Chapter 26

That moment when you realize that they weren’t waving at you…

-Text from Cora to Coke

Cora

“Did she say she had a bomb?” I whispered to Luca.

Luca grunted. “Yes.”

No bullshitting for my brother. Just a straightforward yes that made my stomach drop to my knees.

“What do we do?” I breathed. “Do we get out? Do we tell other people to get out?”

Then some movement out of the corner of my eye had me turning to see a dog sitting on his haunches, his entire body quivering with expectation.

His eyes were fixed solely on Tyler, and he was slobbering up a storm.

“Hey,” I whispered. “Is that Brutus?”

Luca’s eyes scrunched as he started letting his eyes roam around the hospital, and then he froze with his gaze on who I thought was Brutus.

Luca shook his head. “Brutus is dead, sis. That’s not Brutus.”

The dog that looked remarkably like Reagan’s old dog, that I did now remember had died a few years ago, was sitting in the hallway, slobbering away, quivering with excitement.

Now that I studied the dog, he was a little different than Brutus, though not by much.

“What’s the dog doing here?” Luca whispered. “That dog has to be Reagan’s. Do you see her?”

I looked around but didn’t see her anywhere. “I don’t see her.”

“Fuck, this is the biggest clusterfuck ever,” he whispered. “Oh shit.”

That ‘oh shit’ was because the dog was done with his sitting.

He took two slow steps in the direction of Tyler, the police chief, and then stopped when Beatrice started to really lose it.

What happened next was comical, to say the least.

Beatrice started to scream, Brutus’s ears went back, and Coke lost his patience.

Tyler, the poor man, finally realizing that the dog was in the hospital with everyone, tripped over the dog as he and the big fluff of fur both lunged at Beatrice.

The dog stayed on his feet. Tyler didn’t.

Coke reached forward and ripped both Beatrice’s phone and her purse out of her hands.

The phone fell to the floor, and the dog bent over and…ate it.

Coke, unsure what to do, started to run with the purse in his hands—and my heart leapt into my throat.

Luca finally left his spot at my side and moved to help hold Beatrice down as she started to thrash.

I watched in stunned horror at the intensity with which she was fighting not just Luca but also now my father.

Tyler hurried out in Coke’s wake, and I was left standing there, staring at the spectacle before me.

Frankie was up on her knees, staring at her mother in horror, as was Amadea from an almost identical position in the opposite corner of the nurses’ station.

Doctors and nurses flooded the area, temporarily cutting off my view of everyone—and that was when the man that I hadn’t realized was there struck.

A hand went around my mouth, and another went around my throat.

“Move and you die.” I felt something shoved up underneath my chin.

A gun.

I swallowed thickly.

“I’m going to let you go, but if you scream, I’m going to shoot you in the head. I’ll get away. Trust me. Everyone in the ER is down there right now instead of right here. And if they’re not down there, they’re outside because the stupid, crazy bitch decided to bring a bomb into the hospital.” He chuckled. “Nice touch, though. Would’ve been a perfect distraction.”

I didn’t say a word to that as the man slowly let me go.

“The plan was to keep him distracted by you to get to the girl,” the man said as he taped my wrists. “The girl was who we wanted all along. But the girl is smart. She’s never alone. She is so aware of her surroundings that it’s insane. Almost as if she was looking for us. The first time, we should’ve known that you weren’t her. You looked older and had more curves. You also weren’t ghost white. But…the boys got a little excited, thinking that it was really easy. But…it wasn’t. Got a few of them in trouble, but little tight ass Beatrice paid for their bail with the boss’s money, allowing us to finish the job. Just didn’t realize that you were so resourceful…or that you would have the girl covered. It’s unfortunate that you got here today. Otherwise it would’ve been her and not you…but you’ll have to do at this point. Hopefully the big boss won’t care. He said only a young white girl would do—Beatrice’s girl. Hopefully he won’t notice you’re not all that white. I’m not going in there empty-handed. He said this was our last chance.”

It wasn’t just a tan.

Not even fuckin’ close.

I consistently had this ‘tan’ for 365 days a year. I could thank my father’s heritage for my beautiful skin.

Unlucky for boss man.

Plus, I would not be leaving this place with him.

No sir-ree.

The tape on my hands tightened, and I tested the strength.

It was tight, but not unbearable.

I could lift my arms under my legs and have my arms in front of me pretty easily if the man left me alone for a few seconds, and then I could bite the tape off.

But then the man, as if reading my thoughts, turned me around and covered my mouth with a piece of tape.

I glared.

It was the man I’d stabbed in the throat with a screwdriver.

Fucker.

I should’ve stabbed him in the heart.

The man practically took the thought right out of my brain.

“Yeah, you remember me, don’t you?” he asked.

I didn’t bother to nod my head.

I’d remember him forever, now.

“Let me tell you something,” he said. “You should have done it right the first time.”

Then I was being pushed through the stairwell door and forced to walk up the stairs.

We made it to the last level before he shoved me into the corner near the fire hose at the top.

“Put your hands there,” he ordered.

I wrapped them around the wheel that was used to wind the hose back up, and he taped me to it.

“I’ll be back, sweetheart.”

He turned to leave, and something overcame me.

Something big.

A voice in my head said kick him and, not one to ever argue with my inner superhero, I leveraged myself up using the wheel between my hands, lifted both of my feet off the ground, and braced my shoulder against the wall.

When he took a step forward, I let them fly, straight into his lower back.

He went awkwardly forward, falling face first down the stairs.

And I closed my eyes the moment I heard the audible snap of a bone breaking.

Then I leaned over and swallowed bile just as the man’s body hit the landing below the one I was on.

Closing my eyes, I started counting to ten.

Then fifteen. Then a hundred.

I didn’t stop counting until somebody found me over thirty minutes later.

***

Frankie

I wasn’t too sure how I ended up in this man’s arms, but I wasn’t complaining.

I’d never, not once, been held like this by someone that wasn’t my father.

I never knew what I was missing.

Holy shit, but the man was beautiful, and I wasn’t quite sure where he fit into all of this in the grand scheme of things.

What I did know was that it took all of three seconds for me to see him and fall for him, despite my life swirling down the drain around me.

And now, hours after first seeing the man, I was in his arms.

“Let me go!” my mother screamed so loudly that my already battered head started to pound.

Then she started to thrash. “I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you.”

One second, I was on the ground with the man’s arms around my shoulders, and the next I was being lifted and taken away.

I started to shiver.

“Where are you taking me?” I breathed into the man’s chest.

“Down the hall to where my sister is,” came the man’s reply.

“I don’t remember your name.”

Such lies. I knew his name. Hell, it was burned in my memory.

“Luca.”