Chapter Five
Salvatore
I should have ripped that fucker limb from limb, and I’ll regret not taking him out then and there forever. Even if Mara was a horrid bitch, you don’t force yourself on women.
That was my rule.
Mara scared the crap out of me. She wasn’t scared or sad, but instead, there was excitement in her eyes. Being battered and bruised had made her bolder.
“Fine. Let’s go. Once we get out that door, I’m in charge,” I said.
“Yes, sir,” Mara said and fake saluted me. “But remember, this has got to look real.”
“It looks like your boyfriend here helped us get a head start with that.”
She punched me right in the gut. “Fuck you, asshole. He was not my boyfriend.”
I don’t know what came over me, but I snapped. It was as if my hands acted on their own. I reached up and took her by the neck. Mara laughed as I shoved her into the wall and put the plastic cuffs around her wrists.
“Oh yeah, Daddy. That’s how I like it,” she taunted.
I spun her around and slammed her back into the wall harder than I intended. “Mara, you have to stop. If we’re going to make it out of this alive, you have to cooperate at least a little.”
She spit in my face and headbutted me.
“Enough,” I growled and picked Mara up.
I threw her over my shoulder and held her down with one hand as she thrashed and tried to bite me through my leather jacket. I suddenly wished I’d brought a gag. I had no idea she was going to fight so hard. It crossed my mind for a moment to drop her and leave her on the yacht.
Instead, I held her tighter and walked through the bedroom door. The party was raging at the other end of the yacht, and the only resistance I met getting off the boat was from Mara trying to beat the shit out of me.
None of them even turned their heads until we were on the sidewalk, moving down toward the car. By then, I just had to jog to the car to get away from her screaming friends. I almost went deaf, though, because once Mara knew her friends were watching, she started screaming bloody murder as well.
I opened the passenger door and tossed her into the seat. As I was slamming the door closed, she demanded that I uncuff her. I ignored her and went around to the driver’s side. Once I was in, she demanded again that I free her hands.
“Fuck you, princess,” I said. “You can stay that way until we get to the cabin.”
“How far is it?” she whispered, and I smiled because I could tell Mara knew she wasn’t in control.
“It’s about a ten-hour drive from here if we don’t stop.”
“And you’re going to leave me cuffed the whole time? You’re a dick,” Mara said.
“I’m going to find something to gag you with too if you don’t shut your mouth,” I snarled, but I kinda hoped she didn’t listen, because I had something I really wanted to stuff in between her pouty lips.
Six hours in and Mara began whining about needing to pee. I tried to ignore her, but eventually she said I either needed to get her to a bathroom or she’d pee in my car.
I pulled off the road at a truck stop and pulled a switchblade out of my console. “Don’t draw attention to us,” I said as I cut the plastic cuffs from her wrist.
It was then that it occurred to me that there was no way Mara wasn’t going to draw attention. Even if she hadn’t been dressed in a red sequined micro dress and sky-high heels, a beautiful woman like her always turned heads. It didn’t help that she had bruises and red marks.
I hoped that the truck drivers would mind their own business. I didn’t need a brawl with a bunch of angry men because that was the kind of thing that drew police attention.
“I’m going to take a piss and then buy us a soda. I’ll keep the clerk’s attention on me. If any of the truckers stop you, tell them you’re an amateur boxer.”
Mara’s shoulders slumped, and she pulled her hair down so that it covered most of her face. She took my hand and we walked into the brightly-lit building like a couple. We split up at the restrooms, and I hurried so that I could get back out to the convenience store and distract the clerk.
I pulled my black baseball cap down to ensure my face was covered. We were still several hours from my cabin, so it wouldn’t matter if they caught me on camera there, but it was better not to take any chances.
After I paid for our drinks, Mara came out of the restroom and I met her at the exit doors. She took my hand again, and we walked casually back to the car. As far as I could tell, no one even noticed us, and it was good to finally have something go smoothly.
Back in the car, Mara held her wrists out to me as if she expected me to put plastic cuffs on her again. “You’re paying me to do this, remember? No one’s watching. There’s no reason for me to bind your wrists.”
“Okay,” Mara said, and I thought for a moment she might have been disappointed.
The next three and a half hours of the drive were uneventful. I was almost certain that Mara even dozed off for a while. We got to the point where I planned on ditching the car, and I pulled the car off the road.
Mara stirred from her nap. “Are we there?” she asked sleepily and stretched.
“Not quite, cupcake. We’ve got a bit of a hike. There’s no road to the cabin, and I wouldn’t want to drive there anyway.”
“We have to walk? How long?”
“It’ll take a few hours. We should be there by dawn,” I said and popped the trunk.
“Fucking dawn? You’ve got to be kidding. Have you seen my shoes?” she shrieked.
“Mara, calm down. You hired me because I’m a professional. There’s jeans, shirt, jacket, wool socks, and hiking boots in my trunk. Hurry and change. We need to get going. There’s a backpack in there for you too. You can put your precious shoes in there if you want to keep them.”
She mumbled obscenities the entire time, but Mara got out of the car and changed her clothes. I turned my back and waited for her to finish. My instincts told me that she was cursing so much to draw my attention to her, but I wouldn’t play her games. If I wanted to look at Mara’s body, I would do it on my own terms.
The night air was cool, so the walk to the cabin wasn’t entirely unpleasant. There was plenty of moonlight, and we didn’t need our flashlights. Mara’s face was screwed up into a grimace as we traversed the woods. I could tell that she wanted to complain, but her pride kept her silent. That was a good thing because I was enjoying the quiet night walk, and her constant bitching would have ruined it completely.
My pulse quickened when I saw the cabin in the distance. It was a relief to see it still standing. That meant that the men hunting me probably didn’t know about it. Yet.
When an old business associate, who didn’t want to see me dead, tipped me off about the job kidnapping Mara, I knew I’d put the place to good use one last time before I left the country.
I’d wanted to swing by and check to be sure the old cabin was standing and secure on my way to meet with Mara, but it had been too far out of the way. I only had a day from the time that my associate told me about her contract to get to the meeting, and it was a long drive from my final assignment in Texas to the East Coast.
Mara waited at the tree line while I checked the cabin. All of my traps were still in place, and nothing outside had been disturbed either. I disabled the trap at the front door and motioned to Mara to follow me in.
She hurried to the front porch but stood in the doorway and peered into the cabin’s living area. Mara’s chest heaved and she didn’t even try to contain the sigh that escaped her lips.
“It’s not that bad. Wait you see it with the lights on,” I said and flipped the switch.
I suppose it wasn’t what she was accustomed to, but other than a little dust, I thought my retirement home was quite nice. It wasn’t a run-down shack in the woods by any stretch of the imagination. The furnishings were all high-end. We had running water and electricity. There wasn’t much to eat beyond canned goods and shelf-stable pantry items, but I hoped that we wouldn’t be there long. At least I’d kept the place stocked with some food in case of an emergency.
“That’s the problem,” she whined. “This place is too nice. It’s going to be hard to shoot a video of the horrible living conditions you’re keeping me in when this place looks like a resort.”
“Don’t worry. There’s a basement. And if you don’t quit your bellyaching, I’ll lock you down there for real.”