26. Helen
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Exhausted by the comedown of adrenaline, I sank into a mental pit of despair. The unknown and loneliness swarmed me, shrouding me in the cold, damp warehouse and its oppressively stale air. It pained me to admit that doubt ran amuck within me, taking the lead on all my thoughts.
A chorus of my concerns repeated, where is he? Will he come?
Would he come for me?
When Douglas left me alone in the upstairs office space, I surmised two hours passed.
In that time, I had nothing but my festering thoughts to keep me company.
That negativity plunged clawed hands into my subconscious and brought forth memories of the summer after St. Henry’s, when the greatest heartbreak of my life had torn me apart.
Nights spent crying into my pillow and listless days spent adrift. All because he hadn’t come back for me.
Even if he didn’t, my family would. Acknowledging that gave me enough hope to dig my way out of the pit of despair I’d rapidly spiraled into. One flicker of hope gradually sparked into something small but steadily smoldering within my chest. They would come. Someone would come.
I wanted it to be him.
Things had been good between us, I reminded myself.
Drake promised I was his and that he would always choose me.
Losing faith in him was a disservice to his character, and to the man he was now.
But Douglas planted doubt with ease. After all, he’d been a traitor flying under the radar and I never picked up on it.
My doubts about my own mind and judgment worked against me as I tried to have faith.
Aching all over and bone deep weariness accentuated the constant anxiety of being tied up, bound and helpless.
Hope slipped through my fingers like water through a net.
Sometime around what I assumed to be nearing three o’clock, all the hairs on the back of my neck rose on end. Goosebumps flashed over my arms and my stomach swooped.
The building trembled around me, accompanying a harsh boom. A flash of light momentarily brightened the first floor of the warehouse. Shouts from below reached me through the door. My heart kicked faster as the seconds stretched and the noise increased.
Douglas burst through the door, wild-eyed and visibly panicked. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”
Something bright and vibrant and delicious twirled through my chest.
“It’s him, isn’t it?”
Douglas shot me a nasty glare and snarled through his clenched jaw. He paced around me to the metal desk, noisily clacking away on a keyboard. Angling my head to the side to an uncomfortable degree, I caught him speaking into a headpiece.
“D Unit, come in?” Static crackled through the device. He cursed under his breath. Sudden pitch-black darkness dropped over the warehouse. “All Units respond to the docks!”
Rapid gunfire mimicked the sound of faraway fireworks. More shouted orders volleyed from downstairs. Another smaller blast from within caused screams. My chair rattled from the force and my heart hitched into the back of my throat.
“Morons!” Douglas banged his fists into the desk, causing me to jolt against my binds. “Unit A, come in.” More empty crackling. “Unit B?”
“He’s inside! Repeat, he’s inside!” A static voice warned through the headpiece.
“Fucking fuck!” Douglas stomped across the room. Before I could register anything, he’d cut through the rope around my chest and yanked me to my feet. Unbalanced and shaky, my bare feet slipped on the carpet as the bastard dragged me to the door.
“What are you doing?” I said—wheezed, more like.
“Shut the fuck up, you little bitch,” he snapped in my ear. His arm wrapped around my throat as he tugged me into his chest, using me as leverage and a human shield while forcing me through the door. The ragged metal steps cut into my feet as he half-pushed, half-carried me down the rickety stairs.
Sparks of light from firing guns briefly illuminated the stifling darkness in a mockery of fireflies dancing on a dark night. Swept down the stairs onto the ground floor, Douglas kept his arm pressed into my throat while hauling me over the rough concrete floor.
My foot slipped on something sticky and warm.
Grunts and whimpers from the pressure on my windpipe fled from my lips. My lungs burned with need and sparks danced behind my lids. As Douglas dragged me through the towering machinery on the ground floor, I kicked and flailed as much as my weary limbs allowed.
The hard point of a gun pressed into the side of my head. I swallowed thickly against the swell of his arm. “Pick your fucking feet up or you’ll die before you can be useful.”
The shouts and gunfire echoed louder downstairs.
It was a veritable storm, a rampage, in the muggy darkness.
With each flash, each blast of a gun and each squelching thud of a knife rendering flesh, my heart skipped a beat, and my stomach sank lower.
Somewhere in the shadows, we passed a man gurgling as he drowned in his own blood.
Undaunted and familiar with the warehouse layout, Douglas steered us through the back in the opposite direction of the active chaos. I wanted to scream and yell for help, but the gun to my head silenced me. Towed along, I could do nothing more than wriggle as Douglas shoved us through a back exit.
The heavy metal door slamming shut behind us muffled the pops of gunfire within.
Dim lights outside the warehouse were nearly blinding after the sensory dulling darkness from inside.
A stink from the surrounding area and the nearby river wafted into my nose and stung my already watering eyes.
Rapidly flicking my gaze over the surroundings, I noted the river to the right with smoke rising from destroyed loading docks.
Bodies dressed in black with faces hidden behind those stupid fucking masks littered the oil-slicked ground.
Good. I would have spit on their corpses if I could have.
He carried me halfway across a parking lot between the river and another abandoned warehouse before the door we’d exited crashed opened behind us. An icy sensation clawed along my spine until the rage-fueled roar of the man washed over me.
“Douglas!” Drake bellowed, stopping the man in his tracks. “Let her go, you bastard!”
Breathing hard against my back, the bastard whipped around. His arm tightened around my throat until a choking noise escaped me. But my eyes riveted on the man before me, filling me with hope and air and light and strength.
Drake wore all-black tactical gear. Crimson droplets covered him from his black boots to the leather gloves holding a pistol.
He carried darkness and fire and rage, wearing it like armor.
The bulk of him dressed for war and wearing the evidence of it sent a darkly dangerous thrill through me.
And when his eyes strayed to me, the glint of worry in those rich brown eyes made me want to weep.
His lips parted as if to speak. I’m here, baby, I came for you, I read in his eyes. The potency of my relief turned my knees to jelly. That feeling was short-lived.
Douglas jammed his gun harder against my head, knocking a pained whimper from me. Drake stole a step forward, growling and huffing like a bull preparing to charge.
“Ah ah, as much fun as this has been, I wouldn’t move if I were you, Dragon,” Douglas sneered. “If you’re relying on the assumption I won’t shoot your wife in the head, you’ll need to rethink your strategy.”
“Dougie—” he started to warn.
“Throw your gun down or you find out what her brilliant brain looks like splattered all over the ground.”
Drake’s eyes cut back and forth, determining how serious Douglas’ threat was. Conflicted and condemned by what he saw, Drake slowly lifted his hands before lowering the gun to the ground. The apology in his gaze stole the caged tears from my eyes.
“Now kick it this way,” Douglas said.
Drake scowled even as he submitted to the demand. The metal clattered across the uneven concrete before skidding to a halt a few feet away. Douglas dipped his head, audibly licking his lips near my ear. A revolted shudder dripped through me.
Drake rose to his feet with his hands in the air. “We were friends, Douglas. Whatever grudge you hold has nothing to do with her. Let her go. Please.”
“Friends?” Douglas scoffed. “What with your terrible family and fucked up sense of morals? No, she’s part of this as much as you are.
It’s families like the Grahams, the Montgomerys, the Rossis, that ruin the lives of others.
My dad wasn’t a perfect man, far from it, but he was my father and he cared about me!
” Douglas increased his chokehold on my throat to point the gun at Drake.
“Your family stole him from me on the orders of your father! That’s not how sane people handle gambling debts! ”
“And I’m sorry for that, Dougie, truly, but I didn’t kill your dad.” They began moving as they spoke, almost prowling around one another in a circle around the corpse littered lot. “We were there for each other growing up.”
“You have been a thorn in my side since the beginning,” he spat. “You always looked down on me, thought you were better than me. I can’t walk away from that. And you know what I think?”
“That you talk too much,” Drake said.
Douglas scoffed, pointedly pressing the gun to my temple again.
“I think that I’m better than you and you’re finally seeing it.
Here we are. I have your wife. Walked right through the fucking front door and took her.
Like taking candy from a baby. And I’ve been destabilizing the crime families to build a new world right under your stuck-up nose.
” His manic laugh provoked a sickened shiver through me.