Ridge Creek Reunited (Ridge Creek Duology) (3 page)

“Right then. Perhaps I’d best turn round and get back to my computer then…”

“Perhaps you had,” Jake mumbles in a slightly less pissed off voice. It’s only as I start to back away from the steps that he makes his final descent down the steps and places a hand on my shoulder to stop my movement. “And Emma…”

“What,” I murmur looking up to meet his face. He looks livid again and I sense the danger in his words before he says them.

“If I ever see you driving your fuckin’ car along a gravel road like that again, there will be consequences. Gravel roads are dangerous and you should treat them with respect. Right now, you’re the only person I know that might have a chance at finding my Arianna and you driving around like that, putting yourself at risk, does nothing to help her. If you end up injured or dead, the way I figure it, she’s lost. Take more fuckin’ care of yourself. You mean a lot to her on any given day, but today you’re her lifeline. Don’t fuck that up by ploughing into a tree on the way home.”

Holy shit.

I do believe he
loves
her.

Relieved that Jake appears to want me
alive
,
I nod my understanding, turn and walk to my car. As I open my door, Jambo screeches a happy hello and flies straight out of the car to land on my shoulder. I see four heads shaking as the four men stare at my bird by the dim glow thrown from the car’s interior light.

I give Jambo a quick chuck under the chin and fold myself into the driver’s seat. Jambo jumps straight to the dashboard to assume his favorite position as Captain of his ship. Backing slowly away from the house I turn Mazz to face back down the driveway.

Bah – consequences.

Dumping the clutch, I hit the accelerator and Mazz responds. With a decent spray of gravel from the back tires, I fly off down the driveway.

So much to do.

So little time.

That’s My Girl

Jake…

Irritated, I watch Emma’s car fly down my driveway. Seemingly the woman is fuckin’ deaf. Lucky for her she’s Arianna’s girl and despite the bad play of events tonight, she’s good for business. If she wasn’t, I’d be encouraging her to
move the fuck on.
She’s already causing tension between my boys as they circle waiting for Zane to finish with her. They all know Zane better than he knows himself so like hyena’s to a lion, they’re waiting for him to finish with the carcass before they all start fighting over the remains. What’s worse is I think she can see what’s going on and she’s baiting the lion by tempting the hyena’s to come closer.

My thoughts redirect once again as I feel the foreign twist of pain in my gut.

Mother fucker.

If I didn’t know better I’d think that bullet tagged me in the gut, not the wing. I don’t like it. It reeks of pussy whipped, a place I’d
sworn I’d never go again. Especially not after that last bitch I’m still struggling to scrape off. But damn, what do you know, here I go again. There’s something about this girl that had me the minute I laid eyes on her. Even totally fucked up and lying next to a log on the side of the road, I knew there was something about her I needed. Not one to normally believe in that shit, I’m even thinking there was a reason I was the person who found her on the side of the road and not someone else. Maybe, just maybe, she’s my reward for not going with my first instincts and killing that other bitch to get an easy out of our fucked up marriage.

Maybe she’s my reward for hanging in there. For
putting up with that other weak as shit bitch. Maybe fate decided to send me a
tough
one. One that wouldn’t let life suck her under and down into the depths where a person loses sight of what matters and lives life wanting more out of it than it ever had to give.

The way I see it, Arianna was sent to me which also means she was meant to be mine. And she fucking will be. That dipshit Altieri has
no idea
what he’s gotten himself into by coming after her. When I’ve finished with him, he will be left with
no doubts
that she is
off-limits.
Why the idiot didn’t just accept our offer yesterday is beyond me. He could have been enjoying easy cash. All he had to do was leave her the fuck alone. From what we already knew, he was chasing money. Something that literally seems to be growing on bushes around me so why didn’t he just enjoy the low hanging fruit?

Is he really that stupid?

Not that the mother fucker will get a red cent out of me now. Now that I know the
real
reason he needs money, he’s fucked. He should have taken the offer yesterday and his life would have run a whole lot smoother. By being greedy, he’s shot himself in the foot. If he’d have taken the offer, Emma might not have continued to dig so deep. If she hadn’t have dug so deep, I’d have been none the wiser on his wife problem.

His sending someone for Arianna tonight was a game changer.

I feel the twist in my stomach again. It’s becoming more persistent the longer I stand here and the longer Arianna is unaccounted for.

I need to get moving.

It started the second Zane appeared before me, ready to untie me from where those two jerkoff’s had tied me up. He didn’t even wait for me to ask. He knew what I wanted to know. He knew me well enough to just answer the question he could see on my lips. “Gone.”

His word gutted me. Until that point there had still been hope. Hope that she’d learned enough yesterday to be carrying her gun and had managed to defend herself long enough for the others to get here. Now that hope was gone. Although knowing she was still alive when they took her and that she tagged one of them before they took her down gives me hope. Hope that even though she’s been through so much before, she’s still willing to fight. She went
down fighting.

That’s my girl.

Deciding I’ve wasted enough time already, I look out into the darkness towards Towball. Although I can’t make him out clearly, I know he’s there by the tip of his cigarette glowing in the darkness as he lifts it to his mouth and draws deeply before dropping it to his side again.

“Good to see you’re still standing brother,” his gravelly voice rasps through the darkness towards me.

“You’re her new best friend,” I announce as I tip my chin down the driveway towards where Emma’s car disappeared around the bend in the driveway. “I don’t think we should expect trouble for her, but I’m no longer taking risks.”

“On it,” Towball acknowledges my request. The still glowing cigarette falls to the ground before disappearing under his boot as he stomps it out. His boots crunch on the gravel as he moves towards his bike. Seconds later, the bright light of his headlight blinds me as his Harley roars to life. Without another word, he rolls his bike backwards, turns and disappears down the driveway after Emma.

Watching the taillight on his bike vanish around the bend in the driveway, I sense movement to my right. Luke steps in close. He’s been standing silently in the darkness, absorbing the conversation as he always does. He won’t have missed a single word. By now he will have sifted through the information he has and already be planning how he’ll respond. He’ll already know where I’m at and I know he will be with me
every step of the way.
The man’s a fucking genius and I love him like a true brother. “Thanks for coming man, but you don’t need to ride out with me. I’ll do this one on my own.”

“No you won’t,” he announces as he lifts a hand to my neck and squeezes my nape. “You’re gunna need backup and me and Zane are it.”

I look back to the verandah to see Zane nodding. “I can’t ask you to do this man, it could go South…”

He cuts me off. “It goes South, we go South with you. You aren’t doing this alone. We bring her back. Today. Now get inside, cover up, get us some weapons and we’ll hit the road.”

Deciding that I don’t have the time to waste arguing with him or Zane, I nod my acceptance. A short time later, my brothers and I are on the road to Melbourne.

Safe

Meanwhile, Arianna…

So this shit just got weird.

I’ve woken up in the back seat of what I figure is a hellishly expensive car. A car with a white leather interior that’s so soft I feel like I’m sitting on a fluffy white cloud. There’s a flat screen on the back of the seat in front of me and a full center console complete with buttons, screens and dials between the two rear passenger seats.
My mind instantly decides that this car has more of an
MC Hammer
feel than a Melbourne crime boss feel. Vincent Altieri must really be rolling in the cash.

Even weirder, Pierre is lying on my lap, drooling lightly and snoring
.
He looks fine.

Why did they kidnap my dog too?

I suppose I should be grateful that at least Pierre appears okay. For now.

I’m also okay
, for now. Apart from a light headache I don’t feel too worse for wear. Which seems nothing short of a miracle and leads me to believe I must have a very hard head.

Which reminds me how I got here.

I tense up instantly as my fear and flight instincts spark back to life.

Ohmigod Jake.

What happened to Jake? Is he okay? I
need
to know what happened. I need to know if he’s okay. I also need to escape. And I need to escape working on the understanding that it is unlikely a person gets two divine interventions in one lifetime so I’m likely on my own this time.

Fuck.

My gun is gone, which one would expect. I think I made it reasonably clear I was willing to use it. Shooting someone would seem to demonstrate that. Interestingly however, I am once again not tied or restrained. Is Vincent really as dumb as Tony? Doesn’t he already know I’m capable of an effective escape?

Assessing my surroundings I begrudgingly admit that I
’m sitting in what most would consider a very
nice car. I suppose I should be thankful that this time I’m traveling in style. Being kidnapped and traveling in style is much nicer than being thrown against your will into the back of a filthy truck.

After a few more beats I also realize that this whole scenario doesn’t add up. Not only does the car not fit the profile of my supposed abductors, I doubt its good kidnapping practice to place a woman
unrestrained
in the back of a luxury car
with her dog.
Especially if you are ferrying her to her execution point.

Which leads me to wonder what is going on here. Why am I not dead already? Couldn’t they have just shot me while I was knocked out and dropped me in one of those mine shafts Tony was planning on using the first time? Although I’m glad they didn’t because right now I’m thinking it’s not over till the Fat Lady sings.

I’m still alive.

And if I’m still alive, I can hold hope that Jake is alive and that Emma is already doing some computer magic to find me again. I can still hope that if I stay alive long enough, someone will find me.

With more questions than answers running through my head I slowly realize that although the two men in the front seat have been talking animatedly in stilted and muted voices, they are in fact
arguing.

I instinctively move a hand to run my fingers across Pierre’s soft coat as he sleeps calmly in my lap
. Luckily, he is oblivious to the turmoil swirling in my head and the fear now icing its way through my veins. Deep in puppy sleep, he merely sighs and continues to snore.

Glancing out the window into the darkness, I note we
’re nearing the outskirts of a large country town or small city. Already formulating ideas for escape, I start looking for signposts to gain an indication of our whereabouts. It’s only a few short seconds later that my interest piques at the topic of conversation in the front seat and I soon forget all about signposts.

“We get her to a
neurologist first and confirm you didn’t do any damage with your Tibetan Ninja crap. Then we find a veterinary clinic. Then and only then will I let you deal with my injury,” the man in the passenger seat announces in a rich, authoritative voice that surprises me. He sounds well-spoken, well-educated and sort of
cool.

My interest sparks further as I focus my attention on the back of his head and realize that this is the older man with the graying hair who pointed his gun at me earlier. The man I
shot.

“Surgeon first, she and the dog are
fine,
” the bald man in the driver’s seat responds quickly as he continues to focus on driving. “I’ve already told you sir, I
knew
what I was doing when I tapped her. You can keep fiddling and Googling on your phone all you like. You’re only going to find shit that says
not
to whack anyone on the head because it’s dangerous. Which is a good thing. Just think, if they advertised the real truth about how easy it is to put someone down with a precisely placed soft blow, every kid in Australia would be trying it. They’d try it on their enemies, they’d try it on their friends. They’d even try it on their families if they thought it was gunna save them doing homework. That’s when people
would
get hurt and end up with brain damage. I knew what I was doing. I just put her to sleep. She’s
fine.
”

“Ritchie, I don
’t think you have been listening to me
at all,”
the older man continues. “I
said
neurologist first, vet second, surgeon third. She clipped my side, we’ve stemmed the flow. I want them both checked and I want them checked
first
.”

What the fuck?

He wants a vet to look at Pierre before he gets his bullet wound attended to?

I hear the man in the driver’s seat sigh. “Sir, a
dog
does not take priority over a bullet wound to your own person.”

“
Her
dog does,” the older man snaps back instantly.

I find myself blinking rapidly as I try to understand what the hell is going on.

“The dog looks fine to me sir. He fell, he squeaked, he got up and ran to her.”

“Exactly. He squeaked,” the older man fires back. “It hurt, he could be hurt. He needs to see a vet. You know I know dogs. Dogs mask pain. They do it involuntarily. Your job is to
follow orders
Ritchie. Now
follow orders.
”

The man in the driver’s seat sighs. Leaning across to the center console of the car, he hits a button on a mobile phone sitting in a hands free cradle. Within seconds he starts talking. “Gina, we need a plastic surgeon, a general practitioner and a veterinary surgeon back at the house when we get there. Our ETA is sixteen minutes.”

A woman’s voice responds, confused. “You’re not heading direct to the Health Service according to previous advice? Why do you need a veterinarian?”

“On the first, he’s being an ass. On the second, she has a dog,” the driver informs the woman.

“Okay, I’m on it,” the woman replies and the call finishes.

“A General Practitioner is
not
a neurologist,” the man in the passenger seat barks half a second later. The driver appears to ignore him and keeps driving without another word.

O-kaaay.

Unless I’m
seriously
mistaken, these two do
not
sound like they plan to kill me.

Why don’t they want to kill me?

Then it dawns on me. I’m about to become a
prisoner.
Probably a well looked after prisoner, but a prisoner nonetheless. Vincent Altieri must want me back to put his website back together. Which, begrudgingly I have to admit is a far smarter business idea than the one my idiot ex-boyfriend had. His idea to kill me and drop me in a mineshaft was
not
good business.

Tony
really
was an idiot. A stupid idiot. Tony’s idea guaranteed that business came to a standstill. Vincent’s idea to keep me alive and no doubt chained to a computer means business resumes and continues to run.

Oh dear.

Sadly, this new twist of fate in my life could be even
worse
than death. Who wants to be held prisoner for the rest of their life? Right now most of the world thinks I’m dead and the only person I’m positive would be looking for me is Emma. I
hope
Jake is too, but I’m not even sure he’s alive.

Shit oh dear.

The worst part of all this?

I was beginning to like Ridge Creek.

A lot.

Well not just like. Love.

I love that it is not a bustling suburbia with people everywhere. I love that my new friends give it to me straight and don’t try to leave me in the dark. I love that from what I can see, people care about each other and are willing to literally kill for one another. And the final cherry on top of all that. The part I’ve known deep down for days now; I
love
Jake.

Real love.

Not just the weird attachment feeling I felt with Tony. Jake
listens
to me. Even when I’m flying off the handle and acting erratic. He calms me, makes me feel safe. Although if I get a chance to see him again, we are having a conversation about his new security
system
.
It sucks and was clearly a
fail.

Therefore, to have aforesaid conversation, I need to know if he’s alive.

If he is, then I have something to look forward to. Something worth fighting for. A reason to get out of whatever pickle I am in right now and get back to Ridge Creek.

Deciding it’s high time I got some answers and figuring I have nothing to lose, I lean slightly forward and ask the question I so desperately need to know the answer to. “Did you kill my boyfriend?”

Both men startle. Badly. Clearly neither was keeping a close eye on me or they would have at least known I was awake.

“Pen… Arianna,” the older man says softly as he turns his head. “You’re finally awake.”

“See sir,” the driver cuts in quickly. “I told you she would be
fine.
Admittedly she slept a bit longer than I’d expected but hey, it was the middle of the night, maybe she was just tired?”

“Ritchie, shut the fuck up,” the older man growls as he swings his eyes to pin them on me. I
’m once again struck by the colour of his eyes. An unusual blue for a man. Cornflower blue. Almost the same cornflower blue that I used to see when I looked in the mirror.

“Arianna, how do you feel?” He asks, his eyes concerned.

Annoyed that he is looking
concerned,
I repeat my question more abruptly. “Did you kill my boyfriend?”

A look of confusion fleets across his face and he appears to struggle to find a response. “No,” he replies slowly. Relief washes over me and I slump back into my seat.

Thank God.

“The biker man did. Jake Holder. His brother Zane Holder, assisted.” He adds watching me carefully.

What?

I instantly stiffen again.

He thinks I’m talking about Tony?

“I didn’t mean asshole Tony,” I snap without thinking, “I meant
Jake.
”

With fascination, I watch as my words hit home. Flaring his eyes wildly, he looks astounded.

“You’re
with
the biker?” He asks hoarsely, emotion shredding his voice to pieces.

“Of course I’m with
the biker.
Do you think I’d be calling that asshole Tony my boyfriend after what he did to me?” I snap, fury overtaking my body as it responds to subliminal messages of horror from my brain.

Sensing the tension building beneath him, Pierre wakes up. Within a beat of opening his eyes, they lock on me and he jumps up, elated to see me. With his tongue slashing madly, he welcomes me as if I’ve been twelve months at sea. I feel my heart melt instantly and my anger mellows. “Hey baby boy,” I murmur to him as I start to rub his body all over while I continue to glare at the blue eyes still locked on mine.

Those blue eyes already look different again. They look
worried.

“Did. You. Kill. My. Boyfriend?” I stilt out again.

Maybe he’s deaf?

“What did Tony Giotti do to you?” The older man continues ignoring my question.

Not deaf, that’s a start.

A wave of annoyance swamps me as frustrated, I realize I am getting nowhere with this conversation. Deciding the look on this man’s face means he’s missing some part of the big picture puzzle, I decide to give it to him. Putting both hands either side of Pierre’s head to hold him back from my face I announce slowly and clearly, “Tony Giotti beat the living shit of me. He dislocated my shoulder, broke some ribs and smashed my face within an inch of recognizability. He then raped me with a gun before shoving me in the back of a truck with an endgame of shooting me in the head and dropping me in a mineshaft. Luckily for me, I escaped before we made our mineshaft destination.
The biker
took me in, healed my body and gave me a home. He then set about righting whatever he could in my fucked up world. Now I need to know. Did. You. Fucking. Kill. Him?”