He gripped me tighter around the waist and started moving with me tucked in close. I stumbled, barely able to move from sheer terror. He picked up his pace, carting me along beside him and lifting me so my feet barely touched the floor to keep me from tripping.
He sneered down at me, keeping his face emotionless for anyone observing, “You didn’t think after the agreement your father and mine made that I would just let you run away, did you? Or the General? Or even your father? Your mine to do with as I choose. And tonight you’re going to learn that the hard way.” His fingers skimmed over my neckline before he grabbed my chin and kept my gaze on his. “I’m going to have fun breaking you, pumpkin. Someone with your spirit can scream for hours.” He showed his teeth in a way malicious grin that clearly showed his intentions.
I started hyperventilating as we brushed by drunk and unobservant small groups, talking and laughing together. No one noticed us. No one glanced away from their party. No one saw the path that I was heading. To my eventual slavery.
He stopped us at the ballroom door and bent down whispering in my ear, “It was very fortunate that your father had a favor owed to him from the CEO of Park Technology. Plus, their owner had such a lovely distraction to entice your boyfriends with to leave you alone. Amazing what a pair of tits will do to a man. Just look at all of them. Trained in the Army and their so distracted they haven’t noticed the guns trained on them.” He paused. “The General has given the green lightto have them killed if you don’t leave quietly with me. Do you understand?”
I covered my mouth as it was opening to scream at them to run. I kept silent, knowing that was the only way they wouldn’t get dead. I peered down at the lower level, past the escalator where the crew was standing with the bigwigs from Park Technology. Playboy was doing her darndest to keep everyone’s attention on her or the obvious CEO, who was talking with them with vigor, keeping them entertained for however long he was supposed to. I noticed Brent glance at Cole and tap his wrist. Cole peered down at his watch, covertly, giving Brent a look. They weren’t distracted by Playboy, but they weren’t paying attention to anything but their own impatience right then, wanting to get back to me.
“One o’clock, second floor. Five o’clock, second floor. Nine, o’clock, first floor. Eleven o’clock, first floor,” Jonah whispered in a snake’s hiss against my ear, grey eyes glittering.
My eyes snapped all around the balcony where we were standing. The area wrapped around the second floor ballrooms, the railing showcasing the lower level between. In every location that he mentioned the area was dark. I couldn’t see the first floor well, but I could see the second floor decently and if I peered hard enough, I could make out the shape of a dark figure with a rifle aimed right at the crew at the two locations he had named. Even though there were only two that I could visibly see, two were enough to take down the two men that I loved.
I swayed were I stood and hardly felt it when Jonah lifted me an inch off the floor and brought us back inside the ballroom and out of sight of anyone on the lower level.
“Are you going to go quietly?” he asked, taking out his cell phone, finger hovering over the buttons.
“Yes,” I whispered instantly. My vision was blurry from lack of oxygen as I hyperventilated and my body felt numb, but mymind was shrieking an endless litany,“NO! NO! NO!”,as it had been when I spotted the first gun sighted on the crew.
Jonah nodded swiftly and started moving us again, but kept his phone out.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt them,” I choked, staring at his hand, trying to focus enough not to get them killed.
“It’s for insurance that you won’t scream…here, anyway.” He showed his teeth again. “I’ll give the retreat call when we’re in the car.”
He kept us to the edge of the room, and heading toward the backside. I stayed silent and walked with him on wobbly feet, my brain overloaded with screams. The only thing keeping me upright was his arm tight around my waist. Halfway through the room, I had finally calmed my breathing and my vision had turned abnormally clear as adrenaline kick started and pumped through my veins. Everything was too shiny and bright as I trembled in Hell’s arms.
For some odd reason – probably the adrenaline, I noticed everything in the room even as I squinted at the brightness of it all. I saw Ally dancing with Sam, but it seemed like slow-motion as they twirled around the dance floor. Everything had an insane dreamlike effect.
I, also, saw Mr. Fresby. Unfortunately, he also saw me. When he noticed me, he did a double take in my direction, peering hard at my face. His gaze traveled to Jonah, who was luckily oblivious but to his intended destination. Shrewd grey eyes, not too unlike Jonah’s color, darted around the room after he got a good look at my captor. I knew he was searching for the crew, but they weren’t in here. Determined eyes found mine as he started marching across the room, clearly intending to stop us.
That couldn’t happen, so I shook my head at him quickly, and then dropped it so Jonah wouldn’t notice. If anyone stoppedus, the men I loved were going to die. I knew that without a doubt. There was no going back once the General gave an order. The crew’s best chance to live right now was with me complying and no unexpected obstacles in our way.
I watched Mr. Fresby beneath my bangs and saw him falter after my clear order to back off. I lost him after that when Jonah pulled me behind the enormous backdrop where the band was playing. We skirted between the wall and the heavy black material, darkness enveloping us. I allowed him to keep shoving me forward until he jerked my arm, making me stop.
I couldn’t see anything, but suddenly there was a blinding light and I realized that there was another exit to this room. Jonah had opened a door, shoving me into a dimly lit hallway that ran behind the ballrooms with janitorial doors lining the other side of the hall. He grabbed my hand and dragged me quickly to the end where he opened another door, marked ‘Exit’. It was a concrete stairwell that he hauled me down, my stiletto heels clicking obscenely in the silence.
He banged open the door to the first floor and I could have sworn I heard the door to the second floor stairwell quietly opening, but I didn’t hear any footsteps as we trotted away to a glass door that led to the outside at the backside of the building. We passed through it, and he rushed me, making me stumble. He growled low in his throat and lifted me with one arm and sprinted to where a black sedan was idling.
A man dressed in all black, including his hat, got out of the driver’s seat, keeping his head down so I couldn’t see his face or, more importantly, any of the cameras on the side of the building couldn’t get a good shot of him. Jonah tossed me into the passenger’s seat and trotted in front of the car to speak with the man that kept his back to me. With Jonah distracted for a moment, I slid my hand under my neckline and into my bra. I pulled out my switchblade, opened it, and placed it under my leftleg. I put my seatbelt on and started focusing on how the heck I was going to get away once Jonah made his call for the Generals men to abort.
Jonah finished his quick convo with his accomplice and got into the driver’s seat. I kept my hand flat on my seat next to my hidden blade as I watched the unknown man sulk off into the shadows where the tree line began. I heard the revving of a motorcycle, and from the darkness the mystery man zoomed out on a bike which he somehow kept level when he jumped the curb, speeding off in front of us and never looking back.
I glanced from the corner of my eye as Jonah put the car into drive. “Aren’t you going to call those men?”
Ignoring me, he pressed on the gas and we started moving quickly behind the building, traveling on a back entrance that was clearly designed for deliveries with its extra wide lanes. My fists clenched when he didn’t answer. He had to call them off. He just had to.
When we cleared the Expo Center’s lot completely, he took a sharp left onto a main stretch of thoroughfare, confidently zipping through traffic like it was a streetcar video game.
But I knew it wasn’t a joke or hard for him to drive and react like he was. He was just that good. That dangerous.
When we had to stop at a red light, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone. My breath caught. He was either going to do as instructed or he was going to do what he really wanted. I knew he wanted to kill Brent and Cole by the way he had fried them with his gaze. I had taken only a small gamble, trusting him and knowing he always followed the General’s orders to a tee. He was built that way.
“Target has been acquired. We’re in the clear. Stand down,” he stated between gritted teeth and snapped his phone shut, placing it back in his pocket. No, he didn’t want to let them walk, but he was going to just like I had bet on.
My eyes turned toward the door handle. If I could just time it right, I might-
Slap!
