***
I woke up with my mouth tasting funny.
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth like it did when I drank way too much the night before.
But I knew I hadn’t done that last night.
Then the feeling of metal surrounding my wrists made me realize that something wasn’t right.
My eyes slowly opened, and the sudden, bright light seared my brain.
I groaned as I tried to control the nausea that started to boil in my stomach.
“Ahh, glad to see you’re not dead. I shot you with twice as much tranquilizer as I should have because I didn’t want to take the chance that you’d wake up before we got here.”
The man’s snide comments made me force my eyes open again, even though I only wanted to leave them closed and die.
Liam.
Wonderful.
“What do you want?” I slurred.
Liam smiled.
“It’s time that I repay you for the mutilation you so kindly provided me,” he said, fingering a raised pink scar on his cheek.
I wanted to laugh.
Instead, I looked down, recognizing the bulge of a phone in my pocket, making me realize that the only thing he’d stripped from me was the gun that was at the small of my back in a pancake holster.
Stupid.
Very stupid.
And sloppy.
But I wouldn’t need much.
The first explosion of pain only made me more determined.
“So you don’t want to do a fair fight? I, at least, allowed you to have your hands free,” I spat blood on the floor.
I ran my tongue over my teeth, a little too thankful that the blow didn’t knock any of them loose.
I’d managed to make it throughout my whole life keeping my teeth in my head and that was a miracle.
I’d be damned if this man fucked up my streak.
Liam growled.
“Don’t you ever stop talking?” He demanded.
I shrugged.
“Yeah, when I’m fuckin’ my woman. Then I let my body do the talking,” I taunted.
Liam’s eyes narrowed.
“That’s not what I heard you say in the camera feed I had my boys hack into…quite the dirty mouth you have.”
Do not react. Do not react. Do not react.
I repeated that mantra to myself, even when I wanted to break my own fucking hands to get to the fucker in front of me.
“Quite the fat ass you have there,” Liam said. “Curves like Annie’s aren’t in. In fact, I would call her more cow-like than curvy. Even though you tell her she’s beautiful. Tell me,” he smiled. “What’s it feel like to put your cock into somebody that disgusting?”
Do not react. Do not react. Do not react.
I reacted.
I couldn’t help it.
I smiled.
And Liam pulled out his brass knuckles.
“Let’s see who’s laughing in just a few minutes when I make your face unrecognizable for your mother,” he said.
This hit hurt exceptionally more.
Partly because he’d hit me with the brass knuckles, and partly because he’d hit me against my temple instead of my jaw.
Stars started to blur my vision, but I still had the smile on my face.
Fucker couldn’t take that from me.
I’d keep smiling until it killed me.
“So, tell me,” I said during one of Liam’s breaks. I was making him winded, and his knuckles were bleeding. Although, some of the blood was mine, but not all. “Why’d you send Jennifer to me?”
Liam pulled a white handkerchief out of his pocket and started to wipe the blood off his hand.
“Before, it was all about you being a DEA agent, and us learning what we could from having someone on the inside. But then we found out you were the baby billionaire of Konn Vodka. We figured out really quick that the quick cash would come from you and what we could get daddy to give us in exchange for not killing you,” Liam Cornell snarled. “But now it’s all personal. You fucked up doing what you did.”
I wanted to laugh.
My father wouldn’t pay a damn thing for me.
He trained me since I was old enough to follow directions how to fight.
Vitaly, if you’re ever in the situation where you are held for ransom, you show them why it was a stupid idea to do so. You learn how to fight. You practice. You execute. You get out of that situation, because if the time ever comes that you are taken, you won’t find me paying them at the other end. Because they won’t give you back to me if I pay them. It doesn’t work like that.
No, my father wouldn’t come.
But my brothers would.
And then I’d be free to get these fuckers off my wrists, and end what I should’ve finished months ago.
“Why the long look?” Liam asked, shoving the soiled linen into his pants pocket.
I shrugged as best as I could.
“My dad won’t be giving you any money. You got nothin’ with Jennifer, mostly because she was nothing to me,” I said, closing my eyes. “And as for the beating you part, I regret that.”
Liam’s eyes narrowed.
“Is that right?” He asked smoothly.
I smiled.
He narrowed his eyes.
“That’s right. I would’ve taken you out completely had I known you were going to pull this shit. But I’ll remedy that in a little bit when my brothers get here,” I explained.
His fists clenched.
“You don’t have any brothers,” he countered.
“Is that what you think?” I challenged him.
He nodded. “I’ve had you thoroughly checked out. You have a mother and a father, as well as a grandmother that means very much to you. A girlfriend. A child on the way. But no brothers.”
I closed my eyes once again and tried to blank out the pain.
It didn’t work, especially when Liam pushed me over, chair and all.
My hands were tied behind my back, so when he pushed me backward, all of my upper body weight landed on my arms and hands.
It felt delightful.
Not.
My right shoulder screamed, and I knew instantly it was out of socket.
That’d be a bitch to get put back.
My left hand also felt slightly off, which probably meant it was broken, thanks to the metal cuffs and the awkward tilt to my hand where it’d been secured.
On the bright side, however, the wooden slats on the chair broke, freeing my arms.
And although it’d hurt like a motherfucker, I’d be able to get my hands in front of me since my shoulder was dislocated.
Which was going to happen earlier than I thought it would seeing as Liam’s phone rang.
He left without doing anything else to me, and I waited about twenty seconds after the door closed, then rolled.
The pieces of wood from the broken chair rolled free, and I stood up on a wave of pain.
Vision blurring, I slowly worked my hands under me, one leg at a time, until they were no longer behind me.
Bile rising in my throat, I walked determinedly to the far wall where there was a pillar for support.
Then, gritting my teeth, I roughly slammed my arm into the wall.
It didn’t pop in until the third attempt, and a blast of pain roared through me at the accomplishment.
My knees started to buckle, but the door to the side of me started to open, and it took every bit of strength I had left to launch myself.
Unfortunately, it was one of the good guys, and not Liam.
Lucky for me, Casten decided not to completely annihilate me.
He only threw me over his shoulder, or tried to.
The cuffs around his neck held strong, and although I was seconds away from vomiting, I managed to let go before I did any more damage to myself or Casten.
“Motherfucker,” Casten growled. “Why’d you have to go and do that?”
He was rubbing his neck, and I wanted to laugh.
However, I knew if I laughed, I’d be in too much pain afterward to make my body move.
“You take care of him?” I asked, sitting as still as I possibly could.
“Negative,” he said, closing the door.
He helped me to my feet, then surveyed my face.
“You look good,” he lied.
I winked at him.
“I’m trying some new makeup,” I grunted as I got my feet firmly on the ground beneath me. “Got a gun?”
He pulled a handcuff key out of his pocket, quickly removed the cuffs, and then shoved my own Glock into my hand.
The familiar weight of it felt heavenly.
“Annie?” I asked.
“Fine. Got a call from Wolf, then followed your signal here,” Casten said, answering my next question before I’d even asked it.
I nodded.
“Wolf still on the line?” I asked, checking the gun’s chamber.
Still loaded with my hollow points.
Good.
“Yeah, listened the entire time you got your face rearranged,” Casten replied almost soundlessly.
He went to the door, listened, and then opened it with nary a sound.
He pulled out a compact that looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t make my brain work long enough to figure out exactly where it’d come from.
I probably had a concussion…among other things.
“Clear,” Casten said.
I followed him, keeping my back to him as I cradled the gun in my good hand, but bad arm.
The shot wouldn’t be pretty, and it’d hurt like a mother, but it’d get done if I had to take anyone out.
Something I had to do a few moments later when we got into a boathouse, of all places.
It was a young man, one I remembered seeing on a flyer that’d crossed my office desk.
He’d been wanted for suspicion of selling drugs.
And the moment I saw him round the corner into the room we were standing in, I shot him in the leg.
I’d been aiming for the torso.
“Shit,” Casten said, rushing faster to the fallen man.
He removed the gun from the man’s back, did a quick tap down, and produced a set of keys.
Boat keys, to be specific.
“Bingo,” Casten said, standing up.
Then he took him out of the equation with a swift kick to the head that knocked him right the fuck out.
“Should’ve finished him,” I muttered, keeping an eye out.
Casten didn’t say anything.
I didn’t either.
We walked to the boat, Casten’s hands filled with two guns now, instead of just one.
“Gotta open the door and push off,” I said, gesturing for him to get into the boat.
He didn’t argue.
Instead, he got in, started the large boat up and waited for me to untie us.
It was a good thing, too.
Because, otherwise, I wouldn’t have seen the fucking trap door.
Catching Casten’s eyes, I gestured to the door, and then slipped through.
It was open, and I assumed that this was where the man Casten had taken down had been coming from when he rounded the corner and saw us.
I got down on my knees, leaning down to get a better look inside the opening, being sure not to put any weight on my bad arm.
And what I saw made my jaw drop.
“Holy Fuck.”
I looked up in time to see Casten take out the guy that’d tried to sneak up on my blind side.
“Fuck,” I said, quickly untying the boat.
Then I reached inside the trap door, grabbed a brick of marijuana, and tossed it up and over the bow of the boat.
Casten caught it, and I went to the garage door opener and hit the switch.
I should’ve known this had been too easy.
The next few minutes played out like a re-enactment of what happened at the OK Corral.
Gun fire was exchanged.
Bodies hit the ground.
The water.
Boats.
Luckily, Casten and I were good at what we did.
Hitting a moving target was a skill we’d both mastered.
These boys, however, probably had never shot at a moving target in their lives.
And it showed as they missed us, repeatedly.
Surprisingly, the only half way decent shot was Liam.
He hit above my head not once, but twice.
I dropped down to my belly and slipped into the water that was rolling with waves from all the boat traffic in the bay.
The salt in the water burned my injuries, and I was rethinking the wisdom of my decision to get in the water.
The hull of the boat protected me as I moved around the front of the boat, then down the other side.
Liam was still aiming at the spot where I’d been, which was his fatal mistake.
I aimed, then fired.
The difference between me and Liam…I didn’t miss.