“I’m in a meeting,” Fallon curtly answers.
“Fallon. Someone took Aurora.”
Chapter 61
“Jackson!” I scream, but the man hangs up my phone and throws it to the ground, stomping on it until it’s cracked and broken in half.
The bastard broke my fucking phone. I’m pretty sure he also broke my nose and several fingers, and from the pounding in my head, I probably have a concussion too from when he hit my bike with his car, causing me to crash. Shit, Cam’s bike. I’d rather he break my arm than break my bike.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask my male captor, but my lip is so swollen where he punched me in the face that it’s difficult to form words.
A spear of sunlight shines through a tiny window above my head, illuminating the room enough for me to see my surroundings. I’m in a basement, is my best guess. A set of steel shelving units are against one wall. An assortment of shapes and what looks like plastic storage bins line the shelves. Two tall cylinders are outlined to my right. Water heaters, perhaps. Maybe a furnace. I don’t know. There’s dampness to the air, the smell moldy and stale. I can hear a buzzing sound, like a constant hum.
The guy walks over to me and takes my chin in a painful grip. I swear he looks familiar, but I can’t seem to place from where. His face and teeth show the signs of years of drug abuse, and the smell coming off his clothes and skin makes me want to vomit.
“Shut the fuck up,” he spits at me, kicking the chair I’m tied to over by placing his foot to my chest. He grabs the hair at the top of my head as I tip backward, and he pulls me forward until the chair is sitting on all four legs again. I bite my sore lip to stop myself from crying out.
Desperate to get out of here, I offer him, “If it’s money you want, I can get it for you.”
“I said shut the fuck up!” This time he punches me, and my already split lip and broken nose start gushing crimson until I’m choking on it.
Motherfucker!
I spit a mouthful of blood at him and glare. I want to taunt him by saying that my mother gave me worse beatings when I was a kid. If I can just get these bindings loose, I’ll give this sadistic asshole a run for his money.
“Kindly stop beating up the only leverage we have,” someone says from the shadows in the corner. The guy stands up and wipes his hands off on his shirt, smearing a line of red across the middle.
“She’s pissing me off,” he says to the unknown person. “Always thought she was better than everybody else.”
A woman walks forward into the room, and I have to blink a few times to make sure I’m seeing her correctly. I know this woman, but only from photographs.
Looking down at me from her five-inch Jimmy Choo’s, she says in a calm, cultured voice, “We’ve never formally met. I can see why my son is so taken with you. Even with a busted face, you are a very beautiful woman, Miss Montgomery. Unlike your mother.”
Disbelief shatters my mind as I meet the soulless eyes of JD’s mother for the first time. “If you know your son, you know JD will not stop until he finds me. And if you know any of my brothers, you should be very afraid right now.”
“As should you,” she retorts. “My son refuses to take my calls or meet with me. What is it about you St. Claire women that had my husband and now have my son both panting after you? You, I may be able to understand why my son is so obsessed, but your mother? She was nothing but a drunken, strung-out whore. How William ever could stick his dick inthatis beyond my comprehension.”
I try to shrug but don’t get far since my hands are bound. “My mother got around. She had a lot of dicks stuck in her.”
“Such a crass young woman. But then again, all the St. Claire women are trash,” she admonishes me.
“Are you done? Because you’re boring the hell out of me. And I’m a Montgomery, not a St. Claire.” Keep her talking. Keep her distracted. Anything that will give me more time; anything that will give JD more time to find me.
Mrs. Hallstead tips her head back with a throaty laugh while caressing the string of pearls at her throat. Such evil elegance.
“I really, really like you, Aurora.”
“And I could give a fuck, you psycho.”
I’m having to gasp between words because my nose is completely swollen and my nostrils and throat are clogged with coagulating blood, making it hard to breathe.
She walks around me in a slow circle. I feel her pick up a lock of my hair, but I can’t see what she’s doing. My neck snaps forward when she gives my head a hard shove from the back.
“You’re going to give me what I want, Aurora.”
“Lady, you must be as high as that asshole standing over there,” I say with a nod over to the man who delivered my recent beat-down. “I’m not giving you shit.”
“You personally? No. But I’m sure my son or your brothers would pay nicely to get you back home safe and sound.”
