Chapter 11

Always fuck me goodnight.

-Text from Coke to Cora

Cora

Apologies were the devil. I should’ve never gone over to his house to tell him how sorry I was for acting the way I did.

I should’ve stayed at home and felt sorry for myself, like I’d done for the week up until that point.

Except, I didn’t.

Instead, I’d gone over to Coke’s place, through the trees as was my usual, and had walked up to his house without a single thought or care.

I’d done it twice before, and nothing had happened.

I’d become complacent.

My dad had taught me better, and instead of utilizing my skills, I’d neglected to read the signs.

Now, as I sat where I sat, I realized that I should’ve gone about this in a completely different way. Maybe then I would be able to say I hadn’t gone down like a little bitch.

I stared at my captors, my eyes hard as granite, and plotted their demise.

They hadn’t truly done anything to harm me. In fact, other than scaring me and calling me names—filthy ones, yes—they hadn’t done anything that I couldn’t recover from.

My problem at this moment in time wasn’t necessarily that I was scared. It was because I was pissed.

Why was I pissed, you ask?

I was pissed because they thought I was a seventeen-year-old girl. Frankie. Coke’s daughter. And now I was being held for ransom.

What I was more pissed about was how they were treating me thinking I was a seventeen-year-old girl.

I imagine, had they stopped at the kidnapping, releasing me unharmed, I would’ve let them live.

However, they hadn’t stopped at just that.

They’d taken it a step too far, and even I was—admittedly—scared. Or I would have been had I not been trained by my father for this exact scenario.

That, and I was chipped like a dog.

Well, not exactly a dog. More like a car in case it was stolen.

See, my father and his buddies were in a business that was dangerous. And despite their precautions at preventing scenarios such as the one I currently found myself in, they also knew that in their line of work, this exact scenario was a possibility. Meaning they’d microchipped us with a transmitter. I’d been one of the only children of the compound that hadn’t complained about it.

After a mission gone wrong when I was fourteen, the suggestion had been offered to us by our parents. Every single child that was old enough to know what having the microchip meant—knowing where we were at any given time of the day if the tracker was turned on by our parents—had refused. Everyone except for me.

I was literally the only one that never left, so what did I care if they knew where I was at every second of every day?

I didn’t.

So, I knew I’d be rescued.

We hadn’t driven far from where I’d been taken.

A half hour at most.

Kilgore, where my father was, was an hour and a half from Hostel. At most, the farthest he was away from me was two hours.

The only problem was someone had to realize I was missing first. And I had hope that Coke would notice the mess I’d left in his shop in my haste to get away, and then, hopefully, he’d go looking for me—or at least a question to see if I’d heard anything going on at his place.

“When the boss gives the okay, then maybe you can sweet talk her. But until then, the little bitch goes unharmed. She’s worth a lot of money—and if we harm her, the boss won’t be pleased,” the guy in charge explained to the other man that was with him.

I didn’t miss his leer in my direction, though.

I tried to sit on the bed in the hotel room, looking meek. Seventeen-year-old girls were supposed to look innocent.

I was pulling it off, wasn’t I?

I wasn’t grimacing or giving off an ‘I’ll kill you’ vibe, was I?

I sure hoped not.

“You got her shaking now, man. I fuckin’ love this,” goon number two practically cheered.

I’m not shaking because I’m scared, dumbass! I wanted to shout. I’m shaking because I’m enraged!

Yet I held my tongue. I didn’t want to be tied down. That wouldn’t be conducive to my plans.

I’d wait for the two bozos to go back to the other room, then I’d find a weapon.

They left not two minutes later, and I hopped off the bed the moment the door clicked shut behind them.

I immediately searched for the phone they’d yanked free of the wall, but they proved not to be complete dumbasses by taking the cord with them.

The next thing I did was try the bathroom.

It was locked, and I frowned.

I wasn’t allowed to pee?

I didn’t bother trying the outside door. If they were even halfway smart, they’d have a man out there to prevent me from leaving. And it wouldn’t do for them to know I wasn’t the sweet seventeen-year-old they’d meant to capture.

A seventeen-year-old—at least one who wasn’t raised on the Free compound—probably would have tried to escape.

I knew better, and I had known better since I was ten.

My father hadn’t sugar-coated the bad shit that was in this world. He’d been brutally honest and had shown me everything without the rose-colored glasses that most children wore.

If a parent could do anything for their children, it was preparing them for life.

Most parents were transparent about what to do when it came to bullies, struggles with fitting in, or financial problems.

But, my dad had gone a step past that and ensured that I was well and truly prepared for anything—this exact situation being one of those things.

He had hoped that by preparing me, I’d have the skills needed to take care of myself until he could get there.

Logically, I knew he’d come.

Of course, adrenaline was coursing through me thanks to the rage I was feeling—and okay, I’ll admit it, some fear, too. So, I wasn’t completely logical at the moment. Which was unfortunate seeing as the logical side of my brain was currently at war with the illogical thoughts that were drifting through my mind. You know, thoughts of me dying here before my dad could get to me.

So, I did what I had to and prepared for both possibilities.

I made sure that I had a weapon —a screwdriver I found in the drawer beside the bed— and I rested and bid my time in case things didn’t work out the way I was hoping and in my favor.

But after sitting there for an hour, I decided that I couldn’t do it—just sit here and wait.

My most pressing issue was the goddamn roach that I’d seen skitter across the floor just inches away from my feet.

Where there was one, there were more.

And the more I looked, the more disgusted I became with the establishment.

I was sure that if I picked up the corner of the sheet, I’d see freakin’ bed bugs.

I shivered with disgust.

I was hungry, tired and thirsty.

I wanted a Dr. Pepper, a burrito from Chipotle, and a goddamn nap, in exactly that order.

Picking up my makeshift weapon, I stood up.

Scooting closer to the door that led to the outside, I positioned myself perfectly.

Then screamed. Loud.

The outside door started to push forward just like I knew it would, and I waited until the guy’s head started to peek around the corner before kicking with all the force I could muster and slamming the man’s head in between the doorway and the door.

If there was one thing I could say about this shitty motel, it was that they had one hell of a heavy, solid door. It was a very welcome surprise.

The man fell down with a loud thump, and I pulled the door open completely.

I didn’t go outside yet.

I waited for the other two to come storming in here.

When they did, I handled them, too.