Isla
Dave is quiet as we drive. I hate going to his house, but I know Dad will feel better to know I’m there. Dave may creep me out these days with his glances at my boobs and his extra hugs, but I’ve known him all my life. He’s my dad’s best friend. I’ve simply been overly paranoid about him, and my total mistake about trusting Ethan shows me I’ve not got very good instincts when it comes to judging people. Plus, his housekeeper, Sally, will be there, and I’ve known her for years. We get on well, and maybe some girly talk and a big old tub of ice-cream is what I need right now.
He takes a left turn, and I’m confused. This direction heads more toward York, rather than his place.
“Uncle Dave?” I turn to him.
“I need to pick something up, honey. I won’t be long.”
“Okay.” I settle back in my seat and close my eyes.
Ten minutes later, we pull up at a big warehouse complex. I don’t think this is part of their business holdings, but they buy and sell property so quickly I can’t always be sure.
“Come on.” He climbs out of the car and gestures me to go with him.
I crack open my door. “Don’t you want me to wait here?”
“Ah.” He looks around. “It’s not the best area, honey. And after what’s happened to you…I’d feel better if you come inside.”
I climb out of the car, and shiver. It’s a cold, miserable day, and I miss the sun. I miss Ethan. Against my better judgement I miss him. He showed me what life could be like if I let someone else in and lived a little. But he lied. He told me he’d finished with all that, and then told Selina he’d see her soon.
My phone vibrates, and I pull it out of my pocket as Dave fiddles with a number pad on the door of the warehouse. It’s from Ethan. I scan the message quickly.
Isla,
You’re in danger. I know you read the message from Selina, and right now you don’t trust me but you need to trust me. Don’t let Dave see you reading this.
I meander slowly away from Dave, pretending to go look over the fence at the housing estate beyond. Dave curses behind me and jabs at a button that makes a buzzing noise. Some sort of intercom.
Heart pounding. I read the rest of Ethan’s text.
I told Selina I’d be back to work because I didn’t want anyone to know you were staying with me, and I didn’t want them to know anything was going on between us. It puts you in danger. Selina used to be involved in a man who is working with Dave Dunn. They are trying to take your dad down. They set you up, Isla. They also set me up. Selina used to date that man, and his name is Rick Smythe. You were right, someone was after me, too. This was aimed at both of us.
There’s a pause and then more text comes through.
I’m praying you’re not with Dave, but if you are, can you get away from him? If so, try. If not, I’m coming for you.
Dave, if you have her phone and read this, harm one hair on her head and you’re dead.
I don’t know who or what to trust. I feel out of my depth, totally at sea. All these men, and none of them are stand up citizens. Ethan could be telling the truth, or he might be trying to trick me again.
I shove the phone back in my pocket with trembling fingers. I know the name Rick Smythe. I met him once. Odious man, short and smarmy, with a pot belly. He wore a thick gold ring on his pinkie finger and slicked his hair back like something out of the Sopranos. He introduced himself to me at a function a couple of years ago and tried to chat to me. Dad pulled me away. Told me not to talk to him.
“Sorry. Was dealing with a call from our Eastern Connection.” A voice rings out of the intercom.
“Open the fucking door,” Dave snaps.
The voice on the intercom and the way Uncle Dave speaks back to him make my mind up. Something’s off here. The guy on the intercom sounds like Smythe from what I remember of him.
I don’t wait to see if I’m right. I turn tail and run, heading for the entrance we’ve just driven through. Dave sees and curses under his breath, and then he’s running after me.
“Isla, honey, where are you going? It’s not safe. Come back here. Your dad will be angry with you. He’ll kill me. We won’t be here long.”
I ignore his words and turn left to zip down an alley, but the ground is uneven and full of potholes and I go over on my ankle, crying out as it twists painfully and I hit the ground. I’m scrambling against broken glass and dirt and grit, trying to get myself up, and cutting my hands, when a hand grabs my arm painfully hard.
Jerked upright, I cry out again as Dave slaps me. I’m stunned and can only stare at him.
“Come on, you stupid bitch.” He drags me with him and I start to struggle, kicking and screaming.
“Shut the fuck up.” He punches the side of my head and I see stars.
Pain bursts behind my eyes, and it disorientates me. For a long moment, I can’t fight or speak as I reel from the blow. It’s all he needs to get me back to the door. It’s open now, and there’s Rick Smythe. Even more disgusting than I remembered. What the hell did Selina see in this guy? Ugh.
“Well, well, well. You’ve turned into a hot little thing, haven’t you?” He looks me up and down. “Tiny little thing but lovely big tits.”
He looks at Dave and grins. “We can have some fun with her if Daddy doesn’t do as he’s told.”
Dave drags me into the warehouse and pushes me forward so hard I go sprawling on my knees onto the floor. My ankle is screaming, my hands are cut and bloodied, my head throbs and now my knees are sickeningly painful after hitting the ground hard.
“I could have already had some fun with her if you’d let me do the deed instead of hiring that idiot, Foston. And now look at the mess we’re in.”
I stare at Dave with tears in my eyes. I may have thought him a bit creepy but I’d never have believed he’d do something like this.
“Yes, well,” Rick snaps, “then I wouldn’t have had a chance to get back at Ethan as well, would I?”
“And how well it all turned out.” Dave rolls his eyes.
I pull myself up from the floor and back up until I hit the wall.
“It’s make or break time. You’re going to have to come clean about your involvement now,” Rick tells Dave. “We’ll call Pete and you can let him know that if he doesn’t do what we want then we’ll hurt this one here.”
I look around wildly. Maybe there’s somewhere I can run to? As I’m scoping out the place, a huge guy walks into the room from a door at the far end of the space. He’s massive. Like some sort of steroid-crunching monster. He must be at least six feet five. His body is insane. And not in a good way, but in an Incredible Hulk, bulging muscles full of veins way. And his face is ugly. Truly ugly. Hard and nasty, with beady eyes and a huge jaw. Two other big guys trail him, but nowhere near his size.
He swaggers over to us, wearing army style trousers, and a tight wife-beater top. Glancing at me, he drags a chair to the centre of the room and grabs me. “Go get the stuff.” He jerks his giant jaw at Rick. His voice is deep and accented.
Rick scuttles off, no longer the big guy, but a little weasel doing this man’s bidding.
He returns with a big bag.
“Sit down.” The man points at the chair.
I scowl at him. He sighs. “Don’t play games, pretty one, or I’ll make you less pretty.”
He pushes me down into the chair and I try to ignore the fear rising in me. His lines are like something out of a bad action movie, but I have no doubt he’ll do as he threatens, and I can find no amusement in his lack of imagination.
He quickly and efficiently ties me up. Then he goes away again, only to come back dragging a camera with him. He places it in front of me and sets it up.
Once he’s done that, he goes back to the bag. He takes out a piece of cloth and gags me with it. Immediately I start to panic. It’s awful, it hurts my mouth and throat, and makes me feel like I’m gagging. My eyes stream and I struggle to spit it out but I can’t. They don’t show this in the movies. They gag people who look a bit angry and do a few muffled screams and then quiet down. I think I’m going to die choking on this thing. I thrash in the chair and my nostrils are flaring as I try to get air in and stop the awful sensation of needing to throw up.
Strong fingers dig into my chin. “Calm down.” Those beady, ice-blue eyes consider mine. “You won’t choke on it if you calm down. Take slow breaths in through your nose.”
I try to do as he says, and at first, I can’t, but as I focus on trying to get a breath in and out, I find I can breathe. I still feel as if this thing is making me gag, but I can breathe.
“We won’t hurt you if your father does as he is told.” He tells me this with a solemn face. I make a noise through the cloth, trying to tell him that these men mean me harm. Uncle Dave wants to hurt me whether Dad does what they want or not. I know that with a sick certainty now. My eyes wide, I nod at the two men and stare their way, trying to get him to understand.
He looks to them and back to me. “They’re not in charge here. I am.”
Dave and Rick are arguing about something, and as the blond giant returns to messing with the filming equipment I tune into what they are saying.
“I think it’s best Pete doesn’t know my involvement, at least not yet,” Dave is saying.
Rick gives a groan of annoyance. “He’s going to find out the moment we let her go. Even if we don’t let her go, he’s going to find out once we talk to him. They want him to give his share of the business to you, you don’t think he’s going to figure it out in…oh, two seconds. Stop being such a pussy.”
Dave looks about ready to punch Rick, but he gives a curt nod.
“So, the plan is what?”
Rick points to the camera. “We film her, call him, show her tied up, and tell him she was nearly attacked, raped, and murdered a few nights ago. Tell him if he doesn’t transfer his share of the business to you with immediate effect, we’ll do worse to her. Tell him to get a lawyer and sign whatever he needs to so that things are in our hands. Then we’ll let her go. He goes to the police, he puts her in danger, he tries to weasel out of it--the same. He does this, comes back home and gets on with his life without telling a soul. He’ll still be a wealthy man by most people’s standards.”
“I don’t know. He might not do it,” Dave says. “He’s a stubborn bastard.”
Rick gives Dave an evil look, eyes narrowed and lips pursed. “You were the one who said we should go after her. You were the one who said she’s all he cares about. You better not have been lying just so you could be the one to get in her pants and scare her half to death. This goes wrong, it’s on you.”
“It goes wrong, it’s on both of you,” blond giant says.
I’m at a loss as to what the hell is going on. Why would Dave and this Rick go to such ridiculous lengths to get Dad to sign the business over? What has any of it to do with this blond dude?
“Look at you all scared and confused.” Dave comes over to me and smirks. “You’ve no clue, have you? Daddy dearest has been laundering money for the mob for years. He’s been up to it neck deep. The lovely house you live in? Paid for by laundered money. Money used to bring drugs, arms, and people into the country.”
It’s when he says people that I start to cry. I don’t believe him. No way would my dad do something as evil as get involved in anything to do with people trafficking. Crying makes it hard to breathe though, and I try to calm myself.
My phone vibrates in my pocket and I see Blondie stare at me and then shoot a livid look at Dave. His huge hands pat down my thighs and he pulls my phone out of my pocket. He swipes the screen and scowls, then he throws the phone at the wall and shouts something in a language I don’t understand.
“You didn’t think to check her pockets and take her phone from her?” he yells at Dave.
Dave rolls his eyes. “I needed her to come with me. How would I explain that, genius?”
The blond man slaps Dave across his face, sending him reeling, and I squeal behind the gag. The behemoth goes and picks up my phone and stamps on it, crushing it completely.
“We’re probably going to have company in a few minutes.”
“Shit. Who?” Dave asks.
“Who do you think, shithead?” Rick pushes past Dave and heads for some stairs in the middle of the room, leading up to an office with glass windows that look out over the warehouse.
“Is that gun still in the drawer up there?” he asks the giant.
The big guy grins and laughs. “Of course, but you don’t know how to use it. You’re more likely to shoot your foot than hit Ethan Foston. Watch her.”
And he goes jogging over to the stairs, taking them two at a time. I’m struggling and screaming now. If they’ve got a gun, they’ll kill Ethan, and I can’t let that happen. I jerk about so hard the chair falls to the ground and I hit my head hard on the floor. Pain bursts behind my eyes but I can’t let it distract me.
I’m moving my legs like crazy, trying to loosen the rope around them. It isn’t too tight at my ankles, the piece around my arms is so tight it hurts, but the blond guy did my ankles loose.
The door to the warehouse is only half closed and light is streaming in through the bottom. From my position on the floor, I see two cars pull up and three pairs of legs come pounding out of the vehicles and toward the warehouse.
Ethan!
I scream and scream trying to tell them to turn back, but the gag makes my cries useless.
Luka drops and rolls under the door and runs to the wall on the right, Ethan follows him, and the third person, some man I don’t know, rolls and goes to the left, followed at a dead run by the two big men flanking the blond giant.
As I’m watching this unfold, a huge bang rocks the space, followed by two more, and blinding white flashes out my vision. My ears are ringing and my eyes kill. What the hell? For a moment, I wait for the pain of an explosion to hit, but when it doesn’t I blink and try to focus. The room is full of smoke and I can’t see anything.
Struggling again with the rope around my ankles, I kick my shoe off and finally manage to wrench my already damaged ankle free. The pain of pulling it out of the rope makes me bite down against the gag. It burns my flesh, bad, even through my socks. I kick off my second shoe and the remaining bit of rope and try to get my bearings.
I hear shots ring out, and Ethan’s voice shouts out. “Stay down, Isla.”
I remain on the floor, every single cell of my body thrumming with the awareness of how exposed I am.
“Fucking give me the handgun,” Dave says to someone.
The smoke is clearing and I see Rick turning the dial on a safe I hadn’t noticed before. He draws out a handgun and instead of giving it to Dave, he aims it. I follow the line of the gun and see he’s trying to get a lock on Ethan through the rapidly clearing smoke. Ethan and Luka are moving along the back wall, both holding guns, which are trained at the office window up the stairs.
I glance up and see why. The giant has smashed the glass out, and has a rifle trained on me. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Put the gun down,” Ethan shouts.
“No, you put the gun down.”
“You shoot her and you’re dead. I don’t have a beef with you. We can work something out. Both walk away from this,” Ethan says.
The giant laughs. “I’m not scared of you. Do you know who I am?”
“No,” Ethan admits. “But I can guess what you are, and who you work for. And you’re wrong, you should be scared of me.”
The smoke has cleared even further, and Rick’s aiming the gun with a shaking hand right at Ethan. I see his finger tighten on the trigger, and with a scream I push up to my feet and run at him, the chair on my back. My ankle screams, but I don’t stop. I barrel into him.
A shot rings out, and I go down to the floor with Rick. The wind is knocked out of me, but the blond man didn’t shoot me, and I can only pray Rick didn’t get the shot off in time to hit Ethan.
Another shot rings out, and burning pain hits my side. Holy shit, that hurts. At first it feels like a sharp bee sting, but in mere seconds my lower back starts to burn as if on fire from the inside out.
“No, no, no.” I can hear someone shouting, and there’s more gunfire.
Someone pulls me up, and the world spins as I try to focus, but I’m feeling sick and panicky.
“Jesus, Isla. No.”
I try to tell him I’m okay. It burns, but I’m okay, only I can’t speak around the gag.
Gentle fingers pry it out of my mouth and I gasp and choke, then start coughing. Tears are streaming down my face and Ethan swipes at them with his thumbs.
“Keep looking at me, babe. Keep breathing, okay. You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be fine.” He says it like a litany and I try, I really do. But I’m tired, and I close my eyes.