Chapter 20 Carmen
CARMEN
The place is like an industrial oasis, a lot bigger than what I had in mind.
I climb over the barbed-wire fence and half wish I was back at home losing a staring contest with my neighbors.
If there is one person more insufferable than those child-hating pests next door, it’s Conrad O’Neill.
So much has happened since the parking lot. I’m millions of dollars richer, and I no longer have to stack shelves and deal with the backache that comes from that. I’m also pretty sure I’m falling in love with the three men who saved me from Conrad’s auction.
I can neither confirm or deny the latter, since I don’t really know what I’m talking about. In the department of love, I’m a beginner. I can only assume that it’s love I’m in, since it haunts me to think about losing them.
I enter the run-down distribution yard. Desert winds have reduced the shipping containers down to skeletons. All that remains are stacked tires from trucks that are also deceased, and a bunch of warehouses.
I take a step in and the buildings feel like they’re closing in. Wind howls through the yard. It slams against a tinny warehouse wall and makes me jump out of my skin.
Conrad must be near. I always seem to jump when he’s around.
I’m still pissed at him for being the reason I dropped my coffee.
I take quiet steps, my booted feet echoing against the concrete floor.
A gray rat pops its head out of one of many tires, its disgusting body running across the ground.
I didn’t know Conrad could shape-shift.
“Carmen.” His voice sounds even more unnerving in real life than it did on the phone. “It’s nice to finally see you again.”
“Where is he?” I demand.
From what I understand, this man is the crime king of Vegas. That means he has the power to do whatever he pleases.
But while he has my son, I have no regard for my own safety. I’ll do anything—run into his arms until the stench of pedophilia and cold-blooded murder catches up.
At that thought, I take a step back to keep my distance.
“Steady on. You’ll fall over.”
I follow his gaze and see how close I was to falling ass over tit from the scrap piece of metal inches away from my feet.
“Where’s Otis?”
Conrad gives me a sickening smile, the dark angles on his face made even more sinister by the cold moonlight. “You know this isn’t how we do this, sweetheart.”
He can take that term of endearment out of his mouth.
He produces a set of handcuffs, the cold metal echoing through the scrapyard. I happen to lift my gaze and see company loitering in the distance over the tops of containers and wheel stacks.
I don’t have to see their murderous gazes to know that they’re all watching me. Waiting for me to act out so they have an excuse to kill. I’ll bet that’s why they applied in the first place to join Conrad’s cult—they were all searching for a license to kill.
Here in Vegas, killing seems to be everybody’s deep, dark secret. If they haven’t already committed the crime, there’s a high chance they’re thinking about doing it.
The city breeds killers. That’s what happens when you divide a place up into two categories. You’re either stinking rich or down at the bottom managing with the leftovers.
And nobody wants the leftovers.
So here they all are, carrying guns and a load of resentment for the world, working for a seedy Irish mobster who encourages them to be as inhumane as possible as long as he gets what he wants.
I drop my eyes back to the dangling shackles, the old chains rattling in Conrad’s hands. There isn’t much left of the man. As soon as he loses his brain, he loses everything.
But even then, that won’t be enough to stop him. Companies don’t die when their founders do. They get passed down to the next person in charge. What Conrad has created is a business. Think Milton’s Milkshakes but all violence and no dairy.
Conrad’s reign will never end. Vegas will never be safe.
Even if Carter, Skipper, and Vex succeed today, they won’t succeed forever. Will Otis ever be safe?
I don’t doubt the bikers’ abilities to protect Otis, but O’Neills outnumber Venom Vultures by hundreds.
“You want to see your son again, don’t you?” Conrad jingles the chains, prompting me to stick my hands in them like I’m a dog and he’s waiting to take me for a walk.
Bile threatens to burst out of my mouth.
My men are only a short distance away. If I scream now, they’ll be over here in a few short moments.
But I can’t call them over. Not yet. Not until I find Otis.
Conrad knows where my son is. If I break his rules, he could kill him.
I’m therefore in no position to call them over yet.
I take another look at the handcuffs. Surrounded by killers, I have no option but to reduce myself down to the same hopeless woman I’ve been trying to kill for years. Tonight, I revive her the second I stick my first hand in the cuff.
“Good girl.” Conrad’s voice is how I imagine nausea to sound if it could speak.
The cuffs close around my wrists with a devastating click! And then I’m being escorted inside, leashed up in chains like I’m an animal.
The moonlight shining down from the sky carves a weak path out in front of me. Among empty syringes and broken glass are torn clothes, which I immediately avert my eyes from.
Do everything he says, unless he tells you to remove your clothes.
He has me in chains, so I can’t protest if he decides to remove them.
All I can do is scream.
Conrad leads me inside the largest warehouse of them all. Apart from more rusted shipping containers and a shit load of tires, the space is empty.
It’s so huge that I can’t even see the other side. Trapped in a chasm of darkness with my hands tied, we’re off to a good start.
I look over my shoulder, my vision blurry with tears as I try to locate Otis.
“Otis?!” I scream.
The warehouse helps in screaming his name too.
“Silence!”
Now, the metal walls ring with Conrad’s voice. Each replay makes me wanna shrivel up and die.
“You’re a naughty girl, Carmen. You’re also very lucky.”
Conrad is talking to himself. I’m not listening to a word. Otis is here somewhere and I need to find him. My arms are chained, not my legs. So I need to focus on using them.
I run into the darkness like a chicken with clipped wings.
And then the darkness throws me back. Wait…no. One of Conrad’s men is throwing me back. There have to be at least thirty of them here. They materialize out of nowhere and stride forward to form an intimidating semi-circle around me.
Conrad grabs my chains and pulls me back toward him. “Everybody’s luck runs out eventually.” He extends his vision past me to snap his fingers at one of his nameless men.
The man disappears into one of the shipping containers, the metal clunking of something grabbing my attention. Wheels grind against the floor, growing louder until the mysterious object being dragged against the floor makes it out of the shipping container.
Otis.
They strapped my two year old to a chair and taped his mouth.
Tears fall from my eyes, blurring my vision. But I still see Otis strapped to some deadbeat office chair that’s probably hosting several diseases. His hair is messed up, black in parts, like they’ve dipped the ends in soot.
He doesn’t have any bruises, and there are no medical emergencies I need to worry about, but his eyes take my heart and crush it to a thousand pieces. He looks hopeful. As soon as he sees me.
“Mommy!”
I know what he’s saying even though I can’t properly hear because of the tape. He thinks I’m coming to save him.
My pulse stammers, knocking the life out of me. Would it be so bad to collapse onto the floor and surrender?
Ummm. Yes when your son is counting on you to keep it together.
Since I’m unable to wipe the tears from my eyes, I resort to a squinting technique and hope the O’Neills don’t think I’m too crazy.
Because they seem to like crazy.
I was running around on stage desperate to make myself look like a convict, and all Conrad could think was mine as he stuck his blackboard into the air.
“Mommy!” Otis yells again through the tape.
“It’s okay, buddy. I’m not gonna let them hurt you.”
“No,” Conrad says. “You’re not.” He gives me another one of his foul looks. The kind of look that makes you wanna tear the skin away from your bones.
“I’m giving you what you want,” I tell him. “Now let Otis free. This is no place for a two-year-old.”
“Do you think of me as some kind of fool?”
I go to fold my arms over my chest but realize I don’t even have the freedom to give Conrad poor body language. He has taken that right away from me.
The first of many, I suspect.
I ignore the fear that’s creeping back into my gut and play dumb, even though the voice inside of me knows all.
The men are outside. And he knows it.
“You can’t go anywhere without them. Can you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You wouldn’t come here alone.”
“Not by choice, no, but you have my son. Of course I’m here alone. It’s a mother’s duty to put their child first. I can tell yours didn’t do a grand job of raising you.”
“I’m afraid there’s a change of plan.” Conrad nets his hands together, as if trying to tease me that he can still use his. “You and Otis will both be going nowhere.”
The hurt I felt before, at the thought of Otis and I being forever separated, disappears.
But then comes the guilt. It hits me like a bolt of lightning and now every cell in my body is freaking out.
I need to sit down before my knees break from all the weight they’ve been trying to hold.
It feels like I’ve gained a couple hundred pounds and I no longer feel able to stay standing. Everything feels heavy.
Please let this be a nightmare.
Please let me wake up with Otis in my arms, safe in bed.
The emotions are running so high that I can almost see Carter walk into the bedroom, handing me a lazy cup of coffee as the other two alternate giving me back massages.
We’re all together. Vex. Skipper. Carter.
Otis. We live under one roof, and my biggest worry is what outfit I’m gonna pick out for the day.