RANSOM (7 page)

   “Why where you out there? You said you were going to the bar, but Mr. Johnson’s farm is on the other side of town.”

   “I don’t want to talk about it, ok?”

   “Fine! I’ve got to go anyways.” She gets up and glances over her shoulder at Sage, “Night.”

   “Night,” Sage replies back to her.

   When the door slams, I am left standing there thinking
what the fuck just happened?

Sage

“You are more of a dick than I thought you were,” I whisper under my breath.

   “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he asks me.

   “What else is it supposed to mean? You. Are. An. Ass. It’s pretty simple. This girl has done every stupid thing you have ever asked her to do. Now you have her sitting here, possibly racking up on prison time and now you probably just got her fired.” I shake my head.

   “What the fuck happened while I was gone? Did you turn my best friend against me or something?”

   “If only. That girl couldn’t hate you if she wanted to. I’m not going to lie. I tried my damnedest to talk her into it and letting me go, but she wouldn’t have it. She is so in love with you I don’t know if anything could knock any sense into her,” I tell him.

  
His face scrunches up before he holds two fingers up and ticks them off as he says, “One, she isn’t in love with me, she loves me because I’m her friend. Two, she won’t turn her back on me because we have been friends all our lives.”

  
“Whatever you need to tell yourself to make yourself feel better,” I say. I crawl under the covers and turn my back to him.

  
I hear him moving around and then the TV cut on. I have got to figure out a way to get out of here. I am sure everyone is worried sick about me. Especially Amanda. We don’t normally go a few hours without checking in with each other and it’s been…wait, how long have I been here? A day, days, weeks?

  
Before I can figure out in my head how long I have been in this hell, the volume on the TV goes up. I sit up to tell him to turn it back down when I see my face on the screen. The 11 o’clock news is broadcasting a missing person report, and I am the missing person. Yes! I knew they would be looking for me soon.

  
It won’t be long now, and I will be back at home spending some much needed time with my fiancé. He has been working so much recently we haven’t had any ‘us’ time and now I’ve been kidnapped. Maybe, we should take a vacation somewhere exotic. I’m pulled out of my daydreaming when my dad comes on the screen. He is holding a picture of him, mom, and me at the company picnic last summer.

  
“Please, if anyone knows the whereabouts of our daughter, let us know. She isn’t one to just take off without letting someone know. This is why we are positive it is foul play. I beg of you, if you have her and let her come back home unharmed I promise we will forget about all of this nonsense. We just want our baby back,” my father finishes with a tear rolling down his check as he reaches back and grabs my mother’s hand to pull her up beside him.

   Her eyes look dark and sunk in. She’s probably been overdoing her medication. That’s how she copes with overly stressful situations. Dammit, I need to get home.

   “Look, there is your out. He just said let me go unharmed and he will forget about it.” I say hopeful.

   “You expect me to believe that he would honor that?” he asks.

   “He just said so on television. He has to honor it. The whole state and possibly the nation heard him say it.” I explain.

   “So does that mean I should believe everything that I see on TV? That’s the stupidest thing I have heard come out of your mouth yet,” his voice drips with sarcasm.

   “Please. Just…just let me go and I will make sure that he sticks by what he said. I have to get home.”

   “Why? What’s so awesome about your life? You have money and are spoiled to the top by your father. That’s it.”

   “I have a great life, thank you. I have a great best friend who is always there for me. My fiancé is an amazing man who works hard and is very successful. Despite what you think, my father is a very good man and loves me and my mother unconditionally. So yeah, I think my life is pretty awesome,” I say with a nod of my head.

   “Oh, really? I just didn’t expect you to be as damn clueless about your life as you are.”

   “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

   “It means that you have everything wrong. The father that apparently loves your mother so dearly is who keeps her high on her pills so that he doesn’t have to deal with her ranting. That fiancé that you love so much, well he could give two shits about you. All you are is a ticket to the throne to him. He and that best friend that is always there for you? They’ve been screwing behind your back for the past five years.” He huffs out a laugh, “Pretty amazing life you have there.”

   What the hell is he talking about? He doesn’t even know me, how would he know more about my life than I do? “Wow, do you spend much time fantasizing about how awful you want my life to be or something?”

   He breaks out into full on laughter and doesn’t stop until he is wiping tears from the corners of his eyes. “Beauty, I have been far too busy to fantasize about your life. I hate to break it to
ya, but all that shit’s true. My advice would be to drop the douche bag as soon as this shit is over.”

   “And when exactly will that be, Lynkin?” I question.

   “At this point, I’d just be happy with enough to know my mother is taken care of, I could care less what happens to me anymore,” he says distantly.

   Is he suicidal now? “What the hell?” I say to myself.

   He stares off for a while before he turns to look at me. When he starts talking, it’s just that, talking. Like we are friends and he is telling me about himself.

   “
Growing up, I didn’t have much. It was just my mom and me. She worked at a nursing home in Savannah, so with the sixty hour work weeks and commute to and from work, I didn’t see her much. She became pregnant with me in high school, and the bastard that helped in the deed told her to get bent. Her parents wouldn’t make any effort to help her. When they found out about me, they said that since she got herself in the predicament, she could get herself out of it.” He shakes his head and laughs, “She showed them what she was made of, too. That woman is the strongest person I have ever known. She has never needed anyone’s help. Ever since I came along she has been on her own, working her hands to the bone to take care of us both. She has always been able to provide for me by herself.”

   He sniffles and shakes his head. When his eyes meet mine again, he has a smile on his face. “She is tough, but age and her job at that nursing home eventually got to her. The doctors said she couldn’t do all the hard labor she was doing, and put her on light duty when I was in my junior year of high school. She couldn’t stand the fact that I got a job to help out, but it had to be done. I have helped her ever since. Now though, she can’t work at all because her back is so bad.

   She used to complain about the conditions at the nursing home she worked in and at others she had helped out in. Now, I am the only thing keeping her from going to a state nursing home herself.”

   I don’t know what to say to him. His mother sounds like an incredible woman, far better than my own. My mother only cares about status and appearances, and when she can’t deal with reality, she takes enough pills to not care. “I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with my father.”

   “When I first met your father, I thought he was the kindest man ever. I though he was the man that you still see him as. He found me while I was in college, and after talking to a few of my professors, offered me an internship at his company, working as his right hand man.”

   Oh shit! I knew I had heard that from somewhere. I remember when daddy came home that day, he kept going on and on about this bright young man he had found and had high hopes for.

   “I interned until I graduated, and he hired me in full time. You couldn’t imagine how high I put that man up in my book. I was a nobody. I had to work at the bar here in town every night just to help cover what my scholarship wouldn’t pay for. Your father was like a God send to me. He took a risk on someone like me, and I worked my ass off for him to prove that he made the right choice. I was able to take care of my mother and myself without the stress and anxiety of not having enough money. Then, a couple of months ago, I was called to the conference room. What I found in there were all three of the owners and a separation notice.”

   “Why?” I ask. My father has never said anything but good things about his right hand man. He had to have had a good reason to let him go.

   “They said I was stealing from them,” he states flatly.

   “Did you?”

    “I just told you that this man gave me the biggest break of my life, and you think I would steal from him?”

   “Look, I’m not trying to stereo type or anything, but look where you come from. I mean you had nothing, and then suddenly had access to all this information,” I pull my shoulders up in a shrug trying to not look so awful for what I just said.

   “Wow. Just, wow. Is that really how low you think of people not of your stature?” He stands up running his hands through his hair.

   “Well, no, but I can see how it’s tempting.” I try and backpedal. “Is all of that really worth ending your life over?”

   “I just don’t care anymore,” he states.

   “But what do you think losing you would do to your mother? The way you talk, you are the only person in her life. Can you really do that to her?”

Lynkin

I’ll be damned, I guess Beauty really does have a heart. Then, I think about her question. Could I really do that to my mother? The answer to that is simple. No matter how much I hate my life, the thought of her being alone would keep me from being so stupid. “No.”

   She presses her lips together like she can’t figure me out. Guess what? I don’t get you either, sweetheart. I go to the night stand and pull the handcuffs from the drawer. I hand them to her.

   “No,” she says and pushes them from her.

“Yes,” I tell her and put them back in front of her. “If you don’t do it, I will.”

   Sage turns her head away from me and folds her arms across her chest. “Is that how you want to do it? Fine then. Be stubborn.”

   I toss the handcuffs on the bed beside her and grab her elbows to pull her arms apart. She jerks them away, causing her to fall to her back on the bed with me on top of her. I slide my hands from her elbows up to her wrists that are now above her head and hold them down. I get them with one hand so that I have a free hand to put the cuffs on. I slide to the side and grab the handcuffs. Hovering over her again, I maneuver one of the handcuffs open. As I slap the handcuff onto one wrist, she bucks underneath me. I take both of her wrist back into separate hands, then use my knees to pin her legs down.

   It doesn’t keep her from still trying to get free. She wiggles from side to side and arches her back up to buck me off, but all she accomplishes with it is to brush her breasts against me.

   “Stop. Just stop.” My voice cracks. My dick is begging to be set free of its confinement. Her rubbing her body against mine like this is just freaking torment. Her gray eyes round with plea. She is so damn beautiful and the fight in her is relentless. I take her in underneath me like this. Her hands pinned above her
head, that dark auburn hair spilled out around her, in my shirt. I can’t help my eyes from traveling down her body to her bare legs. She may be a short little thing, but the height she does have is all in her legs. I notice her breathing is coming in fast pants. I bring my eyes back up her body and stop on her chest. The top of my shirt opens a little more with each expand of her chest, revealing to me the curve of her plump breast.