Prologue
I was handcuffed to a piece of piping that was secured to the wall of the restaurant’s poorly lit basement. The smell of raw meat teased my nostrils. My stomach convulsed every few minutes despite my having grown used to the foul stench.
It had been two hours already. I didn’t have much time left, that much I knew. I followed him with my eyes as he paced the floor. When he paused at the door and cocked his head, I pressed my tongue against the roof my mouth and swallowed heavily.
“Do you really think you’re going to get away with this?” I asked.
He turned to face me, and glared. “Until he shows up, you’re mine. While you’re mine, you’ll keep your God damned mouth shut. If you don’t, I’ll stuff something in it.”
He’d be caught, I was sure of it. The brotherhood wouldn’t allow him to get away with kidnapping the girlfriend of one of their own. My concern was whether they’d catch him before he made good on his promise to cut off one of my fingers for each hour that Carter was late.
“He’ll be here,” I said, hoping I was right. “You don’t have to worry about that. But, do you really think he’s going to hand you a satchel of cash and walk away?”
He folded his arms across his chest. His jaw tightened. For the next ten minutes, he silently burned a hole through me with his laser sharp glare. I began to wonder if he was considering torturing me, or if he was thinking about what I’d said. Then, he broke the silence with an exhaustive sigh.
“I’ll cut the index finger off first. In case you’re wondering, it’ll be the one on your right hand. The one you use the most. That way, the next time – if there is a next time – you’ll make sure to convey the importance of being prompt to your boyfriend.”
He didn’t look like a drug dealer or a terrorist, but he was a little of both, according to Carter. To be brutally honest, he looked like Justin Timberlake – if J.T. went three months on a diet of Red Bulls, methamphetamines, and no showers.
I considered his promise to remove one of my digits. After little thought, I decided keeping my mouth shut was in my best interest. The two million dollars we’d taken from his organization was enough to make anyone angry, and the fact he’d promised it to one of Sinaloa’s head cartel members made negotiating with the end user all but impossible.
He cocked an eyebrow. “Nothing to say?”
I shook my head.
He glanced at his watch. “In case you’re wondering, he’s got an hour and fourteen minutes. Seventy-four minutes isn’t much time when you really stop to think about it.”
I considered counting the seconds in the same manner I did when I was a child. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand. I looked at my right hand. After studying my freshly painted fingernails, I decided I really didn’t want to know how much time was left.
Carter would come through. And, if my suspicions were correct, when he did, he’d have men on either side of him from Delta Iota Kappa.
His fraternity brothers were more than lifelong friends. They were truly brothers.
Several moments of silence followed, and then I began to count. He paced the floor while the minutes clicked away in my head. When, by my makeshift mental watch, there was five minutes left, worry enveloped me like a dense fog.
My captor walked to the table that was anchored to the far wall, removed the knife he’d threatened me with earlier, and then turned toward me. “This is going to be interesting.” He raised the knife and twisted it from side to side, admiring his reflection in the sheen of the polished blade. “Do you think you’ll bleed to death?”
I assumed he’d apply a tourniquet. If it came to that point, that is. My stomach knotted at the thought of him allowing me to bleed out. Sweat poured along my face. I completely lost track of where I was in my counting, but I would have sworn I have five minutes left.
At the instant I was going to speak, the door to my left blew off the hinges and there was a bright flash of light.
Deafened by the blast, and half blind, I turned toward the sound and blinked a few times. Through the smoke, men emerged.
On each of their shirts, three letters were visible. The three Greek symbols that identified Carter’s alma mater.
DIK.
The men of Delta Iota Kappa were jokingly referred to as Dicks. When crossed, Carter was just that, a dick.
My heart rose into my throat in anticipation of what the next few seconds held. Then, three muffled blasts came from the direction of the door.
Without a word, my captor fell onto the floor at my feet.
My gaze fell with him. Between his eyes, a half-inch diameter hole began to ooze blood. On his chest, two crimson spots slowly soaked the navy-blue shirt until they ran together into one big blob.
I shifted my eyes to Carter. “Nothing like cutting it close, asshole.”
“Clear!” a voice announced from behind him.
Another one from the opposite side of the room shouted the same thing. “Clear!”
Carter stepped to my side and glanced at the handcuffs. “Sorry,” he said. “We uhhm. We got a sandwich.” His eyes shot upward. “Have you eaten here?”
“No,” I snapped back, my tone snide. “I haven’t. I was too busy being tortured.”
He kicked the heel of his boot against the side of the man on the floor, rolling him onto his stomach. Then, he met my angry gaze.
“After we cut these cuffs off, maybe you should try it,” he said dryly. “The meatball sub is incredible.”
“Out of this world,” one of the other men agreed.
“You should leave me cuffed, asshole.” I gestured toward the knife that lay beside the dead man. “Because if you cut me loose, they might be making meatballs out of that big cock of yours.”
He leaned forward and kissed me dead on the lips. Despite the circumstances, awful odor, and the fact that a dead drug dealer was curled up at my feet, the kiss made my head spin and my pussy tingle.
It didn’t surprise me. Carter had that control on me since the day we met. Sixty seconds after I first laid eyes on him, I shot him in the chest with a stranger’s pistol.
Yeah, our relationship was one of those awkward Bonnie and Clyde types.
And, this is my story of how it all happened.