“I’m not going to hurt her, my boss is in love with her.” I cringed at his words and foul-smelling breath as he said them. “She is going to be his personal model, one for his eyes only. And his plaything on the side. But you I can shoot.”
I needed to get him out of here. Alley was pissed and itching to clobber him with the bat she still held in her hand at her side.
“If we don’t go now someone will be here any minute and you won’t even have me.”
That got him moving backward, I assumed toward the back door.
“Tell him,” I pleaded to Alley.
Alley nodded knowing I was referring to Lyric. And then she took a step forward in one last ditch effort to try and find a way to get me out of the mess.
“Back up bitch unless you want me to shoot you and then each of them.”
The hold that the guy had on my neck with his beefy arm tightened and I was struggling to breathe a little.
Alley’s eyes were on fire but the alarm for her friends was clear too.
Terror was on many of the ladies’ faces, tears in their eyes. I glanced at each of them, Jurnee, Summer, Alley, Teal, Brinley, and Capri. My lips trembled out of fear, but also sorrow. I wondered if I would ever see my friends again.
“I’ll be waiting for him.”
And that was the last thing I said before they were out of sight. Hopefully they’d get to Rowan quickly, call Lyric, and someone would find me.
ChapterThirty-One
LYRIC
I was aboutto go out of my fucking mind.
Hang on baby, please hang on.
“How the hell did he get past the security system?” I yelled.
Ruby had been gone for two hours and we still had no clue where she was or who she was with. The ladies gave a description of the guy who’d taken her, but we didn’t have a name to run anything on him to lead us to any other clues.
I had called some of my buddies from the force and they put multiple cops on the house to watch the family, while I met up with the guys.
Everyone had been in bed when I got the call that someone had taken Ruby and she was gone. I’d been happy that I could let Autumn sleep and she wouldn’t know anything about it at that time, but I had to wake up Gramps and Jett. They too were going crazy.
Gramp’s words before I left stayed with me all through the night.
“You bring my girl home. Please, Lyric, you have to.”
God, I wanted to make that promise but I didn’t make promises I didn’t know for sure I could keep. And the knowledge that I wasn’t able to do that for him, killed me.
“I am going to do everything in my power,” was my answer.
But my power didn’t seem to be good enough. Because we had nothing.
Alley and the girls had told us everything they could. Ruby had been so fucking brave so her friends didn’t get hurt. What she’d told Alley to tell me had been repeating over and over in my head.
“Tell Lyric to find me. Please tell him I love him and I will wait for him.”
I slammed my hand into the wall and everyone jumped.
“Shit, I’m sorry.” The ladies were scared and upset enough.
We looked at the security system and the tapes, but there was nothing. They were hacked and had been completely shut off, disarmed, and picked up nothing. Whoever the boss guy was, he had money to get all the right people to do the jobs he needed.
