CHAPTER 19 MANNY
MANNY
Oz offered to drive us to Mamá’s house. He’d borrowed one of the cars from Wonderhaven, and since it was much larger and nicer than my crappy Subaru, we decided to take that.
After we dropped Mamá and Eloise off, Oz would drive me to work, so I messaged Cassandra to meet us at the hospital.
Oz tried to tell me he could do hospital guard duty as well as Cass could, but I pointed out that he needed to rest, and Cassandra needed her paycheck. He grumbled but agreed.
While we—okay, Oz—put the suitcases in the trunk of the sedan, Mamá and Eloise told us how nice Arch was and how they were so glad I had two wonderful men to look after me.
“I don’t need keepers,” I whined. Oz made a snorting sound, but I ignored him.
Mamá patted me on the arm as she got into the rear passenger seat. “You have too much energy for just one boyfriend. I will have to thank Rory for showing you the way to do it.”
“Rory! Excuse you—"
A big black SUV screeched to a stop at the end of the driveway. I spun around to face it, but Oz yelled, “Get in the house!” He charged toward the SUV as people with guns piled out and a second one pulled up in the middle of the street behind it.
I turned and ran toward the gate, but a Wonder with a gigantic assault rifle stepped onto the sidewalk in front of me. I turned to look behind me and six other thugs had their weapons pointed at Oz, Mamá, and Eloise. Slowly I put my hands in the air.
“Please hand over your phone and come with us, Mr. Moreno.” A Wonder—a shifter of some kind—gestured me toward the first SUV. His hair was slicked back and he looked down his nose at me like a Bond villain from the seventies or eighties.
“Okay, just don’t hurt them.”
He smiled, showing all of his teeth. “Don’t worry, they’re coming with us too.” He pointed at Oz. “You. What kind of shifter are you?”
Oz pointed at his throat and shook his head. One of the goons lifted his gun, and I panicked. “Don’t shoot him! He can’t talk when he’s stressed out! He’s a badger shifter, okay?”
The asshole in front of me smirked. “How adorable.” He pointed at his men. “You three, get him and follow. The rest of you, put the women in the back with us.”
At least we were all being taken to the same place. I glanced around. Now would be a great time for Grandpa Blackbourne or Garfield to show up. No neighbors on the street either, so Ramon Fortuno couldn’t help, and this wasn’t the type of neighborhood where someone would call the cops.
They tossed our phones into Oz’s car, then I was forced to stand with two guns pointed at me while Oz was dragged into the second SUV.
He gave me an agonized look as they yanked him past me, his eyes wild like he was on the verge of flipping out.
Fuck, being kidnapped again had to be his worst nightmare.
No doubt we’d end up in front of that vampire, which would make it even worse.
Once Oz was secured in the SUV, Mamá and Eloise were prodded out of the sedan. Dammit, they didn’t have anything to do with this. If one of them got hurt, well, I wasn’t sure what I could do, but I’d find something.
“Don’t give in, Manolo. Whatever they want, don’t give it to them!” Mamá stumbled as one of the goons shoved her.
“Hey! Take your hands off her!” I clenched my fists, impotent and frustrated.
When Mamá and Eloise were in the rear seats, I was poked with guns myself until I got into the second row. I looked behind me. “I’m so sorry y’all got caught up in this.”
Mamá and Eloise’s eyes were full of questions, but they kept silent. Probably a good plan for me as well. I hoped Oz was cooperating. Getting beat up wouldn’t help anything.
The asshole in charge of this little group sat in the front passenger seat. He texted someone as we drove away, no doubt letting his boss know his mission was successful.
“Boss, we’ve got a tail!” The driver jerked the steering wheel and we careened around a corner.
Out the window another black SUV had joined our caravan.
It wasn’t as big as Arch’s, but Ramon had some like this one.
Was it one of his men? The new SUV pulled up alongside the one carrying Oz, but the goons in that car rolled down their windows and pointed guns at the interlopers.
Fuck, I didn’t want Oz in the middle of a firefight.
The other SUV fell back and didn’t follow us around the next corner. Well, shit.
We drove for about twenty minutes. They weren’t taking any precautions to keep me, Mamá, or Eloise from seeing where we were going, though I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant.
We’d just turned onto a road leading to a run-down business park when Mamá yelped.
I spun around and caught a glimpse of Garfield’s naked ass before he popped out of view.
Relief almost made me dizzy. Garfield would tell Arch, and, as much as I didn’t want him to worry, I also wanted him to come rescue us.
Eloise’s face was white. Had she seen Garfield too? I looked into Mamá’s wide-eyed gaze and grinned. “I forgot to tell you, as Rory’s family we get special benefits.”
Understanding dawned, and she must’ve realized that help would be on the way, because she gave me a shaky smile and nodded. Then she leaned against Eloise, putting her head on her shoulder. Eloise lifted her chin at me. She’d keep Mamá safe as best she could.
I turned to face the front, and my heart rate spiked as we pulled up next to the loading dock at the rear of one of the warehouses. Hadn’t Arch said Oz had been held in a warehouse? The auctioneer stuck with what he knew.
We were forced out of the car at gunpoint, and I was relieved to see Oz get out of the other SUV.
Hopefully Garfield had visited him too. He scanned me, probably making sure I wasn’t injured either.
His face was sprouting small tufts of fur.
I hoped he could keep from shifting, because I doubted they’d let me heal him if he got shot.
“This way.” Bond villain guy led our little parade through a door and into a large open warehouse area.
Mamá was behind me, then Eloise, then Oz.
Each of us had one or two goons pointing their guns at us.
On the right side of the big room was another door, and we went through that and down another hall.
I looked at the Wonder holding a gun to my side.
“Do you enjoy betraying other Wonders? I hope they’re paying you enough to make it worthwhile. ”
“Silence!” Bond villain guy sounded pissed, and I hadn’t even been speaking to him.
We were led down another hallway, but this one had prison-like cells along one side, all thankfully empty. They were stark, just a cement floor with a drain, a toilet, and a metal cot attached to one wall. I wanted badly to turn around and check on Oz, but I didn’t want to draw attention to him.
The hallway dead-ended into a sort of reception room with a desk on one side and a set of double doors opposite. The double doors were metal, though, not glass, so I guessed they didn’t lead outside.
Standing next to the desk was a man, a magic carrier with one enormous but very weird connection coming off his black-laced magical core. He was about my height with dark hair and an obnoxious smirk. If he’d been taller, he would’ve made almost as good a Bond villain as the Wonder in front of me.
The man’s smirk widened. “Really, Mr. Moreno? A Bond villain? Surely you could come up with something more original to describe me.”
I couldn’t stop my mouth from falling open. He’d read my mind? This had to be the guy bonded to the vampire. Was telepathy something vampires had?
He scoffed. “As if vampires would have a skill as refined as telepathy. Their talents are more brute force, like mesmerizing people.” His eyes bored into mine. “Take the gun on your left and put it to your mother’s forehead.”
What? In disbelief and horror I watched myself reach to my left.
The Wonder guarding me handed over his gun, some sort of semiautomatic assault rifle.
The metal was cold, and the gun was heavy.
I fought it as much as I could, but my body turned around to face my mother.
Somewhere off to the right I heard Eloise whimper.
My breath sawed in and out of my lungs. “Mamá, run!”
The Wonder to her right put his gun against her temple. Tears welled out of her eyes, and her lips trembled. “Te amo, Manolo.”
My hands gripped the gun, but I’d actually never held one before. And, come to think of it, he hadn’t specified.... I held the gun out with my right hand and pressed the side of it to Mamá’s forehead.
The man—the auctioneer, the fucking trafficker—sighed heavily. “Cute. Point the barrel at your mother’s forehead and put your finger on the trigger.”