CROW (Boston Underworld Book 1) (28 page)

She gives me a look that says she doesn’t quite believe it, so I change the subject. One thing I’ve learned is that people are generally satisfied to talk about themselves, and Cara’s no exception to that rule. When I ask her how she met Dominic, she prattles on for the next twenty minutes about it while I down two glasses of Patron.

“So you don’t have a problem living this life?” I ask when she comes up for air.

She shrugs and starts tearing at the napkin beneath her cocktail glass. “It’s not so bad. I mean, I know most people wouldn’t agree with it. I grew up with the Italians, so I know this world. I know what it involves. But these guys, right here? They’re good men. They don’t deal in anything that I’m losing sleep over.”

The conviction in her voice almost has me believing it for a moment. It’s obvious she believes it. So where does that leave me? I want to ask her more about it, but I think I might need to ply her with a little more alcohol first. I order us another round and continue.

“So you’ve never had any problems with them?”

“No way,” she says. “They treat their women good, as long as you play by the rules.”

There’s that contingency.
As long as you play by the rules.

“I know it can be pretty overwhelming at first,” she says. “But you get used to it after a while. I couldn’t ask for a better man than Dom. These guys protect and cherish their women, I’ll tell you that much.”

“He seems like a good guy,” I agree. It’s complete crap, because at this moment I’ve decided to hate all men. But I need to make Cara feel like a friend so I can get more information out of her.

The bartender delivers our drinks and we talk for another ten minutes before the alcohol starts to affect Cara.

“Ugh,” she groans. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

“Yeah, me too.” I help her to her feet and make the journey with her, knowing that normal females my age love to do this kind of stuff together for some odd reason. When I glance across the room, Lach’s engrossed in conversation with one of the pretty blondes. Fuck him. Fuck them both.

I don’t bother to tell anyone where we’re going. We’ll only be a few minutes and the bathroom is just outside the hall.

Once inside, I go about my business and continue to talk through the stall. Cara is being very quiet, and I worry I may have gotten her too drunk. But when I fix my dress and step outside, I see exactly why she’s being quiet.

Two men are inside the bathroom with us, and one’s got a gun pressed against her temple, while the other is pointing at me. Both the guns have silencers attached, and somehow I know without asking these guys are part of the Armenian crew. I glance at Cara and she’s shaking like a leaf.

Shit. Fuck. Shit. There’s no way for me to try to defend myself while they’re holding her like that. They’d put a bullet in her head before I could even finish dealing with the first guy. Assuming I didn’t get shot too in the process.

“You’re coming with us,” the man pointing at me barks. “Move quietly, or your friend here dies.”

Cara releases a sob, and it earns her a hard slap to the face. Fricken hell. There’s no way out of this without following their demands until they let their guard down.

“It’s okay, Cara,” I tell her in a soothing tone. “Just stay calm and do as they say.”

She shoots me a pleading glance and I give her a reassuring smile though inside I’m a nervous wreck. I know the likelihood of us surviving once we leave this building is not very good. But there’s little choice in the matter at this point. I’m suspicious as hell that we were literally in the bathroom for two minutes before they came for us. Almost like they were waiting or someone alerted them. Something I’ll have to think about later.

I step forward and the other man grabs me by the arm. They lead us from the bathroom and down the hallway towards a side exit, digging the guns into our ribs.

“Scream and you die,” one of them threatens.

I think of Lachlan inside the party sitting with his pretty marriage prospects. Will he even notice I’m gone? Maybe not. But Cara is a wife, and that’s something. Dom will notice. And then what? They’ll have to find us. That will take time. I can’t count on that. I watch both men carefully as we walk, trying to look for any opportunity I can. It doesn’t come.

At the end of the hall, two of Niall’s men are slumped face down into the carpet. I don’t have to see the bullet holes to know they’re already dead. These guys are fricken crazy, coming in here like this and shooting people up in a hotel. Panic is slowly engulfing me, but I can do nothing. If I didn’t believe it before, I know now they won’t hesitate to put a bullet inside of us too. My only hope is that they’re going to use us for ransom or something. Anything that will keep us alive for a while until I can figure out what to do.

The moment we’re out the side door, we’re tossed into the back of a van and burning rubber down a back street. Cara’s practically hyperventilating and can barely keep it together as they tie us up. I worry that they’ll shoot her if she keeps at it.

“Cara,” I whisper. “You have to stay calm okay?”

“Shut up!” one of the men bellows at me.

Then he says something in a different language, and the other one nods. I don’t understand what it is until it’s too late. Until he moves behind me and slams the butt of his gun into the back of my skull.

Chapter Thirty

Mackenzie

M
y entire body feels like it’s weighted down with lead as I come to. Something loud and awful keeps echoing off the space I’m in. Whatever it is, it’s amplified.

It takes me a minute to realize it’s crying. Not really crying, but painful sobbing. When I blink my eyes open, I’m met by the sight of Cara’s frightened face across from me. She’s laying on her side, still bound, staring at me with sheer terror.

The crying isn’t coming from her because she’s gagged now. So am I, I realize. Wherever we are is dimly lit, the smell of salt and rust invading my nostrils. As my eyes adjust and I glance around, I realize we’re in a fucking shipping container. With at least ten other women, who are all bound and gagged like us.

I wiggle my arms, which are completely numb, and I can’t budge them at all. The rope they used to tie us is impossibly tight around both my wrists and ankles. It’s the most uncomfortable and awkward position to be laying in, and I’m completely defenseless unless I can figure out a way to loosen them.

While I work on wiggling my wrists back and forth, my eyes dart around for the source of that awful noise. It isn’t just sobbing now, but grunting too. And finally, I find it. In one of the shadowed corners of the metal death box we’re trapped in, a man is pumping his hips in and out of a girl who’s half bent over a folding table, her pants down around her ankles.

A murderous rage builds up inside me when I realize what’s happening right in front of me. This fucking pig is taking her while she’s bound and completely defenseless. Meanwhile, his companion is just sitting there watching the whole event with a bored expression.

A sound of protest rips from my chest, and both men look my way. They speak in rapid-fire Armenian before the one standing guard walks towards me. The closer he draws near, the more I realize my mistake. I can do nothing to help this girl. Absolutely fucking nothing because I’m bound like a goddamn pig in this filthy shit hole.

He reaches down and pulls the gag from my lips so I can speak.

“They’re going to murder you,” I snarl. “They will tear you apart, limb from fucking limb.”

The man laughs and hoists me up like ragdoll. He says something again in his foreign tongue, and the other man laughs too. And then he’s dragging me across the container, trying to shove me face first over a chair. I buck and fight against him every step of the way, but it’s nearly impossible with the restrictions on my body. He loosens the binds around my ankles enough to spread my legs before he spins me around and shoves me over the chair. When he starts to hike the material of my dress up around my waist, I stomp on his boot and then throw my head back into his face with a satisfying crunch.

Turns out, he doesn’t like that so much. He grabs me and hurls me into the wall so hard I see stars before I crumple to the ground. And then his boot is sailing into my stomach and ribs over and over again.

“Hey!” the other man snarls as he jerks his head around. “Don’t damage the fucking merchandise, moron!”

When I glance up at my attacker, his face is a bloody mess, and he still looks murderous. For a moment, I doubt he’s actually going to stop. But then his friend says something in their language, and the name
Arman
makes him back down.

I’m left to cough up my blood in peace while the other man finishes himself off. I’m grateful when it’s over and the poor girl is left alone. When she’s tossed to the floor like garbage beside me, her big green eyes find mine, and it shatters me. She looks grateful to me though I can’t possibly comprehend why. She can’t be older than nineteen. And looking at her tear-stained face, I’m no longer seeing her, but Talia.

Is this what happened to her? Did she get caught up in the cross hairs of some sort of mob feud? The thought is enough to make a few tears leak from my eyes too.

“They’ll come for us,” I tell the girl.

She doesn’t have a clue what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But nonetheless, my words seem to bring her comfort.

“They’ll come,” I say again.

Chapter Thirty-One

Mackenzie

T
hroughout the night, different men continue to come and go. They bring more women who are bound and gagged in various states of consciousness. Some of them look like they’ve been held for a while. And I know it means they’re getting ready to make a shipment.

I watch quietly, trying to gather anything of importance while I can. There isn’t much to go on. Most of them look like foot soldiers, just doing as they’re told. But then another man comes. One dressed in an expensive suit.

I can’t understand the conversation they’re having, but the men who took us are waving their arms in animated fashion, guns slung over their shoulders. They gesture to me and Cara, and the guy in the suit grows furious. He starts yelling something back at them and then runs a hand through his hair several times over.

He’s nervous too, I notice as I watch him. And nervous never bodes well for captives. I glance back at Cara, who is so pale I think she might pass out. She’s too petrified to cry anymore, so that’s one blessing, I guess. In fact, all of the girls are being quiet as church mice. They know as well as I do this guy is somehow deciding our fate.

After a few more minutes of conversation and some pacing back and forth, he makes a hand gesture that looks like he’s telling them to get on with it. That could mean a hell of a lot of things, and it’s exhausting trying to guess. My hands still haven’t come loose from the binds, and now that I’ve got some probably cracked ribs it hurts to even try to wiggle free. But I continue because every glance at the girl across from me reminds me that I can’t let them hurt her again. All of these women have families and friends. People who will be left to wonder, but never know what happened to them. And that’s a fate worse than death. The not knowing is what kills me about Talia. There’s no closure, no finality. Only the endless questions and the crazy scenarios running through my mind.

When I came into this situation, I had damned the Irish from the start. They were guilty by association. Talia worked in their club, and then she went missing. It was that simple to me. But now everything is starting to blend together. Both times that I almost got killed, it was because this gang was involved. That only leaves more questions in my mind. Nothing about this is like I thought it would be. The lines between good and evil are mingling in a world with a thousand shades of black and white. The MacKenna Syndicate doesn’t deal in women. But these guys do. So who are the real monsters here?

I have no doubts Lachlan and Dom know we’re gone now. After the bombshell that was dropped on me this evening, I’m painfully aware of my place in the organization. I’m not even good enough to be a girlfriend, let alone a wife. But one of their wives is here, and that’s my only saving grace. I have to believe that they will tear the city apart looking for her. I know it in my heart. I’ve never had anyone to come in and save the day before, but I have to believe they will.