Kane's Ransom: A BWWM Mafia Romance Novel (13 page)

Supposed to run a package, Killian thought to himself. That meant drugs. It sounded like they'd tried to recruit Marcus as a drug mule, and for whatever reason, he got cold feet. Now, unable to get their hands on the drugs, the Mob had decided to try and recover some of their lost money - and send a message to the rest of their mules at the same time by showing what would happen to anyone who dared to back out on them.

He felt Alicia swallow, and pulled his thoughts quickly back to the present. "I know that you're upset," she quavered, "but you have to understand that I'm just a waitress - I can't just go take out a hundred thousand dollars from my bank account. I don't have anything close to that much, but I can maybe come up with something, and I'll give it all to you. Please, my brother means everything to me-"

"I don't give a fuck," the voice cut in harshly, silencing her. "Listen, bitch. Either you pay up, or your brother dies. Simple as that. Now, if you do somehow manage to get your hands on the cash, call this same number. We'll pick up and tell you how to get the money to us."

The voice started to say another word, but then paused and coughed a few times, rough hacking that put Killian in mind of one of his former patients, a lifelong smoker who stubbornly refused to give up his pack-a-day habit, even in the face of Stage Four lung cancer. The man had gone to his death still puffing away.

"A hundred thousand dollars," the voice repeated, once the coughing subsided. "And you've got twenty-four hours from... let's say noon today. Either you call before noon tomorrow and tell us that you've got the money, or else Marcus here dies."

"Please," Alicia choked out again, but the voice clearly wasn't showing any sympathy.

"Oh, and if you call without the money, we'll not just kill him," the voice added nastily. "We'll find you, drag you in front of your brother here, and make him watch as we kill you. Unpleasantly. And only after we've finished with you, we'll do the same thing to your brother. So don't think of double crossing us."

With a click, the caller disconnected.

For a minute after the caller hung up, Alicia just kept on staring down at the phone in her hand. Killian held off on speaking, not sure what was going through the young woman's head.

Finally, she turned again to Killian, tears once again glistening in her eyes. "He's going to die, isn't he?" she asked, sounding hopeless.

"Not yet," Killian responded, trying to sound convincing. "We know what they're after, now, and we know how much time we have. We still have a shot at saving him."

For a minute, he didn't know if his words were having any impact, if they got through to the young woman. She blinked at him, and the tears remained at the corners of her eyes - but then, she gave a single, confident nod, trying to blink away the little drops of wetness.

"Okay," she said, doing her best to steady her voice. "I believe you. We can still save him."

"Your brother's going to be fine, and we'll get him back, safe and sound," Killian repeated back to her. He did his best to sound as convincing as possible, as much for his own benefit as for Alicia. He saw her nod again, doing her best to take the words to heart.

"So what next?" she asked, after a minute.

Killian glanced down at his watch before answering. "In a few minutes, I'm going to have to head out," he said. "I have a contact who might be able to help, but I have to go meet him alone. He's not too trustworthy, and having you along might spook him."

"Oh, come on!" Alicia replied, leaning in and batting her eyelashes at Killian. "Do I look suspicious to you?"

He had to stifle a laugh. "Knock it off," he answered, not unkindly. "I'd bring you if I could, really. But in this case, I really can't show up with anyone else - there's a chance that he'll bolt before I even have a chance to try and explain myself."

Alicia stuck out her lower lip in an exaggerated pout, but she flopped back onto her side of the big bed. "So what, I'm supposed to just laze about here?" she asked, scooping up one of the pillows from beneath the covers and squeezing it against her chest. "Wait for you to come back? Maybe you want me to put on a maid's uniform, do some dusting, call you master?"

"Oh good, you brought a maid's uniform?" Killian fired back, smiling widely. "Perfect! That's going to be perfect for when we play dress-up later."

At this retort, Alicia stuck out her tongue at him. "In your dreams," she told him, holding up the pillow threateningly, as if she was about to bludgeon him with it. "Go on, get out of here."

"Remember, you've got the whole room to yourself!" Killian pointed out to her as they both clambered off of the bed. "You've got something like five hundred channels of television, and that big, fancy tub that you pointed out earlier has jets in it! I'm sure that you can find a way to distract yourself for a couple of hours until I get back."

"Maybe I'll order up a ton of room service on your credit card," Alicia mused to herself as she climbed up to her feet and walked along with Killian to the door of the hotel room. "I wonder what lobster tastes like."

Killian made sure that she saw him wince, and she laughed again. He didn't think he'd ever get tired of hearing that laugh, high and clear and full of pure happiness, he thought to himself. Immediately afterward, he banished the thought from his consciousness, but it persisted for a second, teasing him, before vanishing.

At the door, Killian pulled on his jacket - and then, before he opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, Alicia darted forward, leaning up on her tiptoes and putting her arms around his neck.

"Be safe," she whispered softly to him - and then leaned in even a little closer. Her lips brushed ever so gently against his kiss, leaving the faintest little wet imprint behind on his cheek.

And then, before Killian could even think of a response, she turned and bounced back into the hotel room.

For a moment, Killian just stared after her, his mouth hanging slightly open. It took him a moment to get his brain functioning once again, and he stepped out of the hotel room, easing the door shut behind him before heading towards the bank of elevators.

Chapter fifteen

Wow, Alicia's brain commented inside her skull as she heard the door to the hotel room close behind her. That was certainly a forward gesture, wasn't it?

Normally, she'd be feeling guilty already, torn between feeling like a slut for leading Killian on, and feeling like a prude for not having a full talk with him and instead turning and leaving things unfinished between the two of them. Her emotions felt like a confusing swirl of light and color, and she couldn't even sort out how she truly felt about the man.

She looked back at the bed in the bedroom area, noting how Killian had left a slight depression in the soft comforter where he'd been lying, but instead turned to the living room area. She sat down primly on the couch, trying to keep her attitude regal and uptight, as she imagined that someone staying in a room like this ought to think - but a minute later, flopped down face-first into the pillows and cushions on the couch.

"Blergh!" she groaned, the sound muffled by the pillow beneath her face. "What the hell am I doing?"

Wasn't there a name for this sort of thing? Stockholm Syndrome, or something like that, for when just being around a man led to some sort of impractical attraction? Alicia didn't think that this term was quite right - she suspected that Stockholm Syndrome was more for if she was being held against her will - but it still felt utterly ridiculous.

One minute, she was telling herself that she needed to keep herself separate, aloof, and the next minute she was being drawn in towards this man, even kissing him on the cheek! Alicia felt a little bit like she'd transformed into some sort of emotional yoyo, bouncing back and forth from one end of the spectrum to the other.

She needed to keep her emotions walled off and separate, she told herself firmly, at least until this whole business was over, and hopefully Marcus was back safe and sound. Letting herself get emotionally involved, thinking about Killian as more than just a- a what? A friend? An acquaintance? A partner?

Whatever word she chose, it was still sure to cause trouble if she couldn't stick to it, she told herself.

But as she settled back on the couch, flipping through the channels, Alicia found herself thinking back through her past, and feeling dissatisfied with what she saw.

She'd never really dated around, she realized. In the past, when she was still young and in the ghetto, dating was rough - it was at the top of a slippery slope that led down into many other dangers, including pregnancy and getting hitched to a man who would never make it out of the ghetto.

After she'd managed to claw her way out, she still hadn't jumped into the dating pool. Some of the issue was money - namely, her lack of it. Another problem came from simply finding the time to get out and date. With no car, a full-time job, and precious little disposable income, Alicia couldn't see a potential date as anything besides a source of stress.

And even if she overcame these obstacles, the simple fact was that she didn't really have anyone in her life that she wanted to date.

Where would she meet someone? At the diner, where she had to work? At a bar, where she couldn't afford to spend her evenings, even if she had both energy to go out and a method of transportation? Online, choosing from the dating pool comprised of the less than ten thousand residents of Commerce, Texas? Alicia still remembered the rednecks who had yelled at her out the window as they drove by in their pickup truck. That, she thought grumpily to herself, was a pretty good summary of the dating pool in Commerce.

Most of the time, she simply didn't think about the issue. Between the long hours at the diner and spending most of her waking free time worrying about bills, she simply didn't have the energy to date, or even think about finding a man for any sort of relationship at all. Sometimes, when the shower water was running hot, she'd have a little fun on her own, but that was about as far as she went.

That last thought, however, gave her an idea.

Alicia risked a cautious glance towards the door, as if Killian was still standing on the other side and about to pop out at any second. But he'd said that he would be out for a couple of hours, didn't he? And besides, she'd surely hear his key in the door when he returned.

Climbing up from the couch in front of the television, Alicia wandered cautiously into the bedroom, peering into the tub. Jets, Killian had mentioned. And sure enough, she could see the jets positioned around the edge of the tub, pointing inward. A little dial on the wall controlled whether they were on or off, and how long they'd run.

It took her a minute or two, but Alicia convinced herself that she was all right, that she needed some stress relief. She quickly climbed out of her clothing, depositing it in a neat little pile on the bathroom floor, within easy reach if someone came barging in.

It took a little experimentation, but she finished how to turn on the water from the gold faucet hanging over the edge of the tub. Without thinking, Alicia turned the hot water all the way up - at home, she had to let the hot water run for at least five minutes before it started to rise above a glacial temperature. She only realized her mistake when steam began filling up the hotel's bathroom, and quickly added some cold water to the mix.

Even after catching her mistake, the bathtub still steamed a little when the water crept up towards the brim, and she hissed for a moment upon contacting the surface of the water with a toe. Oh, it felt so hot!

Bit by bit, however, she eased her way in. After a second, the heat was no longer piercing, no longer painful. Instead, it felt really good, coating her chocolate skin and soaking into her sore and tense muscles. Alicia sighed a little as she sank in, letting the water gently lap up over her hips, across her stomach, up to wash over her sensitive nipples with twin little bursts of warmth.

Once she was submerged up to the neck, she turned her attention to that dial. She gave it an exploratory twist and then moved into the middle of the tub, waiting to see what would happen.

For a moment, there was just a low rumbled from the walls around her. After that first second, however, the jets spat out a burst of bubbles - and then began sending powerful bursts of the hot water out, transforming the whole tub into a swirling whirlpool! Alicia laughed delightedly as the currents of water carried her round, spinning her in slow circles.