Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22
S uzi stared into the ice blue eyes of Alex Boucher. They were glacial, frigid eyes that made her stomach clench. They were also insane. Whatever he’d been doing for the past months, it had tipped him over the edge from maniacal to Roger Rabbit crazy.
“Breezy has green eyes,” she marveled her first reaction in this alarming situation was comparing Breezy’s eyes to her father’s.
“I’m aware,” he said, tone snide and condescending.
Rude.
“Are you aware that means you’re non-dominant down to your cellular level?”
“Do you really think it’s in your best interest to insult me, Ms. Daily? I’m the one who holds your life in my non-dominant hands. You might want to remember that.”
Yeah, she probably should.
“And you might want to remember my Daddy is with Sabre Security, and when he finds you, he’s going to kick your non-dominant ass.”
Good. Lord. Now? You choose now to develop a backbone?
“That is highly unlikely. The only thing more unlikely is that he will ever find you.” He nodded at someone behind her.
A pair of rough hands squeezed her arms from behind so hard she couldn’t hold back a cry of pain. Her arms throbbed as Don Smith, or rather Crash as he preferred to go by, spun her around to face him and bound her wrists with tape before she could react. Her scream was cut off when he slapped another strip of the thick tape over her mouth.
She should cower from him. He liked that. It made him feel powerful. But she found she no longer had the ability or the desire to give in to him.
Backbones are highly overrated.
Alex followed them almost to the end of the alley before he spoke.
“You’re sure you understand the assignment?”
“This ain’t my first rodeo, hoss,” Crash said. “I don’t need you looking over my shoulder. Unless, of course, you’re into that voyeur shit. That how you get your kicks, General? You can’t get it up for a woman, so you watch a man who can?”
Crash’s emphasis on the word General made it sound like he meant asshole. He probably did. It looked like the DA interpreted it the same way.
“You watch your mouth,” the General snarled. “One word from me, and you won’t be enjoying anything but the inside of a coffin.”
Crash turned to the other men with him and laughed. “You hear that? That’s what passes as a threat from the people who think they’re better than us.” He turned back to the General, all pretext of humor gone. “One word from me, and you’ll be nothing but a corpse filling a trashcan in a back alley. Now if you’re done, we’ll head out and do what you paid us to do.”
Suzi’s heart clutched at those words. That didn’t sound good at all.
“Let’s go, boys,” Crash called to his crew. “We’ve got a hot piece of work to sample and then dispose of.”
Nothing escaped her except a muffled oof . When he tossed her over his shoulder and jogged to his bike, her ribs felt like they were breaking. He righted her and tossed her on the seat of his bike in front of the steering wheel, trapping her between his arms. Before she could catch her breath, he was pulling down the main street.
He drove right by Books N Brews. Gabi was standing in front of the shop, talking on Suzi’s phone. Fearing this might be the last time she saw her best friend, she attempted to wave, but it proved too difficult with the wrists bound so tight. They roared by so fast her effort was probably useless anyway.
Riding on Crash’s bike was nothing like riding with Deke. With Deke, she felt safe and free. She wanted her Daddy now. He would make the bad people pay for what they were thinking about doing to her.
God, she hoped he’d find her. She loved him so much, and even though he may have now given up on her, she wanted nothing more than to see him.
As soon as they crossed the city limit and headed north, she knew where they were going. They were headed to her uncle’s ranch. They were headed to the house she’d lived in from the time she was eighteen until Deke had moved her in with him.
That knowledge brought nothing good. She was na?ve, but even she knew heading to an isolated location with six outlaw bikers wasn’t going to end well for her.
Even if Deke didn’t want to be her Daddy anymore, he wouldn’t let the Warriors harm her. She believed that with all her heart. Whether he would be able to make it in time was another story.
It sucked she would never be able to tell everyone she didn’t mean for that article to see the light of day. Everyone would think her final act as Darling’s ace reporter was to sell out the whole town. Maybe at least Vivi would still believe her. Maybe.
They arrived at the ranch much too quickly. The bikes had to cross over the homemade bridge that her uncle routinely fixed for her to be able to cross the tiny creek on the way to her house.
The bikes slowed well before they reached her house. She wasn’t sure why until Crash cut the engine on his bike, and she could get her balance long enough to peek around his shoulder.
She hadn’t known what to expect, but she certainly hadn’t thought she’d see the district attorney standing in the middle of the road, blocking their way. Why had they separated at all if he was going to the same place?
Apparently, Crash had the same question.
“The fuck are you doing here?” he demanded. “You were supposed to go back to the compound. And how the fuck did you beat us here?”
So, the General had been staying at the Lawless Warrior compound? No wonder no one had been successful in tracking him down.
“One doesn’t live in a town the size of Darling for decades without learning a few shortcuts,” he said, tugging on the cuffs of his shirt sleeves.
“Well, it better be important. Tell me why the fuck you’re here, and then get gone,” Crash snarled.
The DA nodded. “Excellent suggestion.” Without another word, he pulled out a gun and shot Crash in the chest.
Crash stumbled backward and fell. Suzi screamed, or at least she tried. Not much sound escaped the tape holding her lips together.
Crash lay on the ground, unmoving. There was no way he could survive the amount of blood he was leaking. The General stepped over him, not even looking down, and pointed the gun at one of the men behind her.
“I’ve decided to change the plan,” he said, as calmly as if he were swapping the color of his tie. “I’m going to need Ms. Daily to come with me. It occurred to me there may yet be a way for me to regain my position and standing in the community. The plans I’ve been working on for the past two decades can still work. All I need is a scapegoat.”
He shifted the gun to point at her, and she tried not to distract him by inconsequential motions like breathing.
“That’s where you come in,” he said, circling the point of the gun in her general direction.
There was nothing for her to do but stand there and listen to the plans of a madman. Had Gabi seen her and called Deke? Was he on the way to rescue her? He had to be. He’d helped save her friends. He would make it in time to help her.
“It occurred to me you can discredit all the information in the article released today. And that’s exactly what you are going to do.”
He ambled up to her as if he had all the time in the world and ripped the tape from her mouth.
For the love of pain and pistols! Her skin flamed in hot pain as she tried her best to stifle her scream.
He stared at her through bored, toad-like eyes. “Well?” he finally asked. “Are you going to help me clear my name, or do I leave you with these delightful companions?”
She’d take door number three. “Deke will be here soon. He knows where we are. My friend Gabi figured it out, and she will have told him by now. You aren’t going to able to do anything here and get away with it.” Please, let that be true.
The smile the DA gave her was sinister and cold. “I certainly hope so. That was the plan.”
Wait, what?
“You never planned to let them hurt me?” she asked.
“I couldn’t care less if they hurt you. But I did think better of letting them kill you. We are going back to your boyfriend’s house. I have plans for you there that will be much more beneficial than what was supposed to happen here.”
Somehow, she didn’t think he meant beneficial to her.
When she’d told herself imaginary stories as a child, she had on more than one occasion been a princess, kidnapped by the evil wizard and held at his mercy until the knight in shining armor came to save her.
Reality was different. Breezy’s father ranted all the way back into town about all the ways everyone had conspired against him. But now he was the one with the plan. She needed to give Breezy a huge hug when she saw her again. The house she grew up in had been no closer to a home than Suzi’s had.
She turned her thoughts to Deke. How could she let her Daddy know where she was? He couldn’t rescue her if he went to the wrong place. She wanted to feel his arms around her. She needed his lips pressed to her forehead.
“You see, my dear. You’ve been overcome with conviction for the fraud you have perpetrated on our fair state.”
She had?
“You allowed your biases against a lowly public servant to color your article, filling it with exaggerations and false statements. With your life and career in ruins, you have no choice but to end your life. But first, you want to set things right. You leave a letter explaining every lie you told. Then, you say goodbye to this world.”
“And what if I refuse to write a letter like that?”
“Then I’ll type it for you and forge your signature. No one will suspect a thing,” he said with a sneer.
Suzi’s heart clenched. They’d suspect, but would they care?