Chapter 48
Kennedy
As I slowly come to, my head feels like a boulder is sitting on it. I try to lift my head, but it’s a challenge. I attempt to move my body to get some relief from this weighty feeling, but my arms don’t budge.
They can’t.
They’re tied behind my back to a chair.
Slowly, I peel my eyes open to stare at beat up, cracked wooden floorboards.
“Kennedy,” a voice whispers.
At first, I thought it was a dream, but it called my name again, a little louder.
I force my eyelids to open wider, raise my head, and then gasp. “N-Nicole?”
I stare in horror at the young woman perched on the dirty floor across the room. She cowers beneath a window, her wrists bound to an old metal radiator by rope.
“You’re awake,” she whispers, then turns to the closed door.
The door doesn’t budge, but I hear male voices on the other side as I hold my breath.
“Who—”
“Shshsh,” she shushes me.
When she turns back to me, I gasp again. Her right eye is swollen shut, there are scratches on her neck, and her clothes are torn.
I try to get up from the wooden chair to go to her, but my hands and legs are bound. I tug at the rope, but that just causes my skin to tear around my wrists and ankles.
“What the hell?” I whisper, trying to remember how I ended up in this position.
All I can recall is leaving my parents’ home, still upset about Dae, and then … darkness.
I shake off my distress at my inability to remember and look at Nicole. “Who’s on the other side of that door?”
“It’s—” She stops abruptly when the door opens.
My attention shoots across the room, and my stomach drops when her piece of shit ex, Michael, walks in. He’s not alone.
Following Michael is Daniel Park.
His gaze falls on me, and I barely manage to keep the surprise off my face. I expected Blackmon to be the one behind this.
Park’s top lip curls as he glares at me. He comes closer and stops about a foot in front of me.
I jerk my leg out in an attempt to kick him, but I’m reminded that my legs are bound to the chair.
He lets out a mocking laugh.
“Weren’t expecting me?”
He doesn’t give me time to answer before he taps his chin with his finger. Then he points at me.
“You know, I knew you looked familiar.” His expression turns hard. “You’re that same bitch from that day. If you had let me take care of that bastard, you wouldn’t be in this position now.”
Anger boils up from the pit of my stomach. “Fuck you.”
“What did you just say?” He seems genuinely appalled.
“You’re a fucking coward who needed two other people to help you attack one boy. You’re a weak piece of shit—” I hiss in pain when he punches me across the face.
My vision blurs, and I see stars. I squeeze my eyes shut and then open them, blinking a few times.
“Shut your fucking mouth!” he yells. “Selfish, loud-mouth women like you need to be put in your fucking place. It’s because of you I’ve lost everything,” he screams, like a madman.
“I didn’t do shit to you,” I yell back, not knowing what he’s talking about.
“I had a lot riding on Blackmon’s deal with the Global Group. Because you can’t keep your nose out of business that’s not yours, that deal went up in smoke, and now my business is going with it.”
Despite the pain in my head from his hit, I start to laugh. “You really are a loser and a coward. You want to blame me because you’re a terrible businessman who also partners with terrible businessmen?”
My laugh is just as derisive as his was a few minutes ago. I meet his eyes when I tell him, “Blame me if you want. But deep down, you’ll always know you were the cause of your own downfall.
“And you fucking deserve it. For everything you did to Dae. For what you tried to do to him that day. You deserve everything that’s coming your way.”
That earns me a smack across the face. My ears ring from the pain that vibrates across the other side of my face. The taste of copper pennies fills my mouth.
I spit out the blood onto Park’s shoes.
“How about you undo these fucking ropes and try that again?” I challenge.
His eyes narrow on me.
“Hey, man,” Nicole’s ex says from across the room. “I-I think there’s trouble,” he tells him as he looks out of the blinds of one of the windows.
“Shut up!” Daniel barks at him, not even looking his way. “Now I’m beginning to see what that bastard stalked you for all of those years,” he tells me. “You fight his battles for him.” He snorts. “I knew taking you instead of him was a good move. You’re his weakness. Getting rid of you would hurt him more than anything else I could do to him.”
He pulls out a gun from the back of his pants.
“Daniel, something is happening—”
“I said shut the hell up!” Park screams at Michael. He aims the gun at me. “Any last words you want me to tell Dae for you?” he taunts.
“No, just two for you,” I say, looking him in his eyes despite the thundering of my heartbeat in my ears. “Fuck. You.”
“Bitch,” he curses at the same time he cocks the gun.
I close my eyes, but that’s when all hell breaks loose. The door bursts open, and there are pounding footsteps, followed by screams.
Two male screams, to be exact.
My eyes pop open when someone calls my name, and I feel hands pulling at the ropes around my wrists. I peer down.
“Uncle Brutus?”
He smiles up at me as my arms fall free. He moves to the ropes at my ankles.
There’s chaos all around me. I look before me at where Daniel Park was standing moments ago. He’s not there. Instead, he’s on the floor, a body over top of him, wailing on him.
Though his head is turned away from me, focused on his target, I would know Dae anywhere.
“Dae,” I call out.
He stills for a beat before rising to his feet. The malice on his face vanishes when he turns and then rushes to me, wrapping me in his arms.
I squeeze my eyes shut as I bury my face into the crook of his neck.
“You came,” I say, my voice trembling. Only in his arms do I feel safe enough to express the fear I truly felt staring down the barrel of Daniel Park’s gun.
He cups my face. “For you? Always.”
I squeeze him to me, inhaling his scent as that feeling of safety wraps around me.
“I need to take care of—” Dae says, as he turns to face Daniel Park, who’s still on the floor.
Park attempts to sit up. Dae starts to lunge for him but he’s stopped.
“No,” a familiar voice says. “We’ll take care of this bastard.”
“Daddy?”
My father looks me over, his already scowling face darkening even more, presumably from the bruising on my face.
He brushes past Dae and pulls me into his arms, almost squeezing the air out of my lungs. A slight tremble passes through him.
“Baby girl,” he mumbles in my ear. I can feel his fear.
“I’m okay, Daddy,” I assure him.
He squeezes me tighter before letting me go. “You need a doctor.”
“I’m fi—” I start to say, but Dae cuts me off.
“We’re going to the doctor who’s waiting for us.” His arms tighten around my body. “Let’s get you out of here,” he says, ushering toward the door.
“Wait, Nicole,” I say, trying to pull away from him. “She—”
“We’ve got her,” my Uncle Brutus tells me, coming up beside us. “We’ll take care of her and everyone else.”
I don’t have time to ask what that means before I’m ushered out of the door, in Dae’s strong embrace.
I follow him willingly. My head throbs, but with Dae’s arms wrapped around me underneath the watchful eye of my father and my Uncle Brutus, I feel safer than I ever have.
I give in to their wishes to take care of me.