Unobtainable (41 page)

Bruno: We’re waiting.

Harley: Harm a hair on his head, I will hunt you down and kill you.

Bruno: Didn’t like the pic? I thought it was rather good.

Harley: Bastard.

Bruno: Tsk, tsk no name calling?

Harley: I need more time.

Bruno: 90 minutes.

Harley: That’s not enough time.

Bruno: It’s all you have. 90. 89, tick, tick.

Harley: 90

~Dyson~

“Comfy?” he asked, as he stood, stretching his arms in the air, revealing a thick mat of hair at his waistline as he caught me looking. “Don’t get any ideas, not just yet anyway. Maybe later I’ll do you while you’re taking your last breath. I bet you’d be a real good fuck while you’re begging…go ahead beg for me!”

Bruno palmed my crotch with a creepy smile massaging my balls as I growled, I wanted to puke. I let out a cry as he slipped his hand into the waist of my sweatpants causing me to jerk and the weights to clatter. He wrapped his slimy fingers around my dick and stroked me with a demonic grin, the sick fucker. I growled, my cock betraying me as it hardened in Bruno’s hand.

“Fuck off you bastard!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

“That’s not begging Dyson…Dyson, what kind of name is that, that’s a fucking vacuum cleaner…maybe I’ll just gag you instead,” Bruno snarled, suddenly pulling his hand from my pants. “It’s not you that I want to hear beg anyway, I couldn’t care less about you. Other than the fact that Harley will do what I say to save you, that’s about all you’re good for. I would have snuffed you out the minute you came down those stairs otherwise.”

I writhed, the pain was intense but I couldn’t help myself.

“Save your energy, nothing is going to change your fate or Harley’s for that matter. Do you seriously think I’m going to let you two go off into the sunset Scott free?” he laughed.  “When I get my money I’ll finish you two off. It’s just the way it has to be. Witnesses suck.”

He tucked in his shirt and stuffed a rag Harley used to clean the machines with into my mouth before walking to the door.

“Hold down the fort lover boy. We have 90 minutes to kill so I’m going for the grand tour. Do you mind? I would have looked around the other night when I was here but it was dark and I didn’t want to wake you…I can stay so you don’t get lonely?” he ran his thumb across my bottom lip. “Dilemma number one, do I kill you first and watch Harley suffer, or do I get him out of the way and me and you can get to know each other better before I kill you? After all, you’re all tied up and ready to go, it would be such a waste of a hot little body…we could party all night long.”

My eyes narrowed. “Not in this fucking lifetime,” I mumbled, around the rag.

“I didn’t think so,” his morose laugh was loud and creepy, forcing goose bumps to form on my skin as he walked away.

He left the door open, but turned out the light, leaving the room with an eerie glow from the stairwell lighting. I heard each step he took and envisioned his route as he walked around the apartment from room to room. Items were crashing to the floor, the sound of his destructive path was making me cringe. Bruno seemed to have stopped in the kitchen. I closed my eyes and listened, working the rag from my mouth with my tongue. The bitter taste of antiseptic and lemon caused my stomach to heave. A kitchen chair scraped across the hardwood, I visualized him chugging back a beer with his feet perched on the edge of the table.

Fuck where was Harley? In a way I wanted him here, but I also feared what would happen once he got home and they confronted each other. I was not a very religious person but I asked the powers from above to watch over Harley, to give him enough strength to get us safely out of this mess.

Bruno was on the move, his feet shuffled across the floor, I heard the toilet flush. The water surged through the pipes to my left. A few seconds later, the chair moved again. I sighed, knowing he had sat back down and was not on his way back downstairs.

Escaping was not in the plans. I flinched when I tried to move my one foot and the plastic tie bit into my ankle bone, causing the weights above my head to shake. Just the idea that with one wrong move, a sudden muscle spasm or a sneeze, could end my life was scary enough that I started to tremble from nerves. Uncontrollable shivers rolled over my entire body, not the welcome trembling that Harley liked to cause, but something that brought unfeigned trepidation.

How I wished the lights were on. Each time I made the tiniest move, I was reminded that I was going nowhere, my thoughts instantaneously turning to Harley’s nightmares. I shut my eyes and became hauntingly aware of my surroundings, my inability to move and my constricted breathing.

Floating at the ceiling in my mind, I was looking down at myself. I was seeing the ties but in my mind they were heavy ropes burying into my flesh. I saw the weights on either end of the bar that my hands were tied to, but they were so much heavier and they were clattering precariously close to my skull. I swallowed over the lump in my throat. I swear at that moment I could feel Harley’s fear as my heart beat at an anxious cadence. Fuck. My eyes opened to a change in the air it was as if a wave of cool water washed over me.

Bruno was tapping out a rhythm with his foot on the kitchen floor above me, in a way it helped distract me from the morose situation. All I could think was if Bruno was going to kill me just get it over with now. Then I realized all the things I hadn’t achieved, all the dreams I hadn’t fulfilled and that I never got the chance to tell Harley goodbye.

I groaned loudly, why worry if Bruno heard me?

The rhythm Bruno was drumming out transformed to a faster, louder tempo. He remained fixed to the same spot, the beat becoming increasingly annoying. I scowled up at the ceiling. Movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I looked over to see Harley standing to the side of the doorway with his index finger over his lips. He shook his head warning me not to make a sound. All I wanted was to tell him I loved him, to warn him that Bruno was upstairs, but he already knew, he was eyeballing the ceiling while he listened absorbedly.

~Harley~

That fucking douchebag was in my kitchen, he was probably rummaging in my fridge, eating my food and touching
our
things. I would have to disinfect the lot, or burn the fucker to the ground. Either way, it disturbed me more than anything I could imagine. It made my skin crawl to think he was infesting our home.

Focusing back on Dyson, I could see the deep seeded fear in his eyes. His wrists were bleeding, there was a cut across his upper arm and his fingers were blue from being tied over his head for far too long and he was visibly shaking. I put my finger to my lips and whispered shhh for fear Bruno would discover me.

It was time to take action, there was no way I could screw this up now. I looked over my shoulder and nodded, blowing Dyson a loving kiss.

I love you
, I mouthed as I turned from the light and lowered to my knees, crawling into the room. I heard Dyson gasp and whispered a quick shhh. I didn’t have much time and I needed to get into place.

The police were on their way, I knew they wouldn’t be too much longer. I explained that there was an intruder in my home, that he may be armed and had a hostage. They wanted me to stay on the line, they actually expected me to wait until they arrived. Assholes. That was when I handed the phone off to Clayton and snuck in through the delivery door in the back.

Picking up one of the heavier weights and hauling a deep breath into my lungs, I tossed it into the air. It came down with a resounding clatter against the weight rack, the entire thing crashing to the ground.

“Fuck!” Bruno yelled, his voice echoing.

His chair flew across the floor, his feet suddenly rumbling down the steps. I knew he was expecting to find Dyson with his head bashed in and blood splattered everywhere, laying there in a lifeless mass.

Bruno’s hand slapped at the wall, trying to locate the light switch. The room filled with bright florescent light, blinding me for a few moments.

“How the fuck did you manage that, lover boy?” Bruno scowled, at the weights strewn on the floor.

I watched in silence as he kicked Dyson’s one ankle to see that it was still secured. Dyson wailed in agony, his face twisting from the pain. I wanted to dive at Bruno and take him down right there and then, but he was stronger than me and in his present state of mind I imagined his strength to have doubled if not tripled. The weights vibrated as Dyson cried out. The rattle of metal on metal was unsettling. Bruno grasped the bar, stopping them from vibrating and laughed. The demonic merriment surging from his chest terrified me. He was a madman he had truly flipped his fucking lid. At that moment, I realized my plan was not going to work.

“I smell me a rat,” Bruno sniffed. “I know you’re hear Harley and you best have my fucking money with you. Make yourself visible so I don’t have to hurt lover boy here. It won’t bother me one bit if I have to kill him, but I’m sure it will bother you.”

Bruno shook the bar slightly, the metal clanged and Dyson flinched, letting out a strangled scream.

“You want to spend Christmas in the fucking morgue, Harley?” Bruno snickered, the evil sound turning into a full belly laugh, making me want to hurl. “Where’s my money?”

His money, I wanted to laugh at his audacity. He had a mighty-sized set of balls on him thinking I owed him jack-shit, the only thing I owed Bruno De Palma was a shit kicking for all the torment he caused me. I would have leapt from my hiding place and took him on, but with his hand wrapped around that bar, he was the one in charge.

“This is between you and me,” I stepped from the shower room. “Let Dyson go. Our fight is personal, he has nothing to do with the bad blood between us.”

“Lover boy is as much a part of this as any of us,” Bruno growled. “This little fucker set us up, him and his Federal friends.”

“Where is Martha?” I asked, only curious because Bruno and my mother were usually joined at the hip.

Bruno shrugged his shoulders. “Fucking bitch can rot in hell as far as I’m concerned. She took the money and fucked off with her campaign manager. They could be anywhere in the world by now, maybe they will both end up with amoebic dysentery.”

I had to think.

“Where’s my money?” Bruno asked again.

My brain was aching as I tried to come up with a way of getting Bruno away from Dyson and those damned weights. This would be the wrong time for the cops to show up, their heroic intentions would panic Bruno who in turn would not hesitate in destroying my life by killing Dyson.

Speaking of, Dyson’s eyes were zig-zagging from Bruno to me and back. He was in pain, his eyes were damp, his nose running but he was a beautiful mess. Though his breathing was rapid, he was coated heavy in sweat and the blood at his wrists and ankle had dried to a dark muddy brown, he was my beautiful husband and it was my duty to save him. If Bruno wanted a fight, so be it, looking at Dyson gave me the courage I needed.

“I left it in the elevator,” I said.

“What the fuck did you do that for?”

“I figured that was the way you were going to leave.” I told him. “Take it and go, leave us alone.”

Bruno grinned, pulling his knife from his pocket, taking his hand off of the bar and running it through his hair. He took a step closer, fisting the shoulder of my shirt and yanking me into his space. His breath was gross, he stunk of sweat, stale cigarette smoke and beer. His hair was filthy and greasy, flakes of dandruff fell to his shoulders. He was not the man I once knew, this person was a total stranger to me now.

At one time Bruno stood tall, dark and ruggedly handsome. He had the whole European thing happening. He was successful, sexy as hell and his golden brown eyes could seduce me from across a room. Now his eyes were dark and hollow, he was unkempt and disgusting. His only power was the size of him and the amount of pain he could inflict. I felt sorry for him, for all he had lost when he turned into the vile creature grasping for whatever he could get. Something had ruined him all those years ago when he came home and told me he was out of a job.

“What happened to you?” I asked, taking my chances that he wouldn’t turn on me. “This is not the person I met all those years ago.”

“Like you give a shit,” he snorted. “Let’s go get my money, lover boy’s not going anywhere. Remember, if you try anything I’ll kill you and leave him to rot. Now, move it.”

Shoving me up the wooden steps ahead of him, Bruno spoke, “Lucas rammed us up the ass, he embezzled millions from the company and dashed off into the sunset. He fucking ruined me, everything I worked for was gone. I had a few bucks tucked away but certainly not enough to live on…you know the worst part?”

We walked past the kitchen nearing the front door, he stopped me, inside I panicked but remained surprisingly calm on the outside. I didn’t answer him.

“After that I couldn’t get a job scrubbing out garbage cans at the zoo. And then there was you.”