Chapter 40 #2
I nod. “Sid, you stay here and make sure he doesn’t say a word about what he saw on that tape. Pay him whatever you need to. Get a copy of the video, then have the original destroyed. Then get back to the party and make the rounds. Make sure people see you. Kol, you’re with me.”
I know Kol has a gun on him—he always has a gun on him, and he’s a good shot because of his time in the military.
They both nod.
“Let me know as soon as you locate her. I’ll fill Nero in,” Sid says.
I shake my head. “Don’t. Let him have his night. If we really need him, then we’ll call.”
Sid’s lips press together. I’m assuming he doesn’t like my call, but he nods in agreement.
Thankfully, Kol has a place in the city, so he drove here rather than taking a limo like Anabelle and I did. He climbs in the driver’s seat, and we’re racing away within minutes.
“Put the airport in the GPS,” he says, whipping out of the parking lot.
“You don’t know how to fucking get there?” I glare at him.
“The weather is shit. That means slow-downs at best, accidents at worst. I want to see what the fastest route there is.”
“Oh, okay. Good idea.” I punch in the name of the private airport, and a bunch of potential routes come up.
The most direct route down the freeway is almost all marked in red.
Kol glances at it. “Must be an accident. Let’s hope that’s the route they took.”
He selects the fastest route, which goes around the highway all together, and punches the gas.
When we reach the airport, Preston’s plane is still there. I honestly don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing.
“What if they’re not headed here? What if he…” I can’t even finish the words.
“He’s coming here. He probably got stuck on the freeway.
No way he’d kidnap her and leave his plane waiting for you to discover.
He has to know you would find out it was him right away.
It’s not like you wouldn’t have noticed that Anabelle disappeared.
This plane is the only head start that he has. ”
He’s right. Knowing that makes me feel a little better. Not a lot, but a little.
“What’s the plan?” I ask Kol when he parks around the back of one of the hangars.
“Depends on what you want to do with Preston. You plan on calling the authorities on him?” Kol looks across the dim car at me.
I arch an eyebrow and give him a look that gets across my intentions.
“All right then. He’ll have staff on his plane. Unless we plan on taking them all out, we need to ambush him before they get that far.”
“What about the single lane in?” I say.
He nods. “That’s our best bet. If I park my car on an angle there and lift the hood like it’s broken down, the driver will have to stop because he won’t be able to get past. You and I can wait in the ditches on either side of the road.
As soon as the limo stops, we hop up, open the doors, and hope the element of surprise is in our favor. ”
Fuck. I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. So much could go wrong with this plan. But what option do we have?
“If the doors are locked, which they probably will be, hit the window hard with the butt of this.” He opens the glove box and pulls out a gun. “Don’t shoot it. The windows will be blacked out, and we have no idea where Anabelle is sitting.”
I nod, taking the gun from him. “You have one of these for yourself?”
He grins. “Of course.” Then he reaches down near his ankle and pulls a gun from a holster there.
Kol puts the car back in drive and drives to where we talked about, parking it so that it’s blocking the entrance.
“Ready?” he asks.
“More than,” I say and push open the door.
Fear threatens to overtake me as I lie stomach-down in the ditch at the side of the road, half covered with muddy water and rain pelting my face. Not fear for myself, but for what Anabelle might be experiencing right now.
I force it away in favor of the rage that’s like a hot coal in my abdomen.
Enough time passes that I wonder if we got it wrong, if Preston isn’t coming back here. Just when I begin to give up hope, I hear the hum of a vehicle engine over the sound of the rain.
I don’t dare peek to see if I’m right, instead waiting until it gets closer. When I hear the car approach, then the slight whine of brakes and the sound of the engine running changes, only then do I raise my head to make sure it’s a limo.
It is.
Like a shot, I burst up out of the ditch. One quick tug on the door handle of the car tells me it’s locked. With every bit of strength I have, I smash the butt of the gun against the window, and it shatters. I hear the window on the other side of the vehicle do the same.
Preston is on my side, and before he can turn the gun on his lap in my direction, I reach in and smash his head against the door. It stuns him enough that I can hit the unlock button, then swing the door open.
I yank him out and throw him on the pavement. He’s still stunned, blinking up at the rain and probably wondering what the hell just happened. I’m on him in an instant. My hand is at his throat, the gun at his temple.
“You dare to touch what’s mine!” I shout over the rain. I fist his collar, pull him up, and pummel the back of his head against the road.
I want to draw this out, make him pay, but I know that I’ll never be able to. I have to settle for my face being the final thing he sees before he dies.
“You’re going to rot in hell, and if I find out that you laid even a finger on her, I’m going to drag you back out of there myself and kill you all over again.” In my fury, I lift him again and smash his head down. Blood trickles out from under him and quickly disperses in the rain.
I need to get to Anabelle. I need to see if she’s okay. I didn’t even chance a look at her in the limo because all I could think about was making this piece of shit pay.
Removing my hand from his collar, I press the gun to his temple again and press the trigger. A sick sense of satisfaction courses through me at the bloody trail that runs from the road down into the ditch.
I push the gun into my waistband and pop up. “Anabelle!”
Frantic, I rush to the other side of the limo and find Kol there with one arm wrapped around a weeping Anabelle. The other is pointed at the driver, who’s standing beside the driver’s side door with his hands raised.
“Anabelle, are you okay?” I rush to her, pulling her away from Kol and letting my hands skim gently over her face.
She has a cut over her eyebrow and a bruise already forming there. There’s also a bruise blooming on her collarbone. I’m sure there are more I can’t see right now.
“Asher,” she weeps, crashing into my chest and wrapping her arms around me.
I hold her but not too tightly because I don’t want to hurt her. “Are you okay?”
“I am now,” she says.
“You two take off. I assume your jet is here?” Kol says, and I nod. “I’ll take care of this mess. You get Anabelle home.”
I glance in the direction of Preston’s body. “You sure?”
“I got this.”
I nod and pull Anabelle around the limo and Kol’s car and through the airport’s entrance. “Don’t look behind you.”
I don’t want her even more traumatized from seeing Preston’s body.
The rain beats down as I pull my phone from my pocket and hit the pilot’s contact, telling him to ready the jet ASAP.
The stairs on my jet are down by the time we reach it, and Millie, the flight attendant I’ve employed for years, looks at us wide-eyed.
I’m not worried about her telling anyone what she sees.
I pay all my employees well enough to prevent that from ever happening.
“Tell Ralph we need to leave as soon as possible.”
She nods and takes off in the direction of the cockpit while I bring a trembling Anabelle to the back of the plane where my bedroom is. I lead her to the end of the bed and force her to sit down before I take a seat beside her.
“Are you okay?”
She nods, squeezing her eyes shut. “I was so scared, Asher. Thank you for coming for me.”
She hugs me, and I take her in my arms, running my hand up and down her back, so grateful that she’s okay. When she pulls away with tears in her eyes, my gaze snags on the injury on her head.
“I’ll have the doctor meet us at Midnight Manor to have a look at you. Did he…” I gulp hard, unable to say the words.
If Preston sexually assaulted Anabelle, I swear I’ll figure out some way to make him pay, even in death.
She shakes her head. “No, no, you found me before he could… but he said he was going to. He was going to do it and send you a tape of it.” Her face crumples, and she cries again.
That cuts like a blade over my skin, bleeding me out because it’s all my fault. If it weren’t for me, she wouldn’t be traumatized like this.
I draw her into me until she settles, then I ask if she wants to take a shower. “I have some spare clothes I keep in the plane that you can change into.”
She nods. “Will you come in the bathroom with me, though? I don’t want to be alone.”
I cup the uninjured side of her face. “Of course.”
Once we’re in the air, I help Anabelle out of her dress. When I spot another bruise developing on her arm to match the one on her head and her collarbone, I feel as though I might be sick. If I’d been a few minutes later…
It’s then I know what I have to do. It will kill me to do it. I’ll never be the same.
But I love her too much to let her be in harm’s way because of me. I can’t let her be in danger because of me, the same way my mother was. That would make me just like my father.