Chapter 23 Evolution of Novelty
EVOLUTION OF NOVELTY
*Samantha*
The next moments played out in jump cuts, as if someone flipped through my life frame by frame.
The world tilted sideways when Henrik’s fist clamped around my upper arm and yanked me out of the trunk.
I must’ve hit the gravel when I landed because the entire right side of my body was instantly on fire.
I didn’t have time to catalogue injuries.
Henrik was already dragging me toward a different warehouse with both hands and the subtlety of a sack-throwing butcher.
His knuckles dug through my shirt, cutting off circulation.
Two men in black followed, both with the posture of guys who were too morally bankrupt for even ICE to accept.
I got one last glance at the sun before the warehouse doors slammed behind us.
The interior reeked of wet concrete and old paint.
I got the sense that it had never, not once, been the site of anything wholesome.
We moved fast through the front office, past a toppled desk, then down a corridor lined with steel doors, some open, some welded shut.
I heard something that sounded like a baby crying, echoing down the hallway.
Oddly, the sound firmed my resolve and loaned me bravery.
I demanded, “Where are Kaitlyn and Joey?”
Henrik let out a bark of laughter. “You’ll see them soon enough.”
He kept walking, but to the guy on my left he said, “Did you frisk her? Does she have her phone?”
The guy, whose face was still covered in a mask, like a coward, said, “I frisked her. She’s clean, no weapons, and I left her phone at the dock.”
Thank you, I thought, for not knowing the difference between a button and a bug.
I sent a silent prayer of thanks for Martin’s tracker and to whatever patron saint presided over law enforcement response times.
If I was lucky, there was a tactical SWAT team right now putting their boots on, ten blocks away.
We rounded a corner and the baby’s wailing grew louder, then softer again as someone shushed it, a woman’s voice, urgent and cracked. I recognized it instantly, and rage detonated in my chest like a Roman candle.
I turned on Henrik as hard as I could, spinning out of his grip. “If Kaitlyn and Joey are hurt, I’m going to kill you.”
He laughed again, more genuine this time, and then, with zero warning, backhanded me across the cheek so hard my ears rang. I tasted blood before I could catch my balance.
“And I’m going to enjoy messing up this pretty face,” he said, voice flat.
The sting burned through my whole jaw, but all I could think about was what Andreas had told me weeks ago about Henrik’s right eye.
I stumbled, half on purpose, and moved to his right side.
“Why are you doing this?” I said, even though I could guess. But I wanted Henrik to talk. I wanted him to say it louder for the police in the back, for the tape, for the world.
He didn’t disappoint. “Because you stole what was rightfully mine, everything I worked for.”
I scowled. “Are you talking about my father’s shares? How did you work for them? How are they yours?”
He stopped walking and, for a moment, I thought he was going to hit me again. Instead, he screamed in my face, “Those shares belong to me. I’m the one who did the dirty work, who made sure they belonged to my family. They don’t belong to you, they belong to me!”
He was actually frothing, just a little, at the corner of his mouth.
“Because your father made you frame my father for fraud?” I said, keeping my tone calm, almost bored. The muscle next to Henrik’s eye twitched.
“My father didn’t make me do anything, I wanted to do it. I was glad to do it. Your father was a spineless, rigid weakling with no ambition. He didn’t deserve those shares. He should have been an employee, not my father’s business partner. He wanted to stop us from taking the company public!”
The men with us looked uncomfortable, but I couldn’t tell if it was the screaming or the content.
Henrik yanked me forward, then through another door, this one opening into a small, dark office.
The air was hot and muggy, and in the middle, tied to an overturned file cabinet, sat Kaitlyn.
Her face was streaked with sweat and her arms were wrapped around Joey, who was shrieking at the top of his lungs, red-faced and terrified.
Kaitlyn looked up and saw me, and the relief in her expression cut through my own fear like a scalpel.
She looked pristine. Untouched. And when she saw me, she smiled, even with tears in her eyes. I saw her faith in me and I felt absolutely humbled.
For her, I would get through this. For her, I would stab Henrik in the balls. And for Tara.
I turned back to Henrik. “I’m the one you want. Let Kaitlyn and Joey go.”
He grinned, like he’d won a round already. “I will let them go. But first, you’re going to transfer ownership of the shares into my name. I have an account—”
I barked a laugh, then interrupted him with as much incredulity as I could summon. “You can’t be serious. I have no way to do that.”
He grabbed both my arms and shook me hard, the kind of shake that makes your teeth rattle. “You will do it, and you will do it now. I have an account ready to receive them.”
I yelled back, making sure my voice was loud enough for all the goons to hear, “You’re an idiot!
It’s not like the shares are in an E-Trade account and I can just transfer them to you.
That’s not how this works. You planned this elaborate kidnapping, and for what? How are you going to pay these men?”
He shook me again, but this time one of the goons spoke up.
“Is that true? You said we’d get a cut of the shares.”
Henrik whipped his head around. “Shut up and do what you’re told.”
I kept at it, hoping to widen the crack. “He has no way to pay you, just like I have no way to transfer the shares into his account. But he’s a moron, so he doesn’t know how basic finance works.”
Henrik backhanded me again, and then, just for good measure, punched me just north of my stomach.
The wind went out of me, hard, pain shooting through my chest and to my teeth, down my spine, to my fingertips and toes.
I collapsed to the floor on Henrik’s right side.
Good. If I was going to get a shot at him, it had to be from the right.
While I wheezed, Henrik paced, waving his arms at the goons and yelling at them to “Fall back in line” and “Do as I say.” The guys looked at each other, then at me, and I realized they were starting to get nervous.
Over the din, I heard Kaitlyn scream my name. “Sam!”
It was a primal scream and the sound gave me one last ounce of courage. I forced myself to breathe through the pain and keep my eyes open. Henrik had taken out a gun and was waving it around, brandishing it more as a prop than a weapon.
He aimed it at the two goons and barked, “Nobody moves unless I say so.”
I locked eyes with Kaitlyn. She was staring at me, wild and panicked, but alert. I mouthed, Turn away.
She nodded, squeezed Joey so hard I thought he might pop, and turned both of their faces away from us.
Henrik’s attention was still on the men, not me. I saw my chance, and I took it.
I kicked out both legs as hard as I could, catching Henrik behind the knee.
He went down with a grunt, arms flailing for balance.
The gun skittered across the floor. Before he could recover, I used the magic of my pointed-toe shoe to deliver a direct kick to his balls.
The shoe wasn’t a knife, but it would have to do.
He roared in pain and I scrambled after the gun, getting my hands on the grip in three seconds flat.
My brain, fueled by every kickboxing and self-defense class I’d ever taken, immediately remembered to check the safety, which was on. I flicked it off, got to my feet, and pointed it at Henrik.
At this point, he was kneeling, breath coming in fast, shallow gasps. His face was red and shiny with sweat, and he looked up at me with a mix of fear and rage.
“If you move,” I said, “I will shoot you.”
He laughed, a hysterical, wheezing sound that made me wonder if he’d finally snapped.
“You won’t do it,” he said.
There was no arguing with someone who lacked both logic and intelligence, so I preemptively shot him in the knee. He crumpled to the ground, howling again.
I turned to the two men near Kaitlyn. “This man deceived you. He has money, he could’ve paid you already. So, if he hasn’t paid you already and has promised you a cut of my shares, he’s lying. He’s not going to pay you at all.”
The guys exchanged glances. One said, “Then we’ll just kill you and ransom her. She’s some big shot’s wife, right?”
As if on cue, the sound of sirens flooded the air. Louder and louder, Dopplering toward us until even Henrik’s laughter was drowned out. I raised my voice to cut through the wail.
“I have a camera on my body that has recorded everything and sent the footage to the police. It’s also a tracker, and the police are on their way. If you leave now, you’ll have a head start.”
They exchanged another look.
I glanced over my shoulder at the other goon, adding, “Maybe you’ll get away. But if you kill me, the charge will be felony first-degree murder and not misdemeanor kidnapping.”
A heightened pause followed, and then the guys bolted. They didn’t even argue, just sprinted down the hallway toward whatever exit they thought would save them.
Henrik swore, tried to lunge for my leg. I didn’t think, just pulled the trigger again.
The bullet caught him in the hand, exactly where he’d reached for me. He screamed, clutched the wound, blood spattering the floor.
He glared up at me, wild-eyed, furious, helpless.
“I know you killed my father,” I said, raising the gun to bring the barrel even with his head, “and I know your father told you to do it.”
He shook his head, the movement frantic. “You have no proof.”
I kept the gun leveled at his face. “I found the medical examiner and he told me everything. He signed an affidavit saying your father paid him to change the cause of death.”
Henrik’s face went white, then red, then a weird, mottled shade in between. He howled, “It was me! It wasn’t him, it was me! I did it and I would do it again!”
The sirens were so loud now I could barely hear my own voice.
A second later, the door exploded inward and a dozen police officers flooded the room. They shouted commands, weapons drawn, some running to Kaitlyn and Joey, some to Henrik, one barreling directly at me and snatching the gun from my hand before I even registered the motion.
And that’s when I felt the pain, from my face and my ribs, so sharp and severe my knees gave out. I started to fall. But someone’s arms were there, catching me and holding me up. Darkness edged into my vision, but I forced myself to look up. I saw his face.
Andreas.
I felt my mouth curve into a smile, but pain forced me to stop.
He shouted something—my name, probably—but the sound was underwater, filtered through white noise and the pounding of my heart.
His arms wrapped around me and I let myself lean in, just for a second, just long enough to remember what it felt like to be safe.
Everything else—the flashing lights, the screaming, the chaos—faded out. My vision tunneled, and the last thing I saw before blacking out was the look on his face. Not angry, not calculating, not even worried.
Just grateful.
Then the world went dark.