A Prince's Ransom: Kidnapped by the Billionaire (52 page)

Tobin stared at Sebastian’s face. He wasn’t looking at her—he couldn’t look at her. He was considering killing this stupid, reckless kid in front of her to save her life. Anything necessary. He had promised he would do anything necessary. His face was almost as distraught as Jesse’s, in the familiar ways she’d gotten used to. More tears slid down her cheeks, and despite the desire to shut her eyes, she continued looking at him. Please, let Sebastian look back at her. Let him look back at her.

“You kill Jesse now,” Capozzi countered, “or you watch her die this very moment.”

Sebastian’s eyes shut painfully, and Tobin’s throat tightened. “Sebastian,” she gasped into the silence. “Sebastian, don’t. Don’t do this—you are free of this life, you are free of him. Don’t… please don’t…”

He looked up at her at last, his eyes burning. “And let you die? I promised you! I promised, Tobin! I can’t let you die!” he shouted, and she knew that some part of him wanted her to flinch. To look away so he could do it without seeing the look in her eyes. But she shook her head.

“This is wrong, Sebastian. And enough… enough people have been hurt because of me. Because of this… please, please don’t do this,” she whispered.

“Seb—Seb, c’mon, I… I was trying to help! I know I screwed up with all of this, but I just—”

“Shut up, Jesse!” Sebastian yelled at him, still meeting her dark blue eyes.

“Don’t do this. Don’t be the guy you were. You’re so much more. You’re so much better than what he makes you. Don’t do this, Sebastian.”

“You have ten seconds, Sebastian. Ten.”

“Tobin…”

“Nine.”

“You are the only reason…”

“Eight.”

“That I’ve ever been better…”

“Seven.”

“Than what he made me.”

“Six.”

BANG.

“NO!”

Tobin was still staring at him as smoke drifted from the barrel of the gun. She could hear Jesse’s shocked stagger, and then the way he fell to the ground. Sebastian lowered the gun to his side listlessly, and Capozzi reached to take it from him.

“There you are, Sebastian. That wasn’t so hard, was it? And look, you’ve bought yourself and Tobin a few more hours—tie him back up.”

Silence stretched between them like some living thing, ready to strangle them if they tried to speak—almost if they tried to breathe. They were left alone again, and Tobin couldn’t stop shaking. Her eyes had fallen from him only after Capozzi and his men were gone, and Sebastian was tied back to his chair, and they were alone with the smell of gunpowder and Jesse’s body nearby. The tears on her cheeks hadn’t stopped flowing, falling steadily enough to soak the ends of her hair where it was caught around her chin and neck. Tobin wasn’t sure if she had blinked.

“Tobin.”

“Don’t.”

“Tobin.”

“Don’t.” The insistence in her words returned silence to the room, and she could feel his eyes upon her. Burning into her, trying to make her look up at him. But she couldn’t. Not after what he had done. And she couldn’t take the justification when it came, couldn’t listen to him say those things when he had done something so very wrong. The suffocating silence was better than whatever he would say to try and justify it. Yes, it would have been her life instead. But they were going to die anyway. Capozzi was going to kill them anyway and there was nothing he could do to fix that. A few more hours, trapped like this? What did that truly buy either of them? Nothing, not when Tobin couldn’t…

“You truly have no faith in me at all, do you? Even now.” His voice had hardened, at last prompting her to look up at him.

“Faith?” she asked, incredulous. “You think this reaction has anything to do with faith? I had faith in you doing the right thing, Sebastian! We… we’re going to die anyway. And you killed that kid for… for being a stupid kid! For being like you were.”

“I didn’t shoot him for anything he did, Tobin. And Capozzi would have shot him anyway if I hadn’t, and you would’ve died in the process. How would that have been better than what I did? I shot him to save you. I won’t break my word to you—you are getting out of this!”

“Just stop! Stop! You can’t save me, Sebastian! Not here, not like this! And now… now what are you saving me for? You said you wanted to get out of this life. That you regretted the things you had done, and I just… I had faith in that. I had faith not in the guy who belongs in Capozzi’s Family, but the one who made me think that he was a good guy. You can’t save me, Sebastian, but you were able to keep me safe being that guy. The other one, the one who killed Jesse—he was the guy who threatened to rape me and murder me, and I don’t like that guy.”

He stared at her under the flickering, obnoxious light that illuminated their dark little room. She thought, maybe, he was done talking, finally. Done trying to justify it, even for her life. But then… “I shot Jesse.”

Tobin scoffed angrily. “No shit, Sherlock! He’s lying right over there, in a pool of his own blood! You did that!”

“I shot Jesse,” he repeated, and then softly, there was a little moan nearby. Tobin’s head jerked, and she stared at Jesse’s body. There was blood, a lot of it, and he had clearly been shot, but he was moaning. “I didn’t kill him.”

She looked back, her throat tight and her eyes wide. “How?”

“Sadly, he’s not the first person I shot that I didn’t want to kill. He needs to go to a hospital, there’s no question about that, but right now… right now, he is alive. And both of you are getting out of here, right now.”

“S-Seb…”

“Jesse, save your strength. You’re gonna need to walk in a few minutes.” He looked down at his wrists, and Tobin followed his gaze—only to realize, all at once, that he was holding the paper clip Jesse had had. The kid had slipped it to him when his uncle had come in, and she let out a ragged sound she couldn’t help. “Tobin, I promised you I would do everything necessary to save you. Shooting him was necessary. Killing him wasn’t.” There was a slight, wry smirk on his face, and she swallowed hard.

“Sebastian,” she started, not knowing what to say.

“I know, Tobin. You had no way of knowing that I was going to do that—that I could do that. Now, as soon as I get us out…” Somehow, despite the fact that he was the one tied up whereas Jesse had been free before, Sebastian expertly maneuvered the paper clip against the zip ties and freed one wrist while he was talking. “You and Jesse need to get out of this warehouse. Find a car and get back to the city and to a hospital. Police this time, Tobin, as many of them as you can send. Send them here, for whoever’s left.”

Her throat tightened. “Wait a second. What about you?” He’d gotten his other wrist undone and was bending over for his ankles. That was pointed, she knew. He didn’t want to look at her, knowing she would ask that question.

“Whatever’s necessary, Tobin.”

“That? That isn’t necessary. You… you need to come with us. We can get away together—that is so much more important than—”

“If I leave, Tobin, he will discover we’re gone before we have a chance to send cops here. And he will get away. And he will keep coming after us again, and again, and again, until he succeeds. I’m not letting that happen.” He had both his ankles untied, and he was moving to her. He knelt in front of her, reaching up to cup her cheek.

She was still crying, for an entirely different reason. “He’ll kill you. They’ll all try to kill you.”

“If I die, Tobin, Capozzi’s going down with me. I have to keep you safe.”

“Why? Why at the cost of your own life?”

He smiled at her ruefully. “I made a mess of my life a long time ago. You know that. You have a good life, though, even for all this shit. And knowing you’re alive, happy somewhere, living that life… that makes my life better. Please, Tobin, don’t fight me on this.” He leaned forward and kissed her, gently, for the cut on her lip, and she trembled. After a few moments, he was drawing back and working on her zip ties too.

“I love you too, Sebastian.”

For a moment, Sebastian watched as Tobin rubbed her wrists, freed finally from the zip ties, before he turned quickly and hurried over to where Jesse was still lying on the ground. His breathing was labored as he stared over the curve of his chest toward the hole, inches away from his heart. Sebastian’s jaw clenched; he had needed to make it look convincing. He would have much preferred shooting Jesse anywhere else that would’ve been to the same effect, but Capozzi might not have believed his nephew was really dead if he hadn’t taken the risk he had. For the time being, though, Jesse was still breathing, and that was what mattered most. Carefully, he was lifting up the kid and pulling off his jacket; there was blood on it, but Sebastian let out a breath of relief to see that the bullet hadn’t gone all the way through. That would make all of this so much harder—and he would be so much less likely to survive it.

Jesse was trying hard to be quiet as Sebastian was moving him, even though he knew from experience that the kid had to be in excruciating pain. Someone was probably still nearby, though, and they couldn’t be alerted too soon to the fact that Sebastian and Tobin were out and Jesse was still alive. As gently as he could, he was bunching up Jesse’s jacket and wrapping it around his chest tightly, when it was the only thing they had that could staunch the bleeding.

“Okay, I’m going to go make sure the next room is clear,” he explained quietly to the other two, glancing back at Tobin as she stood and pulled her high heels off. “As soon as it’s clear, you two are going to find someplace to hide in one of the other rooms nearby, and I’m going to make some noise and draw everyone’s attention to me. Once you’re sure that no one else is going to come through where you’re hiding, you two need to book it to whatever exit you can find and get in a car. Jesse, I know you’re hurting right now, but I showed you hot to hotwire a car. Do you think you can manage that so that Tobin can get you out of here?”

The kid winced as Sebastian helped him to his feet, pressing his hand tightly to the jacket over the bullet hole. “I can… I-I can t-try,” he stammered, his voice weak. Sebastian gestured to Tobin, and she hurried over, propping her shoulder under Jesse’s arm and wrapping her own around his back.

“Alright. Stay back from the door for now, but be ready to move if you need to.” He paused a moment, looking at Tobin, his jaw tight. The last thing in the world he wanted was to leave her—to let her go without him, knowing that his chances of survival were incredibly small. But this was the only real chance they had to get out. Gritting his teeth for a moment, he bent over her and kissed her hard, startling her, but she returned it a heartbeat after, her free hand reaching out and twisting into his shirt. Finally, he pulled back. “Stay together, stay quiet, and move as quickly as you can.”

Jesse and Tobin nodded, and Sebastian turned, moving toward the door that Capozzi and his men had been coming back and forth through. He highly doubted that the bastard was on the other side, but someone else might be, and he pressed his ear to the door, listening; his eyes narrowed as he heard the faint sounds of… a television. Lazy idiots, but that worked to his advantage. Very carefully, he turned the handle and slid into the next room, looking toward the light of the TV that immediately caught his attention. There were two men there, one staring at a grainy picture of an old television set that seemed to be showing really bad reality television, and the other was nodding off on a stool. Perfect.

Without waiting any longer than that, Sebastian surged forward and wrapped his arms around the neck of the guy watching television. He let out a sound that was immediately cut off as he tightened his embrace, holding the idiot there for long moments until he ceased his useless thrashing and went limp in Sebastian’s arms. He let go, and the now-unconscious body slumped over onto the floor, making it easy to bend down and snatch up his gun. Checking to see how many bullets were in the magazine clip—all six—he pulled back the hammer and pointed it at the other, still falling asleep. Sebastian snorted slightly and moved back to the door.

Opening it, he gestured to Tobin and Jesse, who immediately moved toward him and into the other room. Sebastian was ahead of them, peering into the darkness of the next hallway and not seeing any signs of occupation there. “Go find a place to hide,” he whispered. “And be as quiet as you can.”

They nodded, and he could see the near-panicked fear on Tobin’s face. He gave her a soft, reassuring smile and watched them go, checking one of the rooms and then slipping inside of it. As soon as he couldn’t hear their footsteps, he was turning back to the guard still in the room. His eyes narrowed as he studied him; this bastard had been the one choking him with a goddamn wire earlier. That made this easier.

Instantly, he unloaded two bullets into the guard’s chest. His eyes bolted open with a howl of pain that did nothing as he hit the floor, his hands pressing over the two wounds in his heart. It took only a few seconds for his chest to stop rising, and Sebastian moved to his side, grabbing his gun and hooking it in the top of his pants. In the other rooms, he could hear shouts and the sounds of people starting to head toward the noise. He didn’t wait for them to get here, instead kicking open another door with the gun held ready as he started moving through the halls.

Sebastian had been as blind as Tobin had been, his head stuffed in a bag as well, but as he looked around, he realized that he had been here before—and he knew where Capozzi would most likely be in a place like this. The stairs that led to that room were nearby, with the only other set being way on the other side of the building. So much the better. Another thug came around the corner, and without hesitation, Sebastian shot him in the head. He was followed by another, and Sebastian ducked into a doorway as he managed to get off a few shots. They went wild, breaking a window, and while he cursed, Sebastian was immediately turning the corner and unloading the remainder of his clip.

Dropping the gun, he ran toward the body of the first, who had managed to get a shot off, jerking his gun out of his hand. The stairs were nearby, and the commotion he was making would lead whoever else was in the factory away from where Tobin and Jesse had hidden. For a moment, he glanced behind him, but couldn’t hear any footsteps and so took off down the hallway, searching for the staircase he remembered. He could have laughed at how badly the other men who had been guarding this place hid their approach to him; he’d been able to hear them shouting down the hallways. They had no idea what was happening—that he had gotten loose. That he had no qualms at all about killing them all to protect the girl he loved.