The man's big, fleshy, strong hand clamps onto the back of my neck as if I were a recalcitrant child wandering off in public. It's a bad move because it pisses me off. I am easily annoyed, especially by stupidity. But to truly piss me off? Like actual anger? That takes a bit more effort. And just for the record, I am an almighty unpleasant bitch when I'm pissed off. I'm talking unmitigated cuntery. Viciously irrational. My normal sarcasm seems like High Tea pleasantries.
"Take your hand off of me," I snap. "You will regret this no matter what," I tell the man, glaring up at him with naked fury carved into my features, "But if you put your hand on me again, your regret will be compounded."
He smirks at me derisively. "You think much of yourself, little woman." The gun twists into my forehead, and he clamps down all the harder with his fist around the back of my neck. "Tell me what isor what, hmm?"
If not for the gun, his wrist and elbow would be broken by now. I hold his glare but remain silent, not allowing the pain of his grip to show on my face.
He gives me a little shove as he releases me. "Go. Walk."
"Where?"
He gestures toward the house. "That way. Indigo should be dead by now. You will not enjoy what is next for you, but I will."
Oh dear, I do not like the sound of that.
Andwho the fuckis Caleb Indigo?
Clearly, he must mean Jakob. But why does that name ring a bell?
I almost owned BDI, a long, long time ago, in another life.Jakob's words from the day we met echo clearly in my memory. He almost owned BDI? As far as I know—and I'm CEO, so I have access to our records, as well as my own memory from being part of the company from the age of fourteen—BDI only ever came close to being sold twice. Once to a corporate raider from Hong Kong who thought bribing my father was a sound business tactic, and once to…Indigo Enterprises, Incorporated. The first time was when I was in high school, a freshman, maybe a sophomore. I only vaguely remember any of it other than overhearing my father ranting to my mother about some shady Chinese asshole who thought he could bribe Father into selling at disadvantageous terms.
The second time, I remember much more clearly. I was home from Yale, and Father held a business meeting in his home office on a Sunday morning. This was unusual because he tried very hard, especially after Mother's death, to be at home with me on the weekends, and even after I left for college, he kept the habitof not working weekends. He wore sweats and ratty old shorts, played squash with his friends, and barbecued. He never, ever took meetings at home. So when he came down in a three-piece suit, saying he had an important meeting and could I please keep quiet for a couple of hours, I knew something was up.
I eavesdropped, obviously. I heard Father's voice, and another. A deep, smooth, powerful, and cold voice, carefully accentless, polished, elegant, and sophisticated. I'd never heard a voice like that. I remember thinking,I could listen to that voice read the phone book.
I could only catch snatches and fragments of the conversation, but I heard the name Mr. Indigo and Indigo Enterprises several times.
Now, I mentally overlay the voice from my memory against Jakob's, add in his own claim that he nearly owned my father's—and now my—company, and I can only come up with the reality that Caleb Indigo is Jakob…and I am only now realizing I don't know his last name. Or his real name. Or much of anything about him at all.
Except for a few interesting tidbits, I suppose. He used to be worth billions—and, assuming he is or was Caleb Indigo, that tracks. Indigo Enterprises was a massive company in New York, with holdings across the five boroughs, as well as a finger in NYC telecom infrastructure, data management, corporate acquisitions, and who knows what else. I vaguely remember reading an article in…oh god….Business Insider? Barron's?—something like that—about Caleb Indigo and his mysterious persona and freakish success rate in business gambles. He had a penchant for knowing which way the wind was going to blow when almost no one else did, the article said. So it would make sense that he'd be worth billions. And I also remember the shock that rippled through NYC—and the wider business world as a whole—when a car bomb took his life so unexpectedly…and randomly. The speculation was that a disgruntled corporate owner whose business had been acquired, dismantled, and discarded by Indigo Enterprises had taken revenge on Caleb Indigo; no one had ever been able to find a single scrap of evidence linking anyone to the explosion, however. A perfect murder, one might say.
Now it is much clearer—Caleb Indigo faked his death, gave away the bulk of his massive fortune to the woman from the street—Isabel de la Maria Vega Navarro Ryder. Philanthropist, queen of the Manhattan socialites, and Jakob's ex. Or Caleb's ex? Is Jakob his real name or Caleb? Neither? Why did he fake his death? Indigo Enterprises was on the rise when he "died," showing no signs of slowing or stopping. He could have been bigger than Musk, Buffet, Bezos, all of them. He faked his death and vanished off the face of the earth…why? Gave his fortune to his ex…why?
Some things regarding Jakob's reticence to discuss his past make more sense, but on the whole, I'm left with far more questions than answers.
As Moon-Faced Fuck frog-marches me toward the house with one hand clamped on the back of my neck and the other pressing the gun into my kidney, I mentally rehearse various BJJ hold-breaks, throws, take-downs, and arm- and wrist-snapping disarming techniques. I visualize a moment of distraction when the gun wavers and I have an opportunity. I visualize myself twisting in place, breaking his wrist and arm in several places, and maybe even going so far as to shoot him with his own gun. I'm not a violent woman, generally. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is as much about fitness and mobility as it is about self-defense, though for a single woman who frequently walks the streets alone at night, the self-defense aspect is important. And I have used it on would-be muggers more than once, to wonderful success. It's pretty amazing how fast "give me your purse"can turn into "please stop breaking my bones." Typically, the pleading starts when you've turned his elbow inside out.
But again, I’m not violent. I don't relish such things. I just work too damn hard for my stuff to let some jobless, stinking hobo take it from me. Come for my Chanel, bitch, and you'll be jerking off left-handed.
Okay, fine. Maybe I do relish it, just a little. Youdoget a pretty intense rush of power and satisfaction watching some yoked, mouth-breathing caveman who thought he could grab your ass with impunity scream for mercy as you turn his wrist the wrong way around.
I won't start a fight, but I'll damn well finish one.
All that is to say that I've never had to fight for my life. My possessions and my honor, sure—and by honor I mean staying un-raped, because you never know when a mugger might decide he wants more than just your three-thousand-dollar clutch. If I'm capable of snapping bones over a purse, what will I do when my life is on the line?
You guessed it: I’ll murder a motherfucker.
I feel it; I know it; I know myself well enough to know I can do it.
I'll just have to set aside some money for the therapy bills.
Moon-Faced Fuck, for reasons I'll never understand, uses the keypad to open the garage instead of taking me inside through the front door. This is his mistake. He shoves my cheek against the frame of the garage door and jams the gun into my neck, awkwardly using his off-hand to reach around me and input the code—wrong, once, twice, and a third time, eliciting a series of ugly-sounding words that are surely curses in whatever language this Shrek-looking jackass speaks.
My heart pounds in my throat as I realize my moment has come. He growls wordlessly in frustration, then is forced to switch hands so he can use his dominant right to enter the codecorrectly. I make my move in the split-second that his attention is diverted and the gun isn't pointed at me.
I stomp my heel down with all the force I can muster onto his instep—a classic opening move. He howls, enraged, hopping and dancing backward. He takes an angry swipe at me with his big, heavy, hamhock fist, which all but whooshes audibly past my nose. I grab his wrist and twist his hand around upside down, forcing his elbow against the bend. Unfortunately, I've grabbed his empty hand, not the one with the gun. As I'm an instant from crashing my elbow against his joint, a deafening concussion erupts beside my ear, leaving the inside of my skull ringing like the bells of Notre Dame. My left side screams in pain at the junction of underarm, breast, and ribcage, a burning sensation unlike anything I've ever felt. And now it's my turn to be even more pissed off.
"Youshotme?!" I screech. "Ohfuckno."
