The bike comes to life between my legs, but before I can pull out, I feel my phone vibrating against my side. I shut my bike off when I see it’s Sarah.
“We’re about—”
“I called in a favor from a friend who is actually a hacker,” she interrupts. “He already hacked Ben’s bank accounts, but nothing was found. So he hacked the Hell Breathers’ main account, and a reasonable sum of money was taken out and transferred to purchase a house not too far from where Drake lives. It was only bought a few weeks ago. It’s under the name Harold Whitman, who happens to be a retired pilot living in Florida. Doubtful it’s actually good ol’ Harold there.”
“Sounds like your friend is faster and much better than our own guy.”
“He is. No, I’m not telling you who he is. I’m sending you the address now.”
I look over at Axle as I put my phone away. “Go check out that other house,” I tell him. “Rush, come with me. Ben may be using one of his Dad’s houses. The Hell Breathers made a new purchase not long ago.”
“Which means it probably doesn’t have all of Benny’s equipment set up yet,” Rush points out.
Thinking of the equipment Benny uses to torture guys who owe his employers money… That never even crossed my mind. But Rush is right. Benny isn’t prompt. If it’s a fairly new purchase, it’s doubtful he has the shit set up.
“Then you need both of us,” Axle says.
“Drive like hell and then catch up with us,” I tell him. “I’m about to cut a two hour drive into less than an hour.”
The roar of another bike has me looking over my shoulder to see Axle didn’t follow orders. I’m not stopping to deal with him. I just hope this is the right lead, or I’m going to fucking lose it.
Chapter 21
EVE
Twinkle twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are. Up above the… the… Hmm. I can’t remember the rest of the words.
Maybe it’s because the loud music is interrupting my focus. At least the siren isn’t wailing.
B I N G O and Bingo was his name, oh. There was a—
Something crashing outside can barely be heard. Was it real? Glass breaking. That sounds like glass breaking.
Gunshots. Definitely gunshots. The door has to be open if I can hear gunshots and glass breaking. I can’t hear the outside or the upstairs unless the door is open. It’s always closed. Is it open? The music is really loud. Maybe it’s the music with gunshots and glass breaking. How else could I hear it?
I whimper but can’t cry, because I don’t have anything left to form tears with. I feel like I’m going insane.
More gunshots and a loud scream, but is it real?
The light comes on. When was it off? Who turned it off?
Something drops and rolls around on the ground, but I can’t lift my head enough to see what it is other than a blur of motion from my peripheral. Is that a ball? Fetch, Fido! Fido… B I N G O and Bingo was his—
“Shut that fucking music off!” someone yells. “Drex! She’s here! She’s fucking here!”
Now I’m delusional. At least in my delusions Drex will rip their damn spines out and feed them their toes. The thought makes me giggle.
Toe cuisine. Yum. Oh! It could be phalange cuisine! That sounds classier. But is that fingers or toes or both? Both, I think. Back to toe cuisine. Wouldn’t want confusion about if you were eating fingers or toes.
The music shuts off, and a groan resonates. It must be a loud groan, because they left me too close to the speakers this time, and my ears aren’t working properly.
“The fuck did you do to her?!” Drex roars. Wow. It really does sound like him. My mind has gotten a lot better at these little enactments. Just the flutter of hope in my stomach lets me know this is the best hallucination ever.
“It wasn’t me! I didn’t want this! I fucking—”
The sound of crunching is beautiful. It means Drex is beating the hell out of someone. It means he’s my hero. Even if it is just one more hallucination.
Chapter 22
DREX
Mikey hits the ground hard, and I kick him in the stomach.
“Drex, knife!” Axle calls. “I need a knife now!”
I step into the stairwell that leads to the basement, but my stomach lurches when I see her… Tied to a chair… Her legs are pushed apart, but she’s still in jeans.
Her ankles are tied to each chair leg, and the blood pooling around the restraints makes me sicker. She’s struggled to get away.
Her head is hanging low, and I’m too scared she’s not breathing to get closer.
“Axle.” It’s a choked, almost silent plea.
“She’s alive, man. I need your knife though.”
Fumbling around, I grab my knife and toss it to him, then I turn around to face Mikey just as Rush walks in with blood all over his shirt. “Met Larry at the backdoor,” he tells me, smirking darkly. Then his eyes fall to Mikey. “At least we have one to question. Looks like Ben is gone.”
I’ll find him, and I’ll fucking rip his head off when I do.
But right now…
I run down the stairs just as Axle gets Eve’s hands cut free, and she falls forward. Catching her, I swallow down the bile, seeing dried blood on her mouth, and feeling her cold body despite the hot basement.
“Get her undone,” I whisper hoarsely as her head rests on my chest.
“Trying,” he growls, cutting through the bindings on her legs. “This shit has metal in the middle of the twine. It’s cut into her, and I’m trying to be careful not to hurt her.”
She doesn’t act like she’s in any pain, and that worries the fuck out of me. There’s something sticking out of her hand. It takes me a second to realize it’s a needle, but I’m too distracted to give it much thought.
“Baby, say something,” I whisper.
“Pretty,” she hoarsely says, then laughs raggedly and coughs like a long-time smoker.
“Damn it, Axle!”
“Got it,” he says immediately.
I move my arms carefully around her legs, and she folds against me lifelessly. Axle adjusts her head against my shoulder as I carry her bridal style up the stairs, quickly moving toward—Fuck!
“We need a car,” I growl.
“We need a fucking ambulance,” he argues, pulling out his phone.
“We can’t call an ambulance here,” Rush tells them. “At least not until I clean up the mess I made with Larry. Keys are in that Bronco out front. Take it. I’ll call a crew to clean this up.” His eyes cut to Mikey who is bleeding on the floor, but not moving. “And I’ll take him back with us.”
Mikey’s eyes go wide. “I didn’t have anything to do with—” His words end on a cry when Rush slams his fist into his face.
I hurry out the door, cradling Eve to me. She’s out cold, but she’s breathing, even if it is weak, shallow breaths. Axle opens the back door to the Bronco for me, and I climb in, keeping Eve against me and in my lap.
He’s in the front seat and rocketing out in reverse in the next breath. Then he drives like hell to the hospital while making some calls.
“Sledge, it’s me. We’ve got her, but we need a hospital… Yeah, definitely need to be discreet. Call everyone on our payroll and have them prepared to get her without making a scene.”
He continues talking, but I focus on Eve, shifting her so I can see her face. Her mouth is bruised pretty badly, as though they had something tied around it at one point. Her eyes are sunken in, her lips are pale and cracked, and the dried blood on her chin has me fighting off all my instincts to go put a few bullets in Mikey and Ben.
Later. There will be time for revenge later. Right now I need to focus on her.
I tune out most of the ride, spending my time checking her breathing and pulse. When we pull up to the hospital, two men rush out with a gurney, and they fight me to get her on it.
“Damn it, Drex! Let her go,” Axle barks.
It takes all my strength to place her on that thing, but I’m following right behind them as they wheel her in past several pairs of curious eyes. They have her covered with a sheet up to her nose, covering most of her face from view, and everything goes by in a blur as they take her through a set of double doors.
Security gets in front of me, blocking my path, and Axle jerks me back before I can cause a scene.
“Last thing we need to do is draw attention to ourselves. Let’s go get on some street clothes, clean the blood off us and come back.”
Eyes are all over us, but I shrug him off and glare at him. “You go do what-the-fuck-ever. I’m not going anywhere.”
I turn and glare at the security guards. “You’re going to let me by, or we’re going to have one hell of a problem.”
They don’t stop me as I push through the doors and run through the halls, searching for where they took Eve. The second I find her, my heart sinks to my toes. She looks even worse under the harsh lights, and her eyes are still closed even as they probe and inspect her.
Ben Highland is a fucking dead man.
Chapter 23
DREX
“She hasn’t been given a sedative or any pain medication. She’s just exhausted, from what I can discern,” the doctor tells me as I stare at Eve sleeping in the middle of the hospital bed.