"Search it. The boss said to strip it down. We need the ledger. It's our only way…" The man giving orders seems to have the full respect and obedience of the others, but it's not the man from the phone. His tone was deeper and richer, more of a rumbling baritone that might sound attractive in other circumstances. This man is clearly a tenor and very agitated.
"Hello!" I groan, moving back closer to my car. "Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on here?" They tear the bridesmaid dress out of the back seat and toss it on the ground, and I gasp in anger and shock, marching over to pick it up as another man throws the duffel so hard at me, I almost fall over as it collides with my chest. "The fuck!"
"The seats… take them out," the first man orders, and I'm livid.
"That’s my stuff!" I grab his arm, and he tosses me back before turning on me. "Keep your hands off it!"
I stumble a few steps but my duffel is in the way, and I find myself planting hard on the concrete floor, unable to stop the fall as the man stalks over to me and stands over me with a glare on his face.
"Get up, Maddox. You have somewhere to be."
His words make a shiver of terror snake up my back until my body stiffens. "What? No… I have to go. I have a?—"
"I said, get the fuck up." This man is harsh, even furious. He stoops to grab me by the elbow and hauls me off the ground, then shoves the duffel bag into my chest again. "And take this shit."
Before I can protest or even get my wits about me, he's dragging me toward a black SUV that seems to have materialized from thin air.
"Wait, no…" I glance at my car and see them really tearing it apart now. The back seat is out and the trunk is open. The man's dead body lies on the ground next to it as they shred the bloody carpet from the husk of what my car once was, and I can't stop them.
"Get her to Rafe now. He's got questions for her." The man opens the door as he speaks to one of his buddies, this one a more imposing creature. I let my eyes drift up his rigid body past his broad shoulders to look into his dark eyes. "Get in."
My body is herded past the onlookers into the back seat of the SUV where the absurdly large man follows, shutting the door after us. He taps on the back of the driver's seat and I see another man there who puts the vehicle into drive and begins maneuvering it away from the scene of my car's destruction toward another garage door that slowly rises.
"Where are you taking me?" I ask, hugging my duffel bag to my chest like a life preserver. "You can't do this. This is kidnapping." My mind is going a million miles an hour and I think I might vomit all over his fancy car's leather interior.
"You're going to see the boss."
"The boss?" I scoff, letting that reality sink into my bones. These men work for some other more powerful man and it's starting to make me think I'm not going home.
The large man turns to look at me with narrowed, inky eyes and I cringe, shrinking back against the door as the SUV rumbles out onto the road.
"Silence is your friend right now, Riley."
What the actual fuck? Do all of these men know my name? Is there a reason my car was chosen to stow a dead body? And how the fuck do I get out of this mess and go home?
A hundred other questions much like those fly through my head like a swarm of bees as I turn and stare out the window at passing traffic. I think of opening my window and waving myarms around, calling for help, but the bulge on that guy's hip doesn't look friendly. He probably has a gun, and the ink snaking up his neck toward his jawline says he's the sort of man who doesn't take shit from anyone and isn't afraid of using that gun to harm me. So I sit quietly and do as I'm told, still hugging my duffel bag.
When the car pulls up in front of a gated house in a ritzy neighborhood, I'm confused. Then men climb out and round the car like this is where we're going, but I expected something shady like a laundromat or a book store. That's where the Mob does business, right? Because this isn't at all what I was expecting, but they open my door and stand like they're waiting for me to get out.
"I don’t have all day," the large man says, and the way he stands with one hand on the door handle, I see the gun plainly holstered on his hip. I was right to fear him. "He's waiting."
My eyes flick nervously up at the too-normal house, and then at the scowl on the man's face as I slide out of the SUV and keep clutching my duffel bag. My first few steps are hesitant, testing that the ground is real and I'm not going to fall into some abyss of a black hole that keeps going and going until I jerk awake and realize I've rolled out of bed.
That's not me. I'm not lucky enough for this to be nothing but a bad dream. My life is a never-ending cautionary tale of the girl who never listened to her parents and does what she wants, and reaps all the bad consequences but none of the rewards.
"Is he gonna hurt me?" I whimper, and I know I sound like a baby, but my God, I'm ready to piss myself now. It feels like all the fight has gone out of me. This man could snap me in half with two fingers.
He says nothing to me at all as he grips my elbow and guides me across the unassuming front lawn, opening the gate and tugging me up the steps. My legs feel rubbery, but my backbone is growing now. I just know if I seem like a coward, they'll eat me alive. God only knows what horrible evils await me in there.
Large man opens the door and waits, and I stalk into the warm glow of a man's living room. There are no pictures on the walls, no throw pillows on the couch. The room is muted shades of tan and brown and next to a broad stone fireplace stands someone I can only assume is "the boss."
"Good…" he says, and his voice is velvet, curling around my soul warmly. I can't help but look over my shoulder at the men who dragged me here, wondering why they seem so angry and menacing while their boss, the one they clearly fear, sounds like an angel sent to rescue me.
"Welcome, Ms. Riley… have a seat." He's holding a glass of what appears to be liquor, gesturing at his tan sectional, and I freeze like a deer in headlights as he barks orders that blur together in my conscious mind.
The man is a god.
Jaw peppered with well-groomed stubble and chiseled from granite, dark brown eyes that drink me in as I stand trembling, and broad shoulders that stretch the fabric of his white T-shirt thin enough to reveal a map of ink on his skin beneath it. I find myself staring, swallowing around another knot in my throat that promises to choke me if I try to speak.
