Chapter 38
Alex
I’m pinned under Sammy’s dead body. His lifeless eyes hover inches above mine.
God, help me .
Jacob grabs the guns—Sammy’s and mine—from the ground and tosses them on his desk before calling his reapers. The two reapers who have been following me around town barge into the room.
“Get her in my truck,” Jacob says, pointing at me. “And have someone call Ben. Tell him to get here as fast as he can. I need him to clean up this…mess.”
One of the enforcers leaves the office while the other pulls Sammy off me. He pushes his body aside enough to pull me out from under him. In an instant, he has me up on my feet, with both hands behind my back, forcing me to the door.
I kick Jacob’s desk to push back against the reaper holding me, but he’s grip on me is so strong that we barely move at all. Shit .
Jacob stares at me and shakes his head. His hand is still on his bleeding shoulder. “I’m going to fuck you into submission and knock that wild attitude out of you.”
He turns to the reaper holding me and tells him to put me in his truck again.
“You got it, boss,” the reaper says, dragging me to the door. I lift my legs and press them against the doorframe, but the reaper is much stronger than he seems and manages to get me out of the door. Alice and a few reapers sitting at the bar stare at me as the enforcer drags me out of the club, kicking and screaming.
The reaper tosses me into the backseat of Jacob’s truck. I put up a good struggle, but five minutes later, I’m lying across the backseat with my arms and legs bound with zip ties. He stuffs a dirty rag in my mouth to keep me from screaming for help.
Eventually, Jacob comes out of the club and tells the reaper that Ben is on the way and we can head out. He joins me in the backseat. He is wearing a makeshift tourniquet over the arm that I shot, but he still looks flustered. His two enforcers get in the front and drive us out of the club.
“You really fucked up, Alex,” Jacob says. “I could’ve overlooked you shooting me as nothing more than a kink. But you killed Sammy, and now we’re gonna have to make him disappear. Do you know how much of a pain in the ass that’s going to be? Not to mention that other little thing you confessed to.”
He licks his bottom lip and puts his hand on my leg, tracing it up to my thigh. I feel his disgusting touch over my jeans.
“I’m gonna have so much fun taming you, sweetheart,” he says.
I pull my legs back as far as I can and slam them against his injured shoulder. He shrieks and puts his other hand over it.
“You fucking bitch!” he yells, red-faced. He balls his hand into a fist and rams it into my face.
Pain explodes above my right eye and pulses throughout the rest of my face.
Got it. Don’t do that again, or he’ll hit me. Hard .
A hundred thoughts race through my mind about what Jacob is going to do to me. I killed Sammy and tried to kill Jacob, and now he knows I’m the one who got his reaper arrested. Things are not looking good for me. Fuck.
Alonzo, please help me .
I don’t know why I’m thinking about Alonzo right now. He’s the last person I expect to show up to help me. Even if he wanted to, the reapers would outnumber him.
Some time later, maybe ten or fifteen minutes later—it’s hard to keep track of time when your mind is preoccupied with the unknown horrors that await you—the truck comes to a stop.
It’s difficult to see anything because I’m lying down, but we stopped by a large tree. One of the reapers gets off, and there’s a loud squeak, like an old gate opening. A moment later, the truck moves again before stopping in front of a white two-story house, tall enough for me to see from my angle.
“We’re here,” Jacob says.
One of the reapers opens the door closest to me, drags me out, and tosses me over his shoulder. In the distance, the sun is setting on the horizon over green fields.
The reaper carries me into the house and takes me to the first room to the left. He tosses me on a bed under a window facing the front yard and leaves.
I roll out of bed when he leaves and look for anything I can use to free myself. But the room is sparse, with only the old bed and an empty nightstand. The closet is empty as well. The door is locked, of course, and the window is barred on the outside.
I sit back on the bed and think of all the mistakes I made that led me to this place. I wanted easy money and overlooked all the shady shit that went on at The Den. This must be my punishment.
About half an hour later, Jacob returns. He’s wearing a patch over the spot where I shot him. One of the enforcers must have patched him up because the bleeding stopped.
“Alex, Alex, Alex,” he says. “What is it about you that drives men crazy?”
He grabs a chair and sits by the bed, placing his hand on my leg again.
“Well, I know why.”
I recoil at his touch. My legs are still bound together, so I roll away from him toward the wall. He scoffs and shakes his head.
“You should have seen Alonzo’s face when he saw you on that stage last night. It was fucking priceless. I almost fell out of my seat. That poor bastard. I know what he sees in you, but what I don’t get is what you see in him.”
He pulls the gag out of my mouth.
“Tell me,” he says.
“He’s a bigger man than you are. In more ways than one,” I say, dropping my eyes to his crotch.
His face sours.
He gets up and paces the room. “Did he ever tell you what our meetings were about?”
I shake my head. That’s the one thing I never knew.
“He was doing me a favor. At least I thought he was,” he scoffs. “That bastard was supposed to find the rat who tipped the cops all those months ago and busted Arnold. Part of me knew Alonzo was stalling, but I didn’t understand why. It all makes sense now. He knew it was you. He stalled to protect you. Isn’t that fucking hilarious? He was protecting you!”
Jacob kicks the chair he was sitting on, sending it flying in my direction. I look away and shield my face with my arms, but the chair simply slams into the bed frame and bounces off.
“I’m going to kill that bastard as soon as I get the chance. As for you,” he says, looking down at me. “I should hand you over to my men for what you did. That should scrub that nasty attitude right off you.”
Liam’s face flashes before my eyes. The way he hovered above me as the world spun around me…the way Alonzo dragged him off me and punched him bloody.
Alonzo. He really was protecting me this entire time. But why risk his life for mine?
I don’t know what Jacob is planning to do with me, but the thought of never seeing Alonzo again makes me sick, especially after our last conversation. He was beyond angry, so angry that for a moment, I wondered if he saw us as more than just a passing fling.
If what Jacob is saying is true, then maybe…
“What? Have nothing to say?” Jacob asks.
“Alonzo is going to find me,” I say. I don’t know why those words just left my mouth. Maybe it’s out of spite or pure hatred toward Jacob, but as soon as the words leave my lips, I believe them to be true. “You’ll be sorry when he does.”
Something in my heart tells me I’m just as important to Alonzo as he is to me. He will come for me, and he will rescue me from Jacob, and…
One of the enforcers runs into the room. “Jacob, are you expecting someone?”
Jacob shakes his head and runs to the window above the bed. “Shit. He’s here.”
I glance at Jacob, who is looking at me with an angry stare. We both share the same thought. Alonzo is here.
“Go take care of it!” he tells the reaper. The man runs out of the room and calls for the other enforcer.
“He’s coming for you,” I tell Jacob. For the first time, there is real fear in his eyes.
“Shut up!” he says. He approaches me with a knife in his hand.
“Wait, don’t do this,” I say.
“Make up your mind, Alex. You can’t be brave and scared at the same time.”
The knife goes for my legs. I flinch, but it only tears the zip tie off my legs. Jacob rips the zip ties around my hands next.
“Are you letting me go?” I ask him.
Before he can respond, gunshots fill the air, and the window above the bed shatters. Jacob and I duck and shield our faces. As soon as the gunshots stop, Jacob tosses the knife aside, fists my hair, and drags me out of bed. Sharp pain stings on my scalp.
“Come with me!” he says. He tugs me with his good hand. With his other hand, he presses a gun onto the back of my head. “Move.”
“Where are we going?”
He drags me along a hallway to the back of the house, putting distance between us and gunfire. I try to pull away from him, but he slaps me across the face, causing a ringing in my ear.
When the ringing disappears, I hear Jacob screaming at me to hurry.
Behind us, the gunshots stop, and Alonzo’s voice echoes throughout the house as we step out into the backyard.
“It’s over, Jacob!” Alonzo yells.
“I told you he was coming for me,” I say. “You said it yourself. He was protecting me. He cares about me.”
Jacob laughs. “Is that what you think?”
He spins me around until we’re both facing the house. Jacob stands behind me with an arm around my neck and a gun pointed at the side of my head.
“What do you think Alonzo will do when I tell him the truth? Will he save you when I tell him you were planning to rob him blind, or will he finish you off himself??”
I swallow hard.
I don’t know how Alonzo will react when Jacob tells him about our plan. I just hope he understands why I was doing it and that I changed my mind.
“He’s going to stop you,” I tell Jacob.
“Right now, an army of reapers is probably heading this way. It’s only a matter of time before they put him down like the dog that he is.”