Deal with the Devil (16 page)

Another punch gets me in the gut. An answering fire blooms in my belly, almost doubling me over with the pain of it. I collapse against the truck and slowly fall to my knees.

I don’t think about dying. Instead, moving pictures of Mara fill my vision — her smile and rare laugh, the look on her face when she told me she loved me. Why didn’t I ever say it back to her? I told myself that I didn’t know how I felt, but that was a lie. I was just scared. Terrified like a little boy of letting her carve a hole for herself inside my heart and then smash it to pieces.

I
am
an idiot.

And now I’ll never have the chance to make it right. All I want is to wrap her up in my arms and tell her I love her over and over again until she gets sick of hearing it.

The pain is so intense that I can barely breathe through it. Darkness closes in at the edges of my vision. My last thought before I pass out is the sick realization that I’m about to break my promise to her. Like every other bastard in her life, I’m leaving her on her own.

I will always come back for you.

I
don’t really start
to worry until the first hour has gone by.

By the second hour, I’m a nervous wreck. I pace back and forth across the tiny cabin in circles, probably wearing tracks on the floor.

I try to distract myself by imagining every possible reason that Leo could possibly have for taking this long to get back. Or at least, all the reasons that don’t involve him being dead. Maybe it took longer to get down the mountain than he thought it would. It has been snowing all day. Maybe the truck got caught in a snow drift and he’s digging it out right now.

He took away my cell phone and probably tossed his too, so it’s not like he could call me to let me know what’s going on. It hasn’t been that long. There’s no reason to assume the worst.

So then why do I feel this sense of cold dread like dead fingers moving up my spine. I’m not the kind of girl who gets crazy and sentimental, freaking out over every little thing. My grandfather was a mafia boss. I know when it’s time to be worried.

But what the fuck can I even do?

This is exactly why I never wanted to be with someone in the life. I’m not the good mafia wife who can get her nails done and drink mojitos with the girls while my idiot husband is off somewhere getting shot at.

Dread and fear set my heard beating so hard that it’s a painful rhythm in my chest. I can’t take this. I have to do something.

But what? Drive down a snow-covered mountain by myself with no idea of where I’m going. My sense of direction is nonexistent. I don’t even listen when people give me directions anymore. I get the address and just plug it into the GPS on my phone. The phone that I don’t have right now. I don’t even have access to a computer to maybe download a map. The cabin is wired for electricity, but there’s no computer or internet.

At some point, Leo and I are going to have to talk about how his efforts to keep me safe always seem to just make things worse.

Assuming he’s not already dead.

That thought sends tendrils of icy pain shooting through me. He can’t be dead. The universe wouldn’t be that cruel, not after everything I’ve been through. Why would fate finally send me someone to love and then just rip him away?

I have to stay calm. I can’t think about what I’m going to do if Leo never comes back to me. But at what point do I start making a plan to take care of myself? I don’t even know where to start — where do I go? What do I do?”

A loud ringing jars me from my thoughts.

It sounds like a phone, but that can’t be right. There aren’t any phones here. Leo was pretty clear about that. In fact, I whined and complained about that fact for at least an hour on the way up here. He promised to pick us up burners when he had a chance.

Maybe that’s what is taking him so long to get back, I wonder. Though I don’t actually believe it.

The sound only gets louder as I move through the small cabin. The ringing is loud and shrill. It’s an old-fashioned sort of ring, like one of those plastic rotary phones off of a sitcom.

I trace the sound to the kitchen, where it’s loudest. Admittedly, I haven’t spent much time in here. Leo does all of the cooking. If you consider preparing things that only require a microwave the same as cooking. But I’ve been in here enough times to remember if there’s a phone, or not.

The ringing is oppressively loud as I stand in the center of the linoleum floor and look around. But there’s no obvious source for the sound.

Please don’t hang up, I think. It has to be Leo. Which means there’s a landline around here somewhere that he never bothered to tell me about.

The kitchen has a door, which I’d thought was weird when Leo first showed me around the house. He said it’s normal with winter cabins like this to put doors in every room. It helps the trap the heat in whatever area you happen to be in on cold days.

Feeling like an idiot, I close the door while still inside the kitchen. A corded phone hangs on the wall next to the frame. It’s completely hidden when the door is open. The phone is the cheap kind that doesn’t have a caller ID.

I grab it in the middle of the next ring.

“Hello?” I gasp. “Leo?”

“Mara!” 
The voice is high, strident and decidedly female. 
“Are you there?”

“Who is this?” What the fuck?

“It’s Mommy.”

My stomach drops. There’s only one reason why she would call this number — only one reason why she would have it at all. And I’ve never called that bitch 
mommy
 even once in my entire life.

“Where’s Leo.”

“They have him, Mara. I’m so sorry this has got so out of hand.”

Out of hand, that’s what she wanted to call sending a bunch of dangerous bikers after me?

“What do you want?”

“You just have to come, baby. Nothing will happen to Leo if we get the money. These men won’t stop until they get paid. Everything will be okay again if you just come sign the papers.”

They have Leo. That’s the only part of this that matters. I don’t even care about the money. The bitch can take it all, if it’s that important to her. I just want him back in one piece.

“Where are you?” I ask.

“In Nicholville. It’s a warehouse on Sampson street.”

She gives me an address. I hastily copy it onto a piece of paper. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

It isn’t until I hang up the phone that I realize that I should have asked to talk to Leo. It’s in all the movies. Always make sure the hostage is alive before you give in to any demands.

I trust my mother about as far as I can throw a baby grand piano. Why would I believe anything she says now?

Of course there’s no caller ID not the phone. I try dialing *69 but a robotic voice just says “
unknown caller
” before the line disconnects. There’s no way to get her back on the phone from my end.

Even if it is a trap, I can’t just leave Leo to the mercy of the Apocalypse MC all on his own. Especially not when it’s really me that they want. And they must have him. How else would they have got the phone number for the cabin? I didn’t even know the phone existed until she called.

So what do I do? Wait for Cecile to call me back and hope that they don’t kill Leo in the meantime? Or stay up here at the cabin by myself and wait for them to come looking for me?

Something has happened to Leo. I know that like I know my own name. It’s just one of those innate pieces of information that you carry with you — like the certainty that you’re alive.

Leo is out there somewhere and he needs my help.

So it really isn’t a choice, is it?

The keys to the old truck are hanging from a hook near the door. Leo had warned me that we couldn’t take it anywhere in case somebody recognized it, but that’s sort of moot point now.

It’s freezing cold as I stomp outside in the snow. I have to unlock the truck with fingers that barely have any feeling left in them. Somehow, the truck’s cab is even colder than it is outside. Like all of the freezing air has been absorbed into the metal.

The engine takes a few tries to turn over. I keep turning the key in the ignition with my heart in my throat. The truck tires slide on a patch of ice as I try to pull the truck out onto the road. A burst of adrenaline surges through me, leaving my heart pounding and pulse racing.

Would it be ironic if the truck slipped on a patch of snow and sent me careening off the side of a mountain to my death or just sad?

Getting to Leo before anything happens to him consumes my thoughts. It’s terrifying to think about something happening to him. I tried to rationalize is all away. I tried to tell myself that love is just a trick of brain chemistry. And just because I feel it, doesn’t mean that we’re meant to be together.

But now I know the truth.

I want to be with him. I want to see his face next to me on the pillow when I wake up the morning. And spend my time thinking of ways to make him happy. I need to be with him — forever.

The truck slides down the snowy mountain and I ride the brake the entire way. I’m convinced that I’m going to die every time the wheels start to slip underneath me. But I somehow make it to the main road without dying.

Nicholville is somehow even shittier than I imagined it would be, even in the dark. I drive past row after row of abandoned houses and vacant lots, overgrown with weeds and covered in trash. It feels like an appropriate place for a last stand. What’s one more dead body in a place that’s already full of decay?

I would know if he were dead, I assure myself. Somehow I would feel it.

Wouldn’t I?

The address Cecile gave me is for a warehouse on the far side of town. I drive by it once, looking for some sign of movement. But it’s the same as all the empty gray structures that stretch along the narrow road.

I park the truck a few streets away and get out to walk. Snow crunches underneath my feet as a deep chill sets in my bones.

It isn’t hard to pick out which warehouse is the right one. The gathering of motorcycles out front is a dead giveaway.

Swallowing hard past the terror, I take a deep breath and go inside.

* * *

I
’m not
sure what to expect when I meet Ares for the first time, but I’m still surprised by the reality.

There're half a dozen bikers gathered on the far side of the warehouse when I walk slowly cross the cement floor. But I know which one is the leader without having to be told.

Ares stands a little ahead of the others. There’s a deadly sureness in his relaxed posture that says he climbed to the top on a pile of bodies.

He’s attractive — ash blonde hair and shirtless muscles bulging under his leather vest — but the look in his eyes borders on the maniacal. It’s pure, murderous crazy. If I ever thought that Leo was a bad man, I know that this guy is much much worse. I have no doubt that being a defenseless woman won’t stop him from doing horrible things to me.

“Welcome back, girlie.”

Girlie?
 I shiver in equal parts disgust and terror. “I’m here. Where’s Leo?”

“Leo…Leo….I’m drawing a blank. You’re gonna have to be more specific. Who’s that again?”

My heart drops to the bottom of my chest. The guy has already won, but he’s still fucking with me. “Is he dead?”

Cecile stands slightly behind the line of bikers, her hands working together nervously. I look at her and feel almost nothing. It’s worse than a stranger, because I know exactly what sort of person she is. Mack stands next to her with hatred burning in his eyes. He’s still favoring the uninjured leg and I feel a small spurt of satisfaction.

“Let’s just get this done,” Cecile says, her voice a little pleading.

“I’m not doing anything until I see Leo.” I invest as much stubborn determination into my voice as I possibly can. Even if I’m actually terrified.

Ares takes a step toward me. I take an involuntary step back. “I think there may have been a little bit of misunderstanding, baby girl. Leo isn’t here.”

His smile is wide and terrible.

It is a trap. The realization doesn’t even surprise me. I never should have trusted my fucking mother to tell me the truth. I should be worried about myself, stuck in this nest of vipers, but all I can think about is Leo.

“Where is he?” There’s a tremble in my voice.

“I sent some of my guys to pick him up.” Ares’s voice is full of consolation that I don’t buy for a second. “He got a little excited and things escalated. Sorry, babe. I guess you’re on your own.”

“Is he dead?” I repeat the question, even though I think I already know the answer.

Ares just smiles that awful smile.

Leo is dead. The floor disappears underneath me and I’m falling through darkness. There won’t ever be light in my life again. Tears burn behind my eyes and I don’t fight them. What’s the point of being strong when I don’t have anything left to fight for?

“Don’t you want to know how we found you?” His voice is teasing. Obviously rubbing salt in my wounds gets him off. “It’s a great story.”

One of the bikers retreats to the back of the room. I hear the sound of something dragging on the floor and I realize it’s a person. He drops Willy at Ares’s feet.

“Now, this is the guy,” Ares says with a baring of teeth that I’m sure he thinks is a smile. “He’s been the most helpful person I’ve met since we left Philly. Isn’t that right?”

I wince in sympathy as Ares nudges the lawyer hard with the point of one steel-toed boot. Willy makes a high-pitched sound of pain. He’s been hogtied with his hands and feet secured behind his back. A piece of duct tape covers his mouth. His face is covered in bruises and dried blood.

“You want to tell her about it?” Ares reaches down and rips away the tape. Bits of skin probably come off with it.

“Mara…I’m so sorry. They threatened to kill my family…”

Ares cuts him off with a swift kick to the stomach. Willy screams in pain.

“Stop whining.” Ares bends down and grabs a handful of Willy’s hair, wrenching the man’s head back. “All I had to do was take a hammer to one of your fingers and you were singing like a little bitch canary. Telling me all about that cozy little cabin in the woods you helped that fucker build years back. That’s where he’ll go, you said. You even had a number for the land line.”