Lucky 13 (Deadlines & Diamonds) (22 page)

He ran his fingers down her side, tracing around her hip bone, then up again.
“I don’t wanna beat a dead horse—”

“Then don’t.”
She stiffened, huffed. “After today everything is in place for you to adopt Matt. I have nightmares sometimes. Not a big deal. And we are all fine. Anything else?”

He smoothed her hair back away from her forehead and kissed her temple. “I love you.”

She nestled into his neck. “I love you, too.”

She didn’t say another word. She didn’t n
eed to. They loved each other and that meant a
ll was right with the world.

24

Anxiety had never been Shayne’s friend. At one time in her life, she’d popped pills to keep herself grounded. That’d been a long time ago. Today, she wondered if she needed to reconsider the habit.

It’d been nearly a
week since she’d met with Alex. She’d hoped it’d be easy.
So far there’d been no sign of the papers he’d promised to sign. Not that she should be
oh-my-gosh
ing it. When the man died
,
he’d take the devil’s place. Nothing ever turned out to be easy when Alex called the shots.

She looked down at her unringing cell phone and cringed.
She really shouldn’t call Megan
again
. Her attorney said she’d call when she heard something.

She should be enjoying the time alone. Her boys had gone to the newest action flick, leaving
her
to a few hours of a little peace
and quiet. She sat down on the couch and fired up her ereader. The black letters on the white page morphed together, fuzzing into a bunch of unreadable.

Maybe she needed a drink. A stiff one. She went into the kitchen, opened the fridge and pulled out one of Ricky’s beers.
Not a drinker, especially a beer drinker, she wondered how schnockered she’d be when the boys got home.

The doorbell rang. She
put the beer on the counter. Halfway through the family room
movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention.
She stopped.
There was a man in the backyard.
He ran across the back lawn, jumped up onto the back porch.

She backed in the direction of
the kitchen.
The garage was her best bet. Her only chance. She needed to call for help.
With fingers that shook
,
she dialed 911
, hitting send just as the back door crashed open. G
lass flew in every direction.

She took off on a dead run
. Unsure of whether or not her call went through, she slipped
the phone
into her back pocket
. She kept running. Damn, w
hen had the kitchen
become a football field
?

One foot on the slate floor and s
omethin
g plowed into her from behind. It f
elt like a semi. But no, it was just a man the size of one. Adrenaline flooded her, giving her the strength and courage to fight. She thrashed under him.

A fist slammed into the right side of her face, the floor greeted the left. Stars swam amongst the tears in her eyes. Something heavy and pointy jammed into her back between her shoulder blades.

“Be a good little girl and
we’ll make this quick and easy,
”
the deep voice told her
.

“What do you want?”

“To kill you.” He said the words s
o matter-of-factly she thought for sure she’d misunderstood him.

“Wh- what?”

His breath reeked of onions and cigarettes. “You didn’t think you could take his son, did you?”

Oh shit!

“He said—”
The pressure on her back eased
and she took a deep breath
.
“He said he was okay with it.”

Meaty hands clamped onto her arms and yanked her to her feet.
“He’s trying for a change of scenery. Minimum security will give him some freedom he doesn’t have now.”

Wonderful
.

“You’re a pretty little thing.” He ran a finger down her cheek, pressing hard on the bone.

She tried not to grimace. “How’d you find me?”

“Your brother is Matthias Xavier and you married Enrique Santiago. You’re kind of a celebrity, sweetheart.” None too gently, h
e d
ragged her through the kitchen, penguin walking her through the family room and t
he living room on a straight shot to the front door. She knew she couldn’t leave with them. She watched
CSI
.

She jerked her arms, spun around him
. She ran. Heavy footsteps followed
. Withi
n a few steps he
stood in front of her.
He put the muzzle of a gun to her forehead, right between her eyes.

Her heart stuttered. She didn’t want to die.

He walked her over to the door and unlocked it. Another big guy entered, closing them all in together. He flipped the locked. “To keep out the riff-raff.”

Her attackers both wore ski masks and rubber gloves
, their arms bare
. One had dark hair with olive skin. The other, the newer one sported a lot of freckles and pale skin under his red hair.

“If you’re only going to kill m
e, why don’t you just get to it?
” Not the smartest thing to say, but Shayne had been toyed with before. A bullet between the eyes was better than being violated, played with, and strangled.
Again.
Either way s
he’d end
up six-feet-under.

Irish answered, “We have t
o make it look like an accident. Which is gonna be pretty damned hard after what you did to the door.
”

“Hey, it wasn’t like the thing was wid
e open. I had to get in somehow
.”

Irish rolled his b
lue eyes. “You’re such a
screw up.”

“They’ll just think it was a break-in. It’s not like we’re gonna leave a witness.”

“Why?” She wasn’t sure why it mattered.

“Why what?” Genius asked.

“Why do you have to make it look like an accident?”

He grunted. “You ask a lot of questions for somebody who isn’t gonna care about nothin’ in about ten minutes.”

“Why does Alex care? It’s not like he can raise my son.”

He grabbed her around the middle and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Her vision whirled. Her stomach clenched. Her fight instinct kicked in and she pounded on his back with her fists.

His scoff vibrated through her body. “He’s an only child. His mom deserves to know her grandchild.”

The other man chuckled. “With you outta the way…”

She didn’t need a Harvard law degree to get four out of that two-plus-two. Tears sprang to her eyes. Alarms rang in her head. These guys really were going to kill her. Panic, living and violent, snaked through her bloodstream. Eating her. Choking her.

Alex’s mother was going to take her son.

Terror surged.

Matt wouldn’t stand a chance living in the cutthroat world of organized crime.

Anger consumed.

Fight, dammit
!

She gritted her teeth. She kicked her feet, using her legs to throw him off balance. Fisting her hands, she pounded his back. Aiming for the kidneys.

Thwack. Thud. Twa-...

“Shiiit!”

She met the floor shoulder first. Pain raced down her arm. She crab-crawled back. A hand grabbed her by the ankle, dragged her back. Her fist connected with a jaw. A satisfying crack, followed by a curse. She saw the fist coming, but couldn’t do anything to stop its impact. Her world went dark. Probably for the last time.

***

Everything hurt.
Shayne
awakened slowly, disoriented, and wished her chin would stop quivering. Only to realize her entire body shook.
From cold.

Icy water lapped at her aching body. Except her legs. They were up, bent at an odd angle. She yanked. They wouldn’t budge. She tugged, twisted. Nothing.

Forcing her eyelids open,
she did a quick inventory and came up with the beginnings of a freak-out. H
er feet
were
tied to the faucet
,
which drooled a steady stream
of cold water
.

She tried to sit up, b
ut the weight wrapped around her torso prevented the upright
and made it hard to breathe
.
Braced at her sides, her arms refused to move.

Claustrophobia pierced her panic, sending her spiraling into a full-fledged anxiety attack.

She screamed, sucked in a deep breath and released it on another high-pitched protest.
Only silence tormented her. She drew as much breath as she could and shouted her frustration and fear until her throat hurt.

Oh
, dear
God, they intended to drown her.

She could think of better ways t
o die. Pills. Carbon monoxide
.
Shark attack.
Train.

Another shiver crept up her spine and had nothing to do with the water temperature.

The plug.

She slithered around, groping for the metal tub plug. When her fingers dipped into an open, exposed hole, hope dwindled. She tried to sit again, but couldn’t
compete with Ricky’s weight vest that’d been wrapped around her body
. Lifting her head
,
she studied the faucet, the rope weaving around it and her feet. She yanked. Again.
And again.

Water covered her hands now.

She wondered how much longer she had to live
. In high school, one of those stupid story problems had read something to the effect if the water is entering the bathtub at
this
rate and draining at
that
rate, how long before the tub fills? She’d written ‘trick question. It wouldn’t ever fill’. She’d been wrong. Flunked the test. And check her out, now when her life depended on it, she still couldn’t come up with an answer.

She was going to die. She just wasn’t smart enough to figure out how long until the inevitable.

She squeezed her eyes shut, concentrated on her breathing, counting each one.
Sixteen. Seventeen.
She thought of her life. Only the good parts.

Moving to Kingman. Her grandparents were so good to her. She guessed it wouldn’t be long before she saw them again.

She wiped
her cheek with her shoulder
.
Only the good.

Matt’s birth. He’d been purple with lots of dark hair and a great set of lungs. 

Matt’s first step. He’d fallen and smacked his head, also getting his first stitches.

Matt’s first word.
Mama. She loved her son so much. She hoped Ricky would take good care of him.

Oh, Ricky
.

A sob
bubbled up
and her chest stuttered with its buddies
escape attempt
.
She wished she’d been able to tell him she loved him just one last time. Meeting him had been
one of
the very b
est thing
s
to happen to her
, trumped only by her son.

It’d taken her a while to admit it, but she’d fallen for him as his lips touched hers for the first time.

He’d healed her, mended parts of her she hadn’t known were broken. He loved her and would have to go on without her. He’d be fine. He’d find someone else to help him raise her son.

Another sobbing fit
captured her
and she lost track of her breaths. She wouldn’t even have that. She shook her head.
Water filled her ears. She hated water in her ears. That in and of itself
was a form of
torture.

Stay positive.

X. She smiled a bit.
Xavier. Matthias. Her brother. She’d barely gotten him back and was being forced to leave him. Life really wasn’t fair, was it? For as long as she remembered
,
she’d missed her big brother. When he called her “baby sister” for the first time in her adult life, she’d burst into nostalgic tears.

The water level approached her temples. At least her tears didn’t have far to travel now.

She kept her eyes closed because she didn’t want to see her surroundings. On the back of her eyelids she pictured the smiling faces of the three most important men in her life.

She loved Ricky’s smile, the way his lip quirked higher on one side. His eyes captured her the first time he winked.
She adored the twinkle when he teased her. Even as she knew she was dying, the thought of him turning that look on another woman made her sick.

Matt needed his mother, not a custody battle and an uncertain future.

Water rippled
up
into her eyes. She squeezed them tighter, tilted her head back and stretched her nose toward the ceiling.

I love you, Matt. I love you, Ricky.
She repeated the mantra over and over, hoping if she said the words enough times her loved ones would know her last thoughts were of them.
I love you, Enrique Santiago.