Ice Cold (An MMA Stepbrother Romance) (13 page)

Maury left a few hours after Alexa did. He said I needed to get my shit together and that I was losing focus. Of course, I was. I was feeling like the world’s biggest ass for the way I treated her. I saw the look on her face when she left the gym. She looked as if she had been the one to get the shit beat out of her. I had done that. Me.

I was the loser. She had been telling me how rosy everything was looking with my money, and instead of thanking her, I fired her. I had done it because as we sat there talking, I couldn’t help but stare at her perfectly formed lips. Her hair was up in that stupid bun that was held up by just a pencil. I wanted to pull that pencil out and see the blond tendrils streaming around her face.

I wanted her lips wrapped around my cock as I dug my hands into those curls. I wanted to hold onto them hard as I watched her work me into a frenzy just before I came in her mouth. That’s what I was thinking about as she went on and on about my financial statements. So when she looked at me so expectantly, I naturally gave her the exact opposite reaction. So I didn’t reach across the desk and claim her lips until she made that whimper that drove me wild, I got angry.

The anger wasn’t imaginary. I was pissed that I wanted her as badly as I did. I was furious that after two weeks of doing everything I could think of, pushing myself past the point of physical exhaustion and drinking myself into a stupor before falling into bed dead drunk, she was still there in my thoughts. I couldn’t get her out of my head and seeing her walk back and forth around the gym talking to the rest of my crew and acting like I didn’t exist was driving me insane.

I even thought about hooking up with some random chicks just to see if that would help, but every time I picked up the phone to dial one of my favorite booty calls, I couldn’t make myself actually go through with it. I didn’t want a random pussy. I wanted Lex.

That was why I was sitting in her chair in her empty office like a jackass staring at my phone. I needed to call her and apologize. I knew that. I wasn’t quite sure yet how I was going to ask her to come back. I didn’t want her to leave. I didn’t know what I’d do if she took off before I had a chance to tell her that.

Finally, I screwed up the nerve to hit the call button. I put the phone to my ear and waited. It rang several times and then went to voicemail. Shit. She was avoiding my calls. I was going to leave a voicemail but chickened out at the last minute. I wanted to apologize live, not through a recorded message. I hung up.

Half an hour later, after hitting the shit out of the bags, I tried her again. Still no answer. Did I really blame her that she was avoiding my calls? I had to leave some kind of message to get her to call me back.

“Lex, it’s me. Call me back, please. We need to talk.” There. A nice, safe voicemail. Now I just had to wait for her return call.

A couple of the guys asked if I wanted to grab something for lunch. The distraction would be nice. I took a quick shower but kept my phone just outside the stall so I wouldn’t miss her call. I kept leaning out of the stall looking at it and willing it to ring.

I was toweling off when the phone screen finally lit up. The picture of the caller was the photo I’d taken of Lex the last time we hooked up, and I smiled in relief. I was going to fix this mess. She just had to give me a chance to explain.

“I knew you couldn’t resist me,” I said as I picked up the phone.

“Ice Malone?” The voice definitely wasn’t Lex. It was a man’s voice. Hard. Cold.

“Who the fuck is this?” I demanded.

“We’ve got your girlfriend.”

The words sent a chill through my body. “Where’s Alexa?”

“She’s here. Somewhere.” The man chuckled. “Quite a firecracker you got there.”

I felt my blood start to boil, but it was followed by a flash of fear. Alexa had stormed out of here almost four hours ago. What the hell had happened to her? “Who am I speaking to?”

“Nobody. But a nobody who has something that I think is important to you. We’ve got her tucked away for safekeeping for the moment.”

“I swear to God if you’ve touched her, I will kill you.” I felt a flash of panic. It was as if some kind of horrible scene was on replay in my mind. The phone call. The warning. It was as if my past was rearing its ugly face in the worst possible way.

“Relax, pal. Nothing is going to happen to her as long as you do as I say. Got it?”

“What do you want?” I ground out.

“Two hundred grand. Cash. In two hours.”

“I don’t have two hundred grand cash on me,” I said. I did some quick calculations in my head. It was slightly brilliant that I had just had my latest financial recap with Lex that morning. I knew that I had half that on hand. The other half I could probably get, but I’d have to make some calls. “I need some time.”

“Time is one thing you don’t have, my friend,” the man said.

“We’re not friends.” I didn’t bother trying to control the venom in my voice. “I can get you a hundred grand today. I’ll get you the rest tomorrow. But I need to know that Alexa is okay.”

“She’s fine,” the man said. “Taking a little nap at the moment.”

“Prove it,” I snarled. I heard the ding of a notification on my phone. I pulled the phone away from my ear. There was a picture displayed there. It was Alexa tied up and bound to a chair. Her long hair fell over her face, and I could see a smattering of blood next to her left ear. “You motherfucker. I swear to God, if I find you…”

“You’ll what? I’ve got your girl. But to prove good faith, I’ll take your hundred grand now. The rest I want by noon tomorrow. No more time. I’ll text you soon with instructions on what to do next.”

“You won’t hurt her anymore,” I ordered. “I’ll get your money.”

“I know you will. She’s a pretty little thing. It would be a shame to have to kill her, and my associate has already been admiring those tits. Have you seen those tits? Of course, you have. Your girl and all. Those are a delicious pair. You are a lucky man.”

I saw red as I listened to him speak the lewd words. I had the horrible image of Lex being assaulted by a dirty, burly man, and I almost roared into the phone. “You will not touch her!”

“Get us our money, Ice, and we’ll play nice. But don’t be a hero. No cops. No funny business. Or else, she’s dead, and we’ll make sure it’s as thoroughly pleasurable for us as it is painful for her.” Then the line went dead.

I almost threw my phone across the room but caught myself just before I did. Even though the red sirens were going off in my head, I had to think calmly. Logically. Anything else could mean that Lex would get hurt, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.

I quickly got dressed and stuffed my wallet and my phone into my pocket. I looked at my watch. I had to get downtown and into my safe deposit box in the next hour before the bank closed. I scrolled through my contacts until I found the number of the bank. I’d make sure they were ready for me before I got there to save time. I had two hours.

Two hours to imagine every way that I was going to kill that asshole if I could just get my hands on him.

When the door opened, and the man stepped inside, I stiffened in my seat. He was wearing a ski mask, and I thought upon closer inspection that this was probably the guy who grabbed me off the street.

“You’re awake, that’s good,” the man said. He held up my phone and snapped a picture of me. I flinched. “I’ll give you a drink of water if you promise to be a good little girl, okay? No screaming. Otherwise…” He made the motion of beating something down, and I caught the drift. I felt sick, but I was parched. I nodded my agreement.

He walked across the room and without any word of warning ripped the duct tape off my mouth. I hissed in pain that added to the throbbing in my head and almost made me pass out. He moved away from me but was back moments later. I saw he had two small pills in the palm of his hand.

“You’ve probably got one hell of a headache,” he said. He didn’t sound sorry about it. In fact, I’d peg the tone of his voice as smug and rather pleased with himself.

“My head doesn’t feel great considering you cracked something against my skull,” I said, unable to keep the edge out of my voice.

“You want these or not?”

I nodded. I wanted to spit in his face, but I needed to figure out what the hell was going on, and anything to take the edge off the pain would help. Plus, it was easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar the old saying went. He motioned for me to open my mouth, and I almost gagged when his dirty, chubby finger put the pills on my tongue. It was awkward as I tried to sip from the glass as he tipped it, and some of the water sloshed down my front. I felt the water seep into the fabric of my shirt but greedily sucked on the water until he pulled it away.

I saw that he was staring at my chest, and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as I tried to scrunch down and make myself as small as possible. I needed to get his attention away from any of
those
thoughts. “I’m hungry.” It was as if my stomach was playing on my cue, because it gave a loud rumble.

“Later,” the man said dismissively.

“Why am I here?” I finally asked. The man didn’t seem to be the chatty kind.

“You’re our payday,” he replied with a chuckle. “If you play nice, we’ll play nice, and you’ll be back with your boyfriend in no time.”

Boyfriend? Oh, shit.
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I said coolly.

“That’s not the way it looked a few weeks ago. That fucker Ice Malone had goo-goo eyes for you. I was there at the fight. I saw it.”

Double shit.
“I work for him. I’m not his girlfriend. It’s a professional working relationship only.”

The man rolled his eyes. He pulled out one of the chairs next to the table and sat down in it. “Sure, it is. You think I was born yesterday?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell the man that I had been fired not more than a few hours ago, but I realized that might make my precarious situation even worse. But realistically, could I expect that Shayne was going to pay a ransom for me?

“How much am I supposed to be worth?” I asked.

“Your boyfriend’s getting off cheap, all things considered,” the man said. “Only two-hundred grand. I even extended the deadline until noon tomorrow. Needless to say, I was feeling generous.”

My stomach dropped. I knew better than anyone that Shayne didn’t have that kind of cash laying around. He pretty much spent it as soon as he got it. Based on my last analysis, he had less than half of that on hand. He had a line of credit for another fifty grand for maintenance with the gym. Unless he asked his father for it. That would be the sensible thing to do. But all of that aside, why would he pay that kind of money for me? I didn’t mean anything to him. He had proved that to me.

I had to figure out a way out of this situation on my own. I felt my heart begin to beat wildly as the man wandered back into the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator door. He pulled up the front of his ski mask, and he turned around to take a long drink of the beer as he turned around. He must have seen my widened eyes.

Then he blew out a long breath and shook his head. He took the mask off and threw it on the ground. “Well, shit. I wasn’t supposed to do that. Now you’ve seen my face.”

Glancing back toward the dirty window, I gulped. “I didn’t see anything. You can put it back on. We’ll pretend that never happened.”

“Kinda hard to breathe with it on,” he said. I heard his heavy footsteps as he lumbered back into the room. The metal scrapping on the floor drew my attention back toward him, although I kept my eyes on the floor.

The metal chair from the kitchen appeared next to me, and then the man threw himself down into it with a heavy sigh. His legs were spread wide, and he had the beer bottle resting on the inside of his thigh. I struggled against the duct tape holding my hands as I felt his breath on my cheek. I refused to look at him.

“You sure are pretty. My name’s Bill, by the way. I don’t usually get this close to girls like you. All fancy and prissy. You smell nice. Like vanilla ice cream or somethin’. Nah, girls like you don’t even look twice at guys like me.”

I wondered why he was surprised. Based on the way he smelled, I didn’t think the man had showered in several days. I didn’t say anything, though, and that was when I felt the tip of something sharp against the side of my ribcage. “Didn’t your prissy mother or fancy ass education tell you it was impolite not to speak when spoken to?”

“It’s nice to meet you, Bill.” I felt the bile rise in the back of my throat even as I said the words.

“That’s better. How long have you have fucking that cocksucking bastard?” Bill’s voice was light and teasing. “You see those holds when he wraps the other fighter’s head up between his legs? That’s because he likes having a man’s mouth that close to his dick.”

The man was revolting. Again I didn’t say anything, but I felt the tip of the knife dig in a little deeper. “Six weeks,” I sputtered. “I met him right before his last fight here.”

“Ah, young love. That’s sweet.” Bill took a long swig on his beer. “See, carrying on a conversation isn’t so hard. We all want the same thing at the end.”

I heard the chirp of a phone and sighed in relief when Bill stood up to take the call. “Yeah. Yeah. Content as a kitten,” he said to the person on the other end. “Okay.” There were a few more moments of silence, and then Bill replied again, “Yeah, I got it. It’ll be done.”

Daring to glance back in his direction, I saw him grimace at the phone. Then he swigged the remainder of his beer. “Sorry for the interruption, but I guess I gotta run out and see what goodies your boyfriend has for us. I’ll be back soon, though.”

“How long as you going to keep me here?” I felt a slight ray of hope. Maybe this would all be over soon.

Bill was already next to the door with his hand on the doorknob. He looked back over his shoulder at me, and the twisted grimace of a smile held something else in it now. Menace. Hatred. Evil. “You might want to settle in, darlin’. Now that you’ve seen my pretty face, we might need to change the plan a bit. That’s the part I didn’t tell my associate by the way. We’ll keep that just between you and me.”

Then he was out the door, and I felt the pit of fear growing in my stomach again. I knew that whatever Bill said, I was in serious trouble now whether Shayne paid the money or not. Bill wanted to hurt me. I was pretty sure he wanted to kill me. I didn’t have any doubt about that.