Chapter 43 Coming to Terms
COMING TO TERMS
Simone
“You know, I’m starting to think your ‘fiancé’ doesn’t love you after all, sweetheart.”
I watched Ezra Huntington pace across the creaky wood floors of the old sugarhouse but didn’t say a word. I couldn’t with the gag around my mouth.
I’d spent the night in Ezra’s Woonsocket office with nothing to eat but stale chips from a vending machine while he figured out what to do with me. In the morning, after he sent a photo to Brendan of me bound, I’d been hustled into the back of a van, and we’d driven for hours.
One breath of the unique blend of maples, firs, rain, and cows, and I knew exactly where we were before the blindfold was removed: Dandelion Farm.
That was also when I realized Ezra Huntington was not a very intelligent man.
Instead of taking me somewhere I couldn’t identify, he’d brought me to a place where my initials were carved on the very piece of furniture they had tied me to.
Nestled in the maples at the far end of the Dandelion property, the old sugarhouse was a relic from my grandfather’s time that hadn’t been used in more than fifty years.
Selena and I used to camp out here when we were younger, daring each other to go upstairs to the supposedly “haunted” rooms that had mostly been donated to raccoons.
Unfortunately, the sugarhouse was also situated on the opposite side of the property, nearly a mile from the barn and the house where my father was probably watching another baseball game.
I was so close to help and yet so far away.
So I glared as Ezra chain-smoked his tenth cigarette and stared at his phone, doing my best to ignore the fear lodged in my belly and the suspicion that maybe Ezra was right.
If Brendan had cared, wouldn’t he have found me by now?
Or at least answered the text?
So far there had been nothing.
Ezra slammed a hand on one of the dust-covered workbenches. “Does she ever talk about me?” he asked suddenly. “Do any of these hicks out here talk about me?”
I knew who he meant. Another thing I’d discovered about Ezra Huntington was that he ranted about his adolescence when he was irritated. It hadn’t taken me long to realize that he once had a serious thing for my sister.
That wasn’t terribly surprising. Before she’d run off the deep end, Selena’s devil-may-care act was the definition of cool-girl charisma in high school.
Everyone we knew either wanted to be her or sleep with her (or both).
Ezra Huntington, with all his money and pomp, had arrived at Woodstock High and identified Selena Bishop as the only girl worth his time in our small town.
Predictably, they’d flamed out within a month or so. Selena never could find anyone to keep her interest for long. I’d always thought Ezra had moved on, but clearly, he had not.
When, again, I couldn’t answer, he whirled around and swore. “Fuck this. It’s not like anyone can hear you out here anyway. And I’m sick of talking to myself.”
He ripped off the gag. I opened and closed my mouth a few times to relieve the ache.
“No,” I said finally. “She does not. But I wouldn’t take it personally. Selena only talks about Selena.”
That did not seem to make him feel better. “You know, you Bishop girls were never as great as everyone thought back in high school.”
“How would you know? You were too busy selling weed behind the bleachers to go to class.”
Was it wise to provoke a clearly unstable man while I was literally tied up and at his mercy? Probably. But at this point, I was beyond caring.
Ezra snorted. “True. Though I saw enough of your sister back there too. She filled me in on just what kind of goody-goody her twin sister was. Made her sick.”
Somehow, I resisted the urge to argue with him. That was all he wanted, after all. His plan wasn’t working, so he was spoiling for a fight—or at least a win—to make himself feel like he was in control again.
I counted old sugar stains on the floorboards, praying that he would mistake my silence for contrition.
It didn’t work.
The door to the sugarhouse opened, and two of his “associates” (who really looked more like the kinds of goons who sat outside of the biker bars in Woonsocket) walked in, one of them shaking his head. “I went to the top of the ridge for reception. Three bars. Still no response from Black.”
“Fuck!” Ezra picked up a stool and hurled it against the wall, shattering one of the legs. “Twelve hours, and your precious prince can’t be bothered to return a fucking message.”
“You must be right,” I told him, though the words tasted like rotting cheese. “He doesn’t care. Brendan Black cares about his company and nothing else.”
I hated that it might be true.
Ezra looked like he wanted to hurl something else at me now. I followed his gaze toward some of the sugaring equipment hanging on the wall behind him. There was a dusty pail of spiles that could double as throwing stars in the right hands.
“Well, if he doesn’t care about you, sunshine, maybe he’ll care about his reputation.” Ezra turned to the goons and nodded. “You brought the others?”
The first goon nodded. “They’re in the van.”
“Bring them in.”
One of them left, then returned a few minutes later with two people, both of them wearing canvas sacks over their heads. One was clearly a child.
“Let me go!”
My heart just about stopped when I heard the familiar voice as she struggled against them.
“Kylie?” I lurched forward in my chair. “Selena?”
The sacks were removed before my sister and niece were shoved into a pile on the floor.
Selena looked like she’d been dragged through the mud, pale and dirty, with ripped clothes and a shaky expression that made me wonder if she’d been doing more than just drinking and smoking lately.
Kylie looked only slightly better with her blond curls falling out of her little ponytail and dark circles ringing her eyes.
“Aunt Simone!”
She made for me but was jerked back by one of the goon squad.
“Don’t touch her!” I shouted at him. “Ezra! This is insanity. You have to let them go. They have nothing to do with Brendan!”
Ezra snorted as he lit yet another cigarette. “No, but they have everything to do with you. But don’t worry. No one will hurt the little gremlin as long as you all cooperate.”
“I couldn’t stop them.” Selena’s speech was slurred as she crawled across the room, then collapsed on the floor next to my feet.
I yanked against my bonds. “Ezra, what did you give her?” She was definitely on something, and it wasn’t her usual cocktail of vodka and weed.
“Maybe The Black Prince doesn’t care about his princess,” Ezra said as he held up the burner phone for another picture. “But I’m betting he won’t want the murder of a four-year-old on his hands. And that’s exactly what we’ll make it look like if he doesn’t pony up.”
Selena slumped, her head on my knee. “I’m sorry. They said they would take—they threatened to—” She could barely get her words out, and there were bruises around her neck and on her hands.
“It’s okay.” I wanted to stroke her head the way our mother had when we were kids, maybe in this very room. “It’s not your fault, Sel.”
“Mommy?” Kylie called from across the room. “Mommy, are you okay? Aunt Simone, what’s wrong with her? Why are you tied up?”
I gave her the brightest smile I could manage under the circumstances. “It’s going to be okay, honey. Your mom’s just taking a little nap, and we’re playing a game. Best to sit and be quiet, okay?”
“No! Let me go!”
“Ow!”
With a swift kick to one of the goon squad’s legs, Kylie freed herself and ran to the other side of my chair, where she immediately started tugging at the ropes binding my wrists. “Let her go!”
“Ky.” I twisted in my chair, trying to see her. “Honey, stop. It’s okay, we just need to be quiet.”
“Get back here!” shouted her victim.
“Leave her.” Ezra settled onto another dusty stool he pulled out from one of the workbenches. “She can’t do shit anyway.”
“Kylie,” I tried again. “Honey, look at me.”
To my surprise, she moved to my side and did as I asked.
“We need to be quiet,” I told her. “Can you do that for me? Play the game with me?”
With a scared glance where her mother was barely moving and then back at me, she gave a tearful nod. “Okay.”
“Just sit here with me, then.”
She sank to the floor and huddled against my leg, looking for some kind of contact.
“Now that we’re done causing trouble,” Ezra said, “let’s try this again. If you were Brendan Black, darlings, what do you think would motivate you to come to the rescue of three nobodies? A torn fingernail? A cigarette burn? Maybe a nicely recorded scream? What’s it gonna take?”
With every idea, Kylie burrowed further into my side. I’d never been a violent person, but every suggestion made me want to do horrible things to Ezra Huntington.
“Nothing,” I said through clenched teeth. “This is a dead end. You and I both know it.”
“A broken nose, maybe?” Ezra wondered to one of his henchmen. “There are a lot of possibilities.” He pointed his phone toward us. “Smile, girls. Or don’t. Actually, it might be better that way.”
Kylie just opened her mouth and shrieked like a banshee.
“Ouch.” Selena winced. Her head must have been pounding. “Not so loud, Ky. Mommy needs to sleep.”
“Hmm.” Ezra seemed to contemplate something as he looked Selena over.
“Maybe I’ve been going about this all wrong.
” He got up and crossed the room, then crouched a few feet away from Selena’s lolling expression.
“What do you think, kitten? Starting to hurt, isn’t it? Think you might want another hit?”
“What did you give her?” I growled.
“Oh, just a little smack. Nothing she wouldn’t sell out her dear sister for a thousand times. And you know what? I bet she’s already thought about it.”
Kylie and I both leaned as far away from him as we could as he slid a finger under Selena’s chin and tipped her head toward him.