’m working to confirm it was a dead wire, but I’m not ready to go in yet.”
I’m reminded of the man tied to a chair somewhere, refusing to aid our efforts. “Is the prisoner holding the code because he’s afraid it will blow?”
“I think he’s holding the code because he’s a dumbass who wants to get on my bad side. Savage is presently holding a gun to his head and laughing like some sort of crazy person, which it’s clear to all that he is, but the guy still isn’t talking.”
“What about Alana?” I press. “Is she freaking out?”
“She was freaking out when we got here. The lights were off. She was in the dark, and I had to fix that before I even tried to get her out. That’s how over-the-top freaked out she was.”
Anger is acid bubbling in my gut, ignited by my certainty that my father did this to torture her. In fact, it was likely his entire plan from the beginning. “And now?”
“She calmed down when the lights came on, and even more so when I told her you were on your way.”
Guilt rages at me, as brutal as a serial killer, stabbing me over and over. I should not have allowed her to visit her mother alone. I should have gone with her. I keep trying to protect her and failing. “The boobie trap?”
“As I said, I’m not ready to open the door. I’m being extra cautious before I open that door. Just tell her the lock is tricky. Leave the rest out.”
I nod and turn toward the door, closing the space between me and it and between me and the woman I love. “Alana!” I call out when I’m there.
“Damion! Oh my God! Damion! Get me out. Please .”
Just hearing her sweet, feminine voice is about as bittersweet as it gets. She’s alive, but she’s not without damage, and I still can’t touch her. I press my hand to the door, and I know she’s doing the same on the other side. “Not much longer, baby,” I promise, my voice gentle and sure. “Blake is just working on the code.”
“He’s a hacker. What’s taking so long? Is there a problem?”
“It just feels like a long time because you aren’t with me.”
She laughs, but it’s choked and strained. “Same ol’ Damion. Your ego really is quite big.”
“Which is why I need you to check me.” My tone roughens up, emotions stirring around gravel in my throat, and my words choked as I add, “You make me a better man, Alana. I need you.”
“I need you, too,” she whispers, and she’s silent a beat that radiates with torment before she adds, “They turned the lights out on me.”
“I know, baby. I know.” I steel myself for her to share more, to confess abuse in some horrid way, but when she doesn’t speak, I add, “I really should have kissed you that night in the wine cellar. Then you’d never be afraid of the dark again.”
She actually laughs again, and this time her voice is a tease as she says, “Because you’d make it oh so sexy?”
“Exactly. I’ll show you when we get home.”
“ Home, ” she murmurs. “I really want to go home with you.”
It’s right then that Blake yells, “We’re clear! I’m disarming the keypad now!”
I hear the buzz of the lock, and I yank open the door. Alana appears with her hair a rumpled mess and streaks of mascara down her cheeks, but she’s still fully dressed in the clothes she was in when she went inside the building. Thank God for the small bit of hope that offers me about what she endured or did not endure.
“Damion!” she exclaims, throwing her arms around me.
I hold her tight and kiss her long and deep, the taste of salty teardrops on her lips. “Did they hurt you?” I demand, cupping her face and studying her gaze.
“They drugged me,” she says. “I don’t want to know what they gave me or how dirty the needle was they used. I don’t want to know what it might mean later.”
Me either , I think, but I focus on her. “We’ll get you a doctor,” I say, stroking her hair behind her ear. “I’ll have them meet us at the house. I’m going to take you home, and I swear I’m never letting you go again.”