The Bad Boy's Pregnant Bride(12)

I felt someone punch me in the nuts, and they exploded in white-hot agony just as I drifted into unconsciousness.



* * *



When I woke up, I was in the back of a van. I could feel that my hands were zip-tied behind my back, and I wiggled a little.

"Oh, you're awake."

I turned my head towards the voice, and I realized that the van wasn't dark. I was blindfolded.

"Who are you?"

"Someone you shouldn't have crossed."

I shifted, and I felt the echoes of agony going through my groin.

"Your nuts are bruised. You deserve it, motherfucker. In fact … " I felt a  boot come down to crush my balls. I gritted my teeth to keep from  crying out. They didn't deserve to hear it. I gritted my teeth even more  tightly as the boot came down to hit me again. "That's for cracking my  rib, bastard."

I breathed slowly, trying to contain the pain.

Where was I? I could feel that we were moving, so I figured that they were driving me somewhere.

I bitch-slapped the little kid inside of me who wanted to know where we  were going and what they wanted. There was no place for fear now.

I wasn't fighting for myself here. I needed to get back to my wife and kid.         

     



 

"Listen, I'll pay whatever you want. I just need to get home."

"You aren't going to be able to pay your way out of this one."

I stopped breathing. I could recognize the voice.

"Brayden?"

"That's right, motherfucker."

I felt something hard hit my face, and I lost my grip on consciousness.



* * *



When I woke up again, my hands were tied to a chair.

"Hello, Chris."

My chin came up. "Brayden."

"Didn't think that a skinny little geek could take you, huh? But you've put yourself in this position."

"Brayden, untie me. We can talk this out."

Brayden spat on my face. I couldn't wipe it away, and the spit slid down my face, dripping down my chin and into my collar.

"The time for words is over."

He casually back-handed me, and I winced. I was definitely going to have  a bruise on my cheek, and he'd just hit that spot again.

And then he hit me again.

"Not nice, is it, to be cornered?"

"What are you talking about, Brayden? You're the one who left the company, not … "

He pistol-whipped me this time, and I tasted the iron of my blood as my  teeth cut my cheek. I felt one get a little loose, and I tested it with  my tongue. It wiggled just a little bit, as if I were a 6-year-old  losing his baby teeth. I swallowed my blood and felt the thickness of  it. I choked a little on my blood.

"What's this about, Brayden?"

"My investors just pulled out of my company."

"Man, that's not my business. It's yours. You left."

"You asshole. You used your father to talk to all the VCs in the area,  and the people who pledged to lead my Series A have pulled out. And I've  got nothing left. Nothing to lose. Nothing to gain. My company is dead  in the water." He was breathing hard. "And it's all because of you. You  and your stupid damn lawsuit about intellectual property. I coded this  whole thing from scratch, and you just … stole it with your fancy lawyer  and trust-fund money."

"I'm not the one who made that happen. You left. You wanted to make your  own company with a bigger cut. It's not my fault that you didn't  realize what you'd sold to me."

He grabbed a knife from his pocket and held it against my throat. The  edge of the blade was cold, and I could feel it press against my throat.  He cut me, just a little, and I couldn't stop the rush of fear as I  bled. Just a little.

"Here's what's going to happen. You're going to call your lawyer. You're  going to call this whole thing off. You're going to sign a paper and  get it notarized saying that I have ownership of all of the code. And  you're going to do it in the next hour, or you're going to have a hole  in your head."

"Okay, yeah." As soon as I got out of here, I could call my lawyer again. No big deal.

I realized then that Brayden's pupils were dilated.

And I realized that he was worse off than I thought.





Drugs





Chris




"What are you on, Brayden?"

"On? What are you talking about?"

"What are you smoking? I can smell it."

"You can't smell shit," he shouted. He brought the knife against my throat a little harder. "You can't smell anything!"

"I can't smell anything." I agreed with the man whose knife was cutting  my throat. Then I rocked my body forward, stood, and used the solid  metal chair to club Brayden. It wasn't much, but it was all I had.

He was off balance, but he was reaching for the knife again. I stepped on his right hand, breaking it and his wrist, too.

I looked around for his cell phone, and I kicked him in the head. He wasn't the only one who could knock someone out.

I had no idea how many people were working with him, and I needed to get  out of here pronto. I could take one person with my hands tied, but I  didn't like my chances if even one more person entered the mix.

I crushed his cell phone with my boot and slowly loped towards the door.  It was awkward to move with my hands tied to this chair with zip ties,  and I swore to get them off as soon as I could get somewhere safe.

I got out the door, and I could see from the trees that I was in the middle of nowhere.

I needed to get somewhere where someone would find me. Right now, my only landmarks were trees.

I stumbled into the forest, making more sound than I wanted to. This  chair was really cramping my style, and I didn't have the luxury of the  time to cut it off of me. It was a makeshift weapon, not terribly  effective, but it would work for now.

I walked towards a cave, and I took stock.         

     



 

I was a little beat up - I was probably going to need to see a dentist  about my loose tooth - but I knew that I was in good enough shape to  make it to a road or something. I needed to find my way out of here and  towards safety.

I looked for sharp rocks. There was a lot of cussing and I cut myself,  but I eventually got the zip-ties off of my hands. I frankly made so  much noise that I half-expected a pack of wolves to come out of the  forest and eat me. But someone was smiling on me, and no wild animals  came.

When I was free of the chair, I sat on it for a while to decide whether I  wanted to take it. Con: It was heavy. Pro: It could be used as a club. I  decided to discard it, because it was just too heavy to deal with right  now.

I couldn't tell which direction I was going in. Moss grew on the north  side of trees, right? So I went and marked the trees as I went, hoping  that I'd be able to find a house or something. I knew that Nora had to  be worried by now.

When I saw a flashlight, I knew that I wasn't out of the woods yet.





Out of the Woods





Nora




The police officer looked at me. "It's Chris."

I sank to my knees and shed a few tears. Thank goodness.

"Where is he? Is he hurt? What happened?"

"He's alive. He's in a truck heading towards the hospital. We can meet him there."

After Chris had been gone for far too long, I had called the cops. They  hadn't taken me seriously, because he hadn't been missing for 24 hours.  It took a phone call to Mr. King to make the wheels turn, and then  pretty much the entire police force turned out to look for Chris King.  When you were a billionaire, law enforcement treated you totally  differently.

They'd spread out in the surrounding area, but we had no idea where he  was. They found his car outside of Albertsons. It was locked, so they  knew that he'd been fine when he left the car. There were a few parking  lot cams that showed Chris being knocked out and thrown into a van, but  we had no idea where he went from there. A dark van would be a dime a  dozen, and it wasn't even that easy to check things out at night.

But when Hudson King asks you to look for his missing son, you don't half-ass it.

I got into the squad car and headed for the hospital. It was handy that  we got to use the wailing lights, although I held my hands over my ears  during the ride.

We were at the hospital in 15 minutes, and I was out of the car before  the police officer even fully parked. I ran into the hospital.

"Excuse me," I told the front desk receptionist, "I'm here to see Chris King."

"And you are?"

"His wife."

She blinked at me. "You're real young."

"I am."

She shrugged. "Okay. He's in room 218. I can have someone guide you  there." A volunteer wearing a red polo came out from behind the desk,  and I walked up to Chris' room.

Something inside of me relaxed when I saw Chris in that bed. He was  wired to a bunch of things that beeped, and he had an IV stuck into him,  but he was there.

Alive.

I rushed to him.

"Hey, babe."

Even in bed, Chris was a super flirt. He flicked his eyes over me and told me, "Looking good."

I cried a little bit as I hugged him, careful of his IV. "Don't disappear again. I don't think that my heart can take it."

"I think that I can promise that."