Courtney

MONIQUE AND THE RUSSIAN had remained blissfully silent for the trip, and Courtney spent the time considering her options. She had to run as soon as the opportunity presented itself. There was no other option. So, she was conserving her energy and praying like she had never prayed before. They traveled out of town a short way and pulled up to a ramshackle hunting cabin, where the Russian put the van into park and killed the engine.

"Get her out," he said with his heavy accent, "and cuff her to the radiator inside."

Monique stayed silent and only nodded before flicking the gun she still held trained on Courtney toward the door that the Russian was walking around to open. The three trudged into the abandoned one-room shack with no apparent electricity or visible habitation for at least a decade. Once they stepped through the door, Monique grabbed a pair of handcuffs from the Russian and slapped one to her right hand before dragging her to the radiator and latching the other cuff to one of the thick rusted pipes. She was thankful that Katy had her bridesmaids wore boots rather than heels because this whole situation would have been a million times worse in needle-thin stilettos.

Courtney took in as much as she could of the radiator, and her heart fell when she saw that the pipes were bolted into the floor and there was absolutely no way she was going to be able to pull it loose.

Instead of leaning over the radiator the way that she was, she used her free hand and flattened the skirt of her dress under her before taking a seat on the mostly dirt floor.

The Russian walked over to her and crouched down to her before speaking, "I call your man, you scream, and it won't be so bad, yes?"

Courtney gaped at him.

He wants me to scream for Cole? Why?

"But—"

Monique stomped over to her, yanked her back by her topknot, and practically spit in her face. "You scream, chienne. Or we make you."

As soon as the other woman released her hair, she turned her gaze back to the scary man and was chilled to her depths when he shrugged. "Either way, you scream, eh?"

Then he pulled out his phone and dialed a number. She heard Cole's clipped voice answer the call, and the Russian spoke, "You did not keep your word, Mr. La Barron. So, now I have a little insurance, yes?"

Cole immediately started yelling, and Courtney could hear him, panicked and angry, and she resolved not to scream. But she could warn him, and she did. "Cole! They hurt Clint! Go find Clint!"

The Russian looked at her in shock, and then he backhanded her so nonchalantly that he could have been flicking away an annoying fly. Still, she fought against making any noise. She had to trust that Cole would have heard her and would save his brother.

Holding the phone to his ear, the Russian grabbed Courtney by the hair and yanked her toward him, muttering, "You will scream."

Steadfastly, she bit down on her lip and refused to make a single sound. In frustration, he released her hair and backhanded her again. The force caused her to bite through her lip, and blood leaked down her chin. Still, she remained silent. This angered him, so he grabbed her around the throat, squeezing until she saw stars, and though she couldn't stop the gasp that broke through her bloodied mouth, she didn't so much as whimper. When she was on the verge of passing out from a lack of oxygen, he released her and watched her, cocking his head curiously. Cole continued to yell through the phone, but Courtney made not that first sound as she regarded her torturer in abject curiosity, waiting to see what he would do next. Nausea roiled in her stomach when he grinned, and she saw that he was missing teeth; the grin only made him look even more sinister than he already had. Then he snapped, stood, and reached into his pocket. She knew when he pulled out the pocket knife that she should have screamed, but from the sadistically pleased look on his face, she also knew it was way too late.

He flipped open the pocket knife and winked at her before resuming his crouched position next to her and taking hold of her handcuffed hand. For the first few seconds, she was able to hold out and not scream, but self-preservation and intense pain, the like of which she had never felt, quickly overwhelmed her, and she screamed herself into unconsciousness. The last thing she heard was a satisfied Russian voice saying, "Now, moy drug, my guns?"

Monique was laughing. She wondered how someone as good as Cole had gotten tied up with someone as evil as the French woman and her Russian counterpart, but then she slipped into blissful relief.

***

WHEN SHE CAME TO, SHE realized that several hours had passed and she was gagged and cuffed to a bed in what appeared to be a cheap motel room. She looked around and saw Monique sitting in a chair a couple of feet from where she lay, but the man was nowhere to be seen. Monique paused in filing her nails and smiled when she saw that Courtney was awake. "Ah, cherie, I see you are finally awake. Shall I keep you company while these men take care of the dreadful business?"

Courtney didn't so much as blink, but Monique still drew her chair closer and spoke again in her heavy accent, "When I saw you, I did not know that you would be so useful. I just needed Cole to get me out. He married me, in name only, to get me, how do you say, emergency citizenship? He did not want to, but his boss told him he must. If not, then he would go to prison. Treason. Tsk tsk. Then I saw you and the game, well, it changed, no? The day I saw you, I knew I could have so much more, so I gave Cole the whiskey, and when he was asleep, I stripped us both and told him we had made love. Easy as that, he comes with me and you are no more." She dusted her hands together to show how quickly she had gotten rid of the competition. "My lover, he did not know that I was carrying his baby, so I told Cole that it was his." She lifted an eyebrow and smirked as if she expected Courtney to admire her cunning behavior. "He took another contract, and I had the baby. When he saw it was not his, I had met mon amie, Alexie, and we work together. Later, I gave Cole his divorce, but other plans were in place." She shrugged. "Either way, I win."

Several things hit Courtney at once, but she struggled not to let it show on her face. First and foremost was that the pinky on her right hand hurt so bad she was terrified to look at it, in fear that she would be missing part of the digit. Second, Cole wasn't a father. He hadn't slept with this woman, and her father had been right. And for some reason, Cole felt he had needed to marry her to get her emergency citizenship.

Before Monique could say anything further, they both heard someone moving the doorknob, and then the Russian, who she now knew was named Alexie, stalked in. "All is in place. The switch will take place in thirty minutes. When I have my guns, you get your money, and we are no more." This he said to Monique, who nodded and went back to filing her nails saying, "Then we wait, no?"

He never glanced at Courtney, and she was ok with that. It seemed her role in this whole thing was done. He sat down and then immediately jumped back to his feet when the door he had walked through moments before exploded off its hinges and smoke filled the room following a loud bang. Courtney screamed now, but it was useless with the gag silencing her. No one would be able to hear her over the commotion.

A dark shape rushed into the room and fired once at the Russian, dropping him where he stood. Monique was scrambling to her feet while reaching to the table beside her to grab the gun she had set aside, but before her fingers could brush it, the same person fired once at her and she fell as well.

The person rushed the bed, and Courtney freaked. She couldn't handle any more. She was about to die in some drug deal slash terrorist plot gone awry. Her feet were shuffling against the coverlet on the bed, trying to gain traction while she screamed into the gag, trying to move away from the person approaching her in the smoke. Somehow, she heard her name. It was enough to cause her to pause, and then she sagged into the mattress as Cole leaned in on one knee and without asking her how she was or anything, reached into her hair and pulled loose one of the bobby pins long forgotten from her early morning hairstyle session in preparation for her friends’ wedding. Deftly, he bent the pin and shoved it into the keyhole on the cuff attached to her hand and wiggled it. Immediately, it released, and he swept her into his arms, and without even removing her gag, he turned and jogged out of the room with her in his arms.

For the second time that day, he watched as paramedics loaded someone he couldn't live without into an ambulance, and for the second time that day, he put on the flashers of Courtney's truck and chased the ambulance as fast as he could.