A Captive Situation (Kings of New York)

My heart was pounding.

Everything was coming apart inside of me. So many emotions. Panic. Terror. I wanted to fall to the floor, fold in a ball, and disappear, but I couldn’t do that. Ten minutes. I almost started laughing at the absurdity of it. Ten whole minutes. Only ten fucking minutes.

I flicked on the bathroom fan, slammed that door shut, and ran for Blake’s room. Jake would think I was in the bathroom. Jesus. I hoped he’d stay in the bedroom. I didn’t know when he’d come out, but I flung Blake’s door open.

She jerked around, shoving to her feet. I hadn’t tied her back on the bed, which Jake would’ve assumed I had done at gunpoint. I motioned to her. “We have to go.” I spoke low. Urgent. “Now. He’s giving you back.”

Her face shuttered closed, a wall coming over her expression, and she dipped her head in a brisk nod. She merely came with me, ready. She bypassed me, seeing the closed bedroom door next to us. “Follow me.”

She led the way out of the apartment, grabbing keys, a phone, a gun on the way. She took them all with deft hands, and I wanted to sprint once we got to the hallway, but not her. Cool, calm, and collected. She walked—walked—to the elevator. Hit the button.noveldrama

I was gaping at her. “What are you doing?” I hissed.

She gave me a once-over, briskly, assessing me. “Do you have a gun?”

“No.” I thrust a hand out at the one she’d shoved in her back pocket. “But you do.”

The elevator arrived and she stepped on, still so fucking smooth. Who was this girl? It was like the second I opened the door, she turned into someone who could live in a Mission: Impossible movie.

She hit the first-floor button and was doing something with the phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Disabling the tracking. Give me your phone. Though I’m sure your man already did the same with it. Unless he wanted to track you himself?”

I dug it out, handed it over. “I don’t know. He doesn’t seem to have a problem finding me.”

She checked it over before handing it back. “It’s off. Contact your family the fastest way you can.”

“They’re being guarded.”

Her nostrils flared at my words. She didn’t ask who was guarding them. “Tell them to get away if they can and give us a location where to meet them. As you do that, tell me what you overheard on that phone call.”

“What?”

She repeated the question, still acting so fucking calm. I was losing it and she was acting like we were going to church. As I messaged Graham on his social media, the same way I’d messaged him before, I told her what I’d overheard. Lane threatening my family and Jake’s response.

She didn’t react, just nodded to herself. We got to the first floor and she stepped out, tucking her shirt to cover the gun. We bypassed the front desk, ignored the clerk who was watching us with narrowed eyes, and stepped out onto the street.

“You took his keys. His truck is parked over here.”

“No.” She tossed them in a garbage can as we passed it. “He would have trackers on all his vehicles. I’m just slowing him down.”

I nodded. That made sense. Total spy sort of sense, but it made sense.

We went one block and she began jogging, turning down an alley. I went with her as she said, “If I know Creighton, he already knew I was gone and knew who took me. He was waiting to be contacted. He knew who you were, knew about your family. What he said wasn’t his move and he wouldn’t have upheld his end when your man handed me over. I meant it. Jake took me. You took me. You both have to die for that, no matter what. It’s how Creighton operates. I was stood up by a guy for a date and Creighton cut his tongue out.”

“That’s . . . confusing.” I thought he wanted her in that way?

We came to a car. She went to the driver’s side window and paused to tell me, “I was sixteen.”

I frowned.

“He was pissed that the guy hurt my feelings.” She rammed the back of her elbow into the window, shattering it.

No alarm pierced the air.

She reached in, making sure not to get cut by the glass, and undid the lock. Opening the door, she hit the unlock for the rest. I hurried around to the passenger side. She was hot-wiring the car and by the time I slipped inside, my door shut, she had the engine going.

So totally spy-like.

“Seriously. Who are you?” I was all focused on her right now and not in any way focusing on how Jake had betrayed me, at how emotionless he’d been offering up my family to this killer. He hadn’t blinked. He hadn’t cared. The man who held me in his arms at night was a stranger to me in that moment.

But I wasn’t focusing on that because if I were, I’d be a slobbering, blubbering, brokenhearted idiot and I could not be that person right now.

I needed to stay in this reality and not slip off to Broadway daydream land. (That would come later.)

Blake knew what she was doing. Follow her lead.

That was easy enough for me. I didn’t have to think or feel. I could just let her run the show.

She pulled out of the alley at the same time Jake was exiting the building.

Blake cursed softly.

He saw us, his mouth tight, but his eyes widened when he saw who was in the driver’s seat and who wasn’t. Our eyes met as we passed him. There was a moment between us.

He’d lied about everything he said. To keep me safe. That I was his. If he gave up my family, he gave me up, and he knew that. I was a package deal with them. He knew that. I told him how close my family was. They were my best friends. Not Manda like I’d thought. My aunts. My mom. My family.

Okay, so for a split second, just one, a crack ran down the length of my wall. Some of the hurt slipped through, bowling me over, and I had to bite down on my lip to keep from letting more spill through, but he saw it.

He blanched, briefly, and then drew his gun.

“He’s going to shoot us.”

“No.” Her voice was strained. “He won’t. He won’t risk hitting you.”

She kept driving and as I felt that crack splintering down the entire length inside of me, she was right. He lowered the gun after a few seconds. He ran to his truck, his phone to his mouth.

She sighed, switching lanes and turning. “He’ll be calling in his associates. Whoever they are.” Her eyes slid sideways to me, a question in them. “He was a cop? Did I get that right? Will he use those resources to find us? Because if so, we need to move a whole lot faster.”

I shook my head, pushing the hurt aside. I needed to be numb. I couldn’t let myself feel anything. “No. He’s probably calling his Mafia friends. I think Ashton—”

“Walden?” she asked, sharply.

I frowned. “Yeah. And the other guy.”

“Tristian West. Your boyfriend is connected to them?”

I was bitter as I said, “He’s not my boyfriend, but yes. It’s confusing. He doesn’t like the West guy. I know that much.”

She sucked in some air, cursing. “West is the more logical one of them. Walden is a loose cannon.”

“I think Walden’s the one guarding my family.” I eyed her as she kept turning onto different roads. “How do you know about them?”

Her eyes went flat. “I’ve known Creighton for fourteen years. I grew up in this world. Trust me. When I decided to come to New York, I did my research. If Creighton found me, he wouldn’t be able to take over so easily. I started planning to come here two years ago.”

Fourteen years? “How old are you?”

I didn’t remember Jake telling me, but the bar we’d gone to was a college bar. She looked young then. She didn’t look young now. She looked as if we’d switched ages. She was the thirty-six-year-old adult, all capable and shit, and I was the floundering college student, all wide-eyed and gaping mouth on the floor, one thought away from falling into a sobbing paralysis.

“I’m twenty-two.”

I sucked in some air. “You’re still a baby. Cut off four years and you could’ve been my baby.”

Her mouth tightened and her gaze grew haunted, an emptiness coming over her face at the same time.

I stopped asking questions. She had survived this world, and I wouldn’t.

I didn’t know why my comments gave her that look, but I felt bad about it.

My phone beeped ten minutes later, and I cried out when I read the text. Finally something good had happened. “Graham got back to me. They got away.”

She laughed, surprised. “How? But—no. Never mind. We need to get to them. Ask them where they are.”

We were able to get away from Jake. My family got away, too, and that was another lucky break.

I had a feeling it wouldn’t last, though. Our luck was going to run out, because I felt it.

We were two dead girls driving in this car.

Death was coming for us.

I looked back, as if I could see it behind me.

A shiver pooled in the small of my back.

It was there. Taunting. Mocking. Promising.

So be it.

If death was coming for me, it would have to wait in line.

My family came first.