Daddy's Here(37)

I was yanked into the car, my feet dragging on the ground as we were already moving away, Jake running after me. “Get off me!” I screamed as a pair of hands pulled me further in, far enough for the door to be slammed shut. A bag was shoved over my head, everything going dark as I felt something being tied round my wrists at the same time.

“You should have found a better bodyguard,” a man’s voice said, ignoring my writhing body as I fought to free myself from his grip. “Someone who knows that phones are trackable even if they’re switched off.”

“Fuck you,” I spat.

“Temper, temper,” the voice replied.

“Let me out!”

“Shut up or we’ll have to gag you.”

“Let me go!”

“Right,” he snapped. “Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance.”

The bag was lifted off my head just long enough for a strip of foul tasting cloth to be wrapped round my face, the largest part stuffed into my mouth. Then the bag descended again and my screams faded into muffled nothing when the man next to me elbowed me in the side. “Sit still or you’ll get hurt. It’d be awful if the blushing bride was covered in bruises on her wedding night.”





TWENTY-EIGHT



JAKE





“Jake,” Tony said, his voice making me all the angrier. It was the lightness of it, as if he thought it was funny that I was calling him. “I thought you might ring me. How are you?”

“Let her go,” I replied, my voice cold in comparison to his. I didn’t let my emotions out. They were locked down where they belonged. This was about work now. I had a job to do. Get her back. Everything else was extraneous.

“You let me down, Jake,” he said, the humour slipping briefly. “I trusted you to get this done.”

“Let her go.”

“You don’t get to give me orders, Jake, remember? I’m your boss, or have you forgotten?”

“Let her go.”

“You’ve lost it, it’s over. And I’ll tell you something for free, Jake. You better run far and fast if you want any chance of being alive this time next week.”

“I’m not running,” I said, gripping the phone so tightly it creaked in my hand.

He laughed, a barking laugh that dripped with sarcasm. “Is that supposed to frighten me, Jake?”

I hung up, dropping the phone to the floor and stamping on it, hard. A car was coming past me. Perfect.

I stepped in front of the car, looking directly at the driver as he hit the brakes, coming to a stop with the bumper just touching my legs. “Out,” I said, moving round to the side of the car and wrenching his door open.

“What the fuck?” he asked as I grabbed his shoulders, wrenching him out of the car.

“Out.”

He took one look at my face and realised it wasn’t worth the fight. With a click of his seatbelt, he was on the street, watching me climb in and put my foot to the floor, tearing off down the road. Tony didn’t know me, not really. I might have worked for him, I might have done some bad things for him, but that didn’t mean he knew me.

He didn’t know what I was capable of. If he did, he wouldn’t have laughed at me down the phone like that. He’d have been the one who was running.

Every doubt I’d ever had about my choices had gone. I’d been worried he might chase me for protecting Isabel. But now he’d taken her and all worries had gone except one. Could I get to her in time?

I threw the question away as I drove. It was time to concentrate, it was time to do what I did best, to get the job done. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d watched a man die. I had to get to him before he got to her. Once he found out what I’d done to her he’d know he could use her to punish me. He cared more about his reputation than about his son. He’d kill her to prove a point to me and I had to stop him before that happened.

As I drove, my mind went back to the last time I felt this cold. I was reading my mother’s note to me, tears rolling down my cheeks as I did so. My father appeared in the bedroom doorway, swaying slightly in place. “Stop being such a pussy,” he said. “She’s not worth crying over.”

“Fuck you,” I replied, my voice quiet.

“What did you say to me?”

“I said fuck you.”

“You little shit. Who the fuck do you think you are?”

He ran across the room, grabbing me and throwing me over to the doorway. As drunk as he was, he was still far stronger than me. I slammed into the door and slid down to the torn carpet. I staggered upright as he got hold of me again, his fist slamming into my stomach. I folded over and he shoved me down. “Man up,” he hissed. “Hit me back. For once in your life, hit me back.”