I push open the door, and my steps echo in the enormous room.
Then I hear the screams.
EMMY
When Grotto’s guy grabbed me outside the hospital I swore I wouldn’t cry. Not for this. Not for him.
But I never swore anything about screaming.
And fuck my life for reals. Because I’m tied up in a fucking shitty building. Literally tied up. I got thrown in a white van, and brought here.
And why?
When my asshole of a kidnapper started chowing down on fucking bean burrito from Taco Bell, I lost my shit. He had the balls to stop at a drive-thru before kidnapping me? Like, that seemed a thousand kinds of wack-a-doodle.
He careened down the freeway, and then we ended up here. He used rope on my wrists, tied me to a fucking four-by-four and refused to say why.
He’s eaten, like, five of those burritos, as if he’s a fucking animal. He chugs a two-liter of Dr. Pepper, and at this point all I want to do is punch him in the nuts. Or the gut. But he has eaten so much at this point it would probably make him puke. And I can handle a lot, but my kidnapper vomiting all over me? Just. No.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I ask, watching him adjust his junk as he makes a phone call.
“She’s here. A little pussy, but hot. She’ll be missed. Sorry, boss. Yeah. Yeah, an hour is long enough. Yeah, I got the gear and won’t leave a trail. I got you covered, man.”
“Long enough for what?” I scream. “What gear?”
“Keep it down, woman,” he says to me. Then into the phone he adds, “Okay, Grotto. It’ll all be done soon enough.”
He puts the phone away and shrugs. “Gonna find a restroom. Don’t move.”
“Fuck you!” I scream.
“You wish.”
Which is not true. I don’t wish to fuck anything as gross and disgusting as him. There is one thing I want to fuck, which will never happen as long as I am held hostage for reasons I don’t understand.
So I scream louder. I watch the asshole leave through some doors, looking for a toilet. Which, eww. He just ate five burritos in like five minutes.
I keep screaming. “Help. Let me go!”
And then—
Like the man I know he is, Ace appears.
Miraculously. Magically. The fucking saving grace I’ve been looking for, for too damn long. The fucking hero I need, because sure, I can do a lot of shit on my own, but I want his help.
I just fucking want him.
“Emmy,” he says, rushing to my side.
I need to keep screaming so I don’t tip off burrito man, but I want Ace to know we aren’t alone.
Ace seems to understand intrinsically, and I remember he grew up in a crime family and probably knows more than I do about kidnappings.
“Oh, baby,” he whispers, as I keep screaming, tears running down my cheeks, because I have no clue what this man was planning on doing. “I got you.”
And once my hands are untied, once my legs are no longer bound, he picks me up and we run.
Out of the building. Out to the street. He puts me in his car and buckles me up. He shuts my door, gets in the other side, and in two seconds flat he’s gotten me away.
“What the fuck was that?” I ask as he flies over the freeway.
“What part?” Ace looks over at me, like he’s saved women in crisis a thousand times. If he has, I don’t care. I’m not jealous. Because those were just practice runs for me.
For us.
“The part where you saved me,” I say, breathless. “The part where you showed up. The part where you didn’t listen to what I told you on the phone.”
“You mean when I used my one call in jail for you to tell me we were through?”
“That one.”
“Was Grotto behind this?” he asks.
“Why? What does he want with me? Janie won’t talk ... I can’t get anywhere with her.”
“Did you know she was an addict?”
“What?” I shake my head, and the adrenaline is still coursing through my veins. Fuck, when did this become my life? First it was casino owners and one night stands, and now it’s true love and kidnappings and betrayal. Everything is spinning out of control.
I grab Ace’s hand; I need him to steady me.
“Pull over somewhere,” I tell him.
“We kind of need to get to the police station and report this, Emmy.”
“That can wait. We’re both safe. I’m safe. You got me. We can stop for a second.”
Ace takes the next exit and pulls off into an empty business park. It’s after eleven at night, and we’re far enough from the strip that everything is dark.
“Baby,” he says as I unbuckle, push his seat back.
I straddle him, pressing my ass against his growing cock, wanting to sit on his rod and feel him in me, wanting him to wrap his arms around me and never let me go.