Two Hitmen: A Double Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Lawless Book 1) (50 page)

From the sounds outside, they were lurching back into some kind of civilization. After some stop-start city driving, they parked up in a street that sounded urban, and Tiffany was hustled up some steps into a building. They forced her up a narrow stairway that creaked like it was wooden, along a hallway that sounded narrow, up more stairs and along some more hallway.

She waited while a door was unlocked, then she was shoved through into a room. She was walked across wood floor, then a carpet or a rug of some sort, and through a door to another room. Then she was deposited on a bed. The door to the room was closed and she seemed to be alone.

She heard the boots outside, some scraping of furniture, and then voices. Tiffany thought she could make out Jax and two others, but she couldn’t be sure. She’d heard him say less than a dozen words. Listening hard, she couldn’t make out any of what was said, only quiet murmurs.

A cellphone beeped a couple of times. It was a generic ringtone. Then a chair scraped as the beep stopped. Boots crossed the room as the biker stood up to take the call. Another chair scraped, there was more movement, and the other two voices.

The one on the phone, the one she thought was Jax, said, “Uh-huh,” and ‘Yup,” and then something she couldn’t make out. At the same time, there was the clatter of crockery, a refrigerator door, more movement, and feet crossing the floor. A chair scraped.
I can’t sort out what matters from what’s just noise
, she thought.  

The door opened, and someone came in. He crossed the room, and set something down to Tiffany’s left. Then she felt the weight of someone crawling onto the bed. Jax was still on the phone, so the one on the bed wasn’t he.

The scent seemed like the one she’d called ‘Ax.’

Tiffany braced herself. She’d thought about what might happen. Again, from her expertise watching movies and TV shows, if everything went according to plan, there would be at least a day before the ransom could be met.

Even if there wasn’t a second shake-down, she was going to be a captive for twenty-four hours, minimum, maybe thirty-six. After that was where things usually started poorly. What went wrong, usually, was somebody’s nerves gave out and they fucked up.

That was always the exciting climax in the movie or the TV drama. That’s when everybody dies.

In this scenario, in her real-life predicament, she didn’t care all that much what happened to everybody, only the hostage.
My prospects are probably best
, she thought,
if nobody fucks up.

With all the calm she could muster, Tiffany tried to be as relaxed as she could be, when the figure on the bed reached over her to the blindfold. Her body flinched. Her breath shook.
 

He pulled the blindfold down until it hung around her neck. Tiffany did her best to look him calmly in the eye. As she blinked and adjusted to the light, she wasn’t looking at anyone’s eyes. Instead, she tried to look Ax calmly in the shades.

It was unnerving, but the fact that she’d won her private game of guess-the-biker gave her strength. She wanted to look around the room, learn about her surroundings, but she figured that holding eye contact, or as near as she could get, was more important now.

Ax put his finger up to his bandana, where his mouth was. She understood. He was going to take off the damn tape. He didn’t want her to start screaming and yelling. She nodded.

He showed her a very large, wicked-looking knife. He held the jagged, gleaming curve of the serrated blade against her soft throat. He put his finger to his mouth again. He shook his head, slowly.

Tiffany shook her head, slowly. He put the knife away. With his hand, he indicated a table by the bed. On the table were a slice of pizza on a plate, and an open bottle of beer.

Ax got up off the bed, walked over to a door at the left of the room. He opened it. There was a small bathroom with a sink, a shower, and a toilet. He closed the door, turned a key, and dropped the key in his pocket.

Then he walked to the other door and mimed knocking, twice. Tiffany nodded quickly.
 

“Okay,” she said, “If I need to use the bathroom I knock on the door.”
 

He nodded and came back to the bed. She trembled as he climbed on beside her. Her breath was thick and heavy, but she tried not to let it show.

Her body was tingling with that thing the endocrinologist had called the ‘self-preserving fight-or-flight response.’ A lot of good either of those impulses would be to her now. She couldn’t flee, and fighting the big biker wouldn’t end well for her. The theory was that it heightened your senses. She hoped he couldn’t tell.

His nostrils flared. He could tell.

He took out the knife again, and put a hand around the back of her head. He yanked her forward. With a snap, he cut the cord that held her wrists. He pulled her back up and took hold of the tape that covered her mouth.

Once more, he put his finger to his mouth and shook his head. She shook her head in agreement.

He yanked the heavy tape off in a rapid, rasping tug. It felt like he tore off the bottom of her face. She didn’t make a sound. He patted her cheek twice with his fingers, like Daddy had when she was little.

As he pulled his fingers away, they stuck to the adhesive left on her skin. He rubbed his fingers together. As Tiffany rubbed her sore wrists and saw the red marks around them, he got off the bed and opened the bathroom door. He held out his arm, inviting her to go clean up.

Tiffany scrubbed her face with water, leaving the hard, pink soap just for her hands. Getting the sticky goo off took forever, but she wasn’t going anywhere. Tiffany took her time. She figured that making Ax wait for her was no bad thing, either. Although she doubted he had too many other engagements for the afternoon.

That was something. Tiffany wondered how her sense of time was now. She thought about how long they’d traveled in the van. The first time she figured about twenty minutes, the second time about the same. They were in the warehouse or whatever it was for, what, half an hour? They’d been here, wherever ‘here’ was, for maybe twenty minutes.

Was that all? Really? Had she been in the mall just an hour and a half ago? She signaled to Ax, pointing to her wrist. He thought about it for a moment. He shrugged with his hands out, palms up.
Why? What do you care?

She spoke quietly, but was pleased to hear confidence in her voice, “I need to stay sane. I need fixed points.” He cocked his head. She said, “So, please, just tell me the time. Please?”

He looked at his watch. Then he held up three fingers. “Three,” Tiffany said, and he held up one finger, turned his hand around with five fingers out. “Three fifteen?” He nodded once.

Tiffany relaxed a little as she smiled. “Thank you.”

He bowed with his head. She had the impression he was smiling, too.
That’s good
, she told herself.
I’ve made a connection between us.
The well-known story was where the captive falls for the captors. ‘Stockholm Syndrome,’ wasn’t it?

Still, maybe she could make it work in reverse. Not very likely, but she remembered something else Daddy said from way back. “Always start with a plan. Even if it’s a lousy plan. Even if it’s the most absurd, no-hope plan in the history of plans. Observe what happens, then revise and adapt your plan to the changing circumstances.”

Tiffany would try.

The biker gestured again to the pizza and beer on the table. Tiff thought that a good sign. She paused for a moment, then looked up at him as she said, “Thank you.”

She wanted to give him a kiss on the cheek, but a kiss on the bandana didn’t seem like much of an idea. She stretched up and briefly touched her cheek on his shoulder, then she stood back with her hands clasped together.

Tiffany thought that he seemed awkward as he left the room, but she couldn’t be sure. She knew that she had to keep her spirits up, but she thought she also needed to guard herself against false or irrational optimism.

She needed to stay real about her situation.

Chapter 4

Tiffany took stock. Now she had the chance to view the room. It was painted off-white, a long way off white and not very recently. She was captive in a tiny room with a boarded up window, and three bikers outside.

On the bed was a clean comforter, new by the look of it. It looked and felt cheap, but new. Was that coincidence or more careful planning? She heard the clock tower in the distance strike five. That was something. At least she had a way to tell the time.

She had seen that there was a window in the bathroom, but it had been nailed shut. Anyway, they didn’t plan to let her use the bathroom without one of them watching.

Was that so she didn’t get out of the window, or in case she broke the mirror on the bathroom cabinet to make a weapon? Maybe they just wanted to have their jollies watching her on the john.

She thought about all the time and money she had spent on her kick-boxing classes. Thinking back, she thought of dragging her sister Jesska along to a few sessions. Jesska hated it, of course. She couldn’t stand anything with rules or discipline, apart from her percussion.

Tiff remembered back to Master Lam trying to teach Jesska how to hold a fist, how to stand and to turn the forearm to deliver weight and strengthen the arm for a blow.

 
“You’d never get time for any of this in a real fight,” Jess said. “You’d be on the floor before you got your stance.”

Master Lam’s dark eyes twinkled. He spoke slowly and softly, “Street fighters engage much closer than a martial artist, and you can use that against them.” he moved Jess, “They will come in fast with their arms high, and aim for your head and your neck. Do it now,” He told her, “Throw everything you’ve got at me.”

Jess’ face screwed up, the way it did when anyone told her what to do. Then her neck muscles tightened and her eyes blazed as she jumped at Master Lam. Her arms flailed fast at his head.

He caught her gently by the elbow and carried her softly to the mat. As he held her face down with one hand in the middle of her back, he said, “The speed that they rush at you adds to the force of your defence. As your opponent rushes in for an attack, a well-timed kick to the jaw or, even better, the forehead, or a punch on a vital target will stop them long enough for you to escape.”

Jess saw straight away that all of it would take a lot of learning and practice. She said, “That’s not going to win the fight.”

 
“You don’t win a street fight on points, Jess,” Master Lam looked at her like a kindly grandfather. “You win by avoiding it or escaping.”

Recalling Jess’ simmering frustration and the soft echo of the airy room made Tiffany’s chest shake.
Where’s Jess now?
She wondered.
 

She hoped she didn’t have to fight in the small, cramped space of this room. With almost no floor space, her practiced lunges wouldn’t be much use.

This was going to be some sort of a ransom deal. Daddy wouldn’t take that well. He was a man who reacted badly to being threatened. Tiffany learned that at an early age threats weren’t the way to get the best out of Daddy.

She had no appetite for the pizza, but figured she ought to eat. As she chewed the cold, rubbery cheese and dough, listening to the murmur of talk in the next room, she considered her situation from every angle she could find.

Tiffany saw very few options, save one, for herself.
 
All she could see in her favor was the fact that she was a girl, and they were men.

If she could, she would make or take any opportunity to get intimate with any or all of them, preferably all of them. She would use it to get information, and to divide them.
 

It didn’t seem like much of a plan, but for all she racked her brain, she couldn’t think of another. The only alternative she could see was to be passive and take whatever came. She couldn’t see that as being a good prospect. It meant putting her trust in luck, and her luck didn’t look so great right now.

What would Daddy do? Well, fucking the bikers wouldn’t make the list of options, that was for sure. He would talk. There was no situation Daddy couldn’t talk his way through, but then, Daddy was a senior and a very experienced lawyer. Talking was how he got his business done, and he was a master at it.

Tiffany didn’t think she had a breath of her Daddy’s powers of persuasion. He would gather the parts of a story together and spin them, before presenting them to you in such a way that you’d feel smart because you got the conclusion before he told it to you.

It could be some time before you realized he had led you by the nose and walked you along so you arrived at
his
conclusion. He’d be able to do it with the bikers.

He would start by seeing it their way. He’d show how he understood their situation better than they did themselves. Point out some wrinkles that they hadn’t thought of, and then let them come around to seeing their options in a fresh light.

Whatever they’d thought they were going to do, whatever their plan was, they’d see that it was useless.

He’d have them figure out how the police would be drawing the net around them. He would help them see what their best chances were. In no time, he’d have them see that their situation was hopeless, and that only his help could rescue them.

He’d bring them around to see that
he
was their best asset, and that his knowledge, expertise, and advice would give them their best shot out of their predicament.

Daddy made you believe that whatever situation you were in, it would go better if you had him in charge. She wouldn’t be able to persuade the three big, rough bikers, that they needed her to take control of them.Tiffany didn’t know anywhere near enough about police tactics, about the law or about the psychology of the biker community.

From what little Tiffany knew about biker culture, she was sure they didn’t have any women telling them what to do. They were macho, alpha, and driven by testosterone.

The conclusion was obvious. She loathed it.
Well, girl, how do you see your prospects in the life of a captive? Any other ways you might gain and establish some control?
Whichever way she looked at it, it wasn’t a good choice. It remained the only choice she could find.