Stingray Billionaire: The Complete Series (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (76 page)

CHAPTER
FIFTY

Lexi

I
put Anna in her carrier as Viv called a cab for me. At the door, she hugged me
tightly and kissed my forehead before she saluted.

"Go get your
man, Wally!" she laughed.

"I'll do my
best," I grinned as I walked to the elevator and headed down to meet my
taxi. On the ground floor, I crossed the lobby and said goodnight to the
doorman before heading out to the curb. The taxi was waiting and while I
briefly wondered how the driver had gotten here so quickly, I wrote it off to
the competition between drivers and was grateful that he’d shown up so fast. I
asked the driver to load my bag into the trunk as I pushed Anna's carrier into
the backseat and then slid in beside her. I gave the driver my address, but he
didn't acknowledge me. I tapped on the Plexiglas divider and said the address
again. Still no response.

"Excuse me?
Excuse me!" I shouted at the driver who refused to turn and look at me.
"Did you hear me? I said I'm going to sixty-five Goethe Street!"

"You're going
where I tell you you're going, so shut the fuck up and sit down!" came the
reply. I felt like I'd been punched. And then, the panic set in as I tried to
open the car door and found it securely locked.

"Oh no,
you're not getting out, little lady," the driver laughed. "You're
coming with me."

"Let me out!
Let me out!" I shouted as I pounded on the window hoping that someone on
the outside would see me and stop the cab. "You can't keep me in here! Let
me out!"

"Shut the
fuck up," the driver said as we reached a stoplight and he turned to point
a pistol at my head. "I hate stupid women who don't know when to shut up,
so I'm not opposed to silencing you. Hand over the phone."

I shrank back in
the seat and stared at the barrel of the gun with wide eyes. Anna paced in her
carrier, mewing at me to let her out as I dug into my purse. I wanted to
resist, but my common sense took over and I handed the man my phone

"Shut that
fucking cat up," he demanded. "I hate those fucking things. They're
sneaky – just like women."

"Where are
you taking me?" I asked, trying to keep the rising panic out of my voice.
I had no idea who this man was or what he wanted from me.

"You'll see
when you get there," he said before tossing me a mask and yelling,
"Now put that damn thing on and shut the fuck up!"

I sank into the
backseat as I pulled the mask over my eyes before quietly opening Anna's cage
so that I could pet her. She seemed to understand the situation and silently
climbed onto my lap. I held her close and petted her head as I thought about
Max. I suddenly regretted my foolish outburst in the lobby of Peter's building.
Had I not fired the security guard Max had hired, I might not be in this
situation. I cursed myself as I felt the tears welling up.

Eventually, the
cab pulled into a garage and I could hear the doors being quickly pulled down.
The cab door opened, and a hand grabbed my arm, roughly pulling me out of the
car. I was startled and Anna responded by jumping out of my arms. I heard a gun
go off, and I screamed thinking they'd shot her.

"You
heartless bastards!" I shouted as I began to cry. "She's a baby! You
shot a baby!"

"Shut
up!" a voice near my ear warned. "Or you'll be next."

I ground my teeth
together so hard that I was certain I would crack one or two as I was shoved
forward and told to walk. The hand on my arm gripped me tightly, and I felt the
cold metal of a gun pressed against my right temple as I walked. My stomach
roiled and I was afraid that I was going to vomit, so I swallowed hard and
tried to calm myself by breathing deeply.

When we reached a
doorway, I heard a lock click and felt the breeze from the door opening as the
hand on my arm shoved me forward. I went flying across the room and landed
hard. Something padded broke my fall, and the voice said, "You can take
the mask off if you want, but I'd recommend that you stay really fucking quiet
or else I'll have to silence you."

I nodded miserably
as I reached up and pulled off the mask so I could look around. The room was no
more than six by six feet and was made of cinder blocks with one small window
at the top of the wall. It was large enough that I thought I might be able to
squeeze out of it, if I could manage to boost myself up high enough. The walls
had been painted numerous times, as evidenced by the layers of paint that had
been chipped away, leaving a rainbow of colors in various places. The floor was
cement and looked like it had been scrubbed to try and remove what looked like
bloodstains that spread out across it. There was a drain in the center of the
room, and after looking once, I tried to avoid repeating my mistake as it
confirmed that the stains on the floor were, in fact, blood. I looked down and
realized I was laying spread across a dirty mattress, covered in who knew what.
I quickly pushed myself up off of it and walked to the far corner of the small
room. I pressed my back into the corner and sunk down facing the door.

I had no idea
where I was or what these men wanted from me. All I knew was that no one had
any idea where I was and that these horrible men had murdered Anna. I began to
cry silent tears for my little kitten and then for myself.

"Aw, don't
cry, little girl," a voice at the door said in mock sympathy. I looked up
and saw a tall man with a blond crew cut dressed in jeans and an army jacket
zipped to the neck. He was casually holding a large hunting knife in one hand
and when I saw it, my blood turned to ice in my veins as my eyes dropped to the
stained cement floor. "That's it. Connect the dots, little girl."

I was frozen on
the ground, knowing that I had no chance of escape and that this man was most
likely going to butcher me and dispose of my body so that no one ever knew what
had happened to me. The tears continued to flow as I tried to accept my fate.

"Oh, I'm not
going to cut you up, if that's what you're afraid of," he laughed.
"Don't be foolish, little girl. You're a valuable commodity."

I looked up into
his cold blue eyes and my first thought was how different they were from Max's
warm ones. This man looked like he could cut diamonds with his stare, and I
quickly looked away.

"No, no, look
up at me!" he said in an encouraging tone. "I want you to look at me
while I film you pleading for your life."

"But…but you
said you weren't going to hurt me," I whispered.

"I might or I
might not, depending on how good you play this role," he said as he
examined his nails and then used the knife to remove something from underneath
one of them. "You're an actress, aren't you?"

"Y…yes,"
I stammered.

"Then you'll
do the best acting job of your life or you will die. Are we clear?" he
asked in a matter-of-fact tone. I nodded as he grinned and brought out my cell
phone. "Now, I'm going to use your phone to record your plea, so make it
good because this is what Malinchenko is going to get. You need to tell him to
cooperate or we will kill you. It's pretty simple. Ready?"

He turned the
phone's camera on and began recording with the light shining brightly into my
eyes. I swallowed hard and began speaking, "Please, Max, they're going to
kill me. Please, help me! They already killed Anna and now they said they're
going to kill me if you don't give them what they want! Please, help me!"
By the end of my plea, I was crying hard as the tears flowed down my cheeks and
I sobbed for Max to help me.

The man shut off
the camera and nodded, "Good job. But who is this Anna we killed? I don't
remember anyone else being brought in with you."

"My
kitten!" I sobbed. "He shot my kitten! She was just a baby!"

"Oh, well,
good," he said as he brought up a wad of spit from his throat and hocked
it on the ground. "Cats are filthy animals. It's better for all of us that
she's dead before she became an adult."

He turned and
walked out of the door, slamming it shut behind him.

CHAPTER
FIFTY-ONE

Max

I'd
only been home a few minutes when the doorman rang and said he had a package
for me. I told him to send it up in the elevator and when the doors slid open I
found a small cardboard box with my name and address written in block letters
on top. There was no postage or return address, so I took it to the kitchen and
carefully examined it.

It didn't look
like any explosives had been attached to the box, so I lifted the lid and
inside, I found Lexi's phone. My heart dropped to my stomach as I picked it up
and pressed the power button. Once the phone was powered up, I read the
instructions that had been typed on the home screen and played the video.

When the camera
came on I saw Lexi huddled in the corner of a room with what looked like cinder
block walls. She looked small and very scared as she looked up at the camera
and begged, "Please, Max, they're going to kill me. Please, help me! They
already killed Anna and now they said they're going to kill me if you don't
give them what they want! Please, help me!" For a moment, a black rage
descended and I wanted to murder anyone and everyone who was connected with her
kidnapping.

The video feed
returned with the camera pointed at an empty chair in a wood-paneled room that
had the old Soviet Union flag pinned to the wall. I watched for a moment, and
then Alexsander Dementyev walked into the frame and sat down. His slimy smile
spread across his face as he prepared to speak. I wanted to murder him.

"Malinchenko,
I imagine that right about now, you want to murder me," he laughed.
"You wouldn't be a man if you didn't, but that's not why I'm here. I'm
here to claim what's rightfully mine and if it means that I have to use a bit
of incentive to get it, then so be it. You might wonder what a man like me
could possibly want, since I have everything any man could desire. I have
money, power, and immunity from prosecution under diplomatic law.

“So, I'll tell you
what I want. I want your father to pay for his crimes against the state and
against his fellow
vory v zakone
. I
want the head of Vladimir Malinchenko, and once I get it, I will be happy to
return the little American actress to her proper place."

Dementyev's
laughter filled the small room as he reached out and accepted the glass of
vodka offered by a disembodied hand. Then, he continued, "You have exactly
twenty-four hours to bring me Vladimir or I will cut up that pretty little girl
and spread her out across this city so that you will never be able to find her
again. I hope that you understand that this is nothing personal with you, my
friend. It's an old debt that must be paid." He accepted a second glass of
vodka, raised it toward the camera, and declared, "
Za vashee zdaróvye!"
before downing it and slamming the glass
on the desk.

"Twenty-four
hours, my friend," he said as he flashed a sinister grin and the screen
went dark.

"You
bastard," I hissed as I clenched my fist and then slammed it down on the
patio table, shattering the glass top and sending everything on the table
crashing to the ground. I stood up and paced the length of the balcony as I
thought about what my next move would be. He wanted me to turn Papa over to
him, and no matter what my father had done, there was no way I was going to do
that. Or was there?

I stormed back
into the penthouse, grabbed my phone, and dialed my father. When no one
answered, I swore a blue streak as I ran back to my bedroom and changed into a
black t-shirt, black jeans, and a black hoodie.

I wasn't sure how
I was going to do this, but I was going to rescue Lexi.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Lexi

Despite
the small window, I quickly lost track of how long I'd been the small cement
room. I cried myself to sleep in the corner and when I woke up, I saw that the
kidnappers had left a tray of food just inside the door. I crawled over to it
and then pulled it back to my corner.

They’d given me some soup that was now cold and a thick slice of rye
bread. There was also a cold bottle of water and an apple on the tray, and I
laughed a little at the notion that these ruthless kidnappers had somehow
decided to provide me with a balanced meal. Suddenly, the memory of Anna in my arms
came crashing back in and I dissolved into tears again. These awful men had
killed a small, defenseless kitten. It didn't get any colder than that, so I
hardened my heart and ate what I could of the food they'd given me. I would
keep up my strength and then when the time came, I would find a way to break
out. I would save myself.

As I was finishing my meal, the door swung open and the same blond man
walked in, only this time he was carrying a gun. I cringed before I could stop
myself and then lifted my head and looked him directly in the eyes.

"Oh, you are a brave little girl, aren't you?" he said as he
moved closer. There was something so sinister about him that I could smell it.

"Perhaps, I am," I said as I set my jaw and prepared for him to
shoot me. If I was going to die, it wasn't going to be cringing in the corner.

"You think I'm going to shoot you, don't you?" he asked as he
moved away and kicked the dirty mattress, causing a cloud of dust and who knows
what else to fly up out of it. I felt the food in my stomach shift and I
swallowed hard to keep it were it was.

"I think you're going to do whatever it is that people like you
do," I replied.

"You think I'm a monster, don't you?" he asked as he turned and
looked out the door. "You think I have no feelings."

"I think you're whatever you think you are," I countered.
"I don't really care what that is because to me, you're nothing."

"Oh, little girl," he laughed in the way that adults laugh at
children. "You are so very wrong about that. So very, very wrong."

An instant later, he was squatting down next to me with his hand wrapped
around my neck, squeezing off my air supply. I choked and gasped, but his hand
tightened and I couldn't draw air into my lungs. His face was inches from mine
as he watched me struggle like a fish out of water, and his smile grew wider,
but colder as I felt the blackness encroaching around the edges of my sight.

Instinctively, I reached up and tried to pry his hands from my neck, but
that made him squeeze harder and the darkness threatened to consume me. I
stopped struggling and began to focus on trying to take a breath. As I calmed
myself, he loosened his grasp enough to let a small trickle of air into my
lungs, and I almost cried with relief.

"See, when you're a good girl, I let you breathe," he whispered
into my ear as he tightened his hold once again, cutting off my air. This time,
I sat completely still and waited as I counted as high as I could go. Soon, he
loosened his grip and I blew out what was in my lungs and sucked as much fresh
air in as possible expecting him to play this game again. Instead, he let go
completely and stood up. "You see how this works, little girl? I have the
power to determine whether you live or die."

I nodded as I tried to slow my panicked breathing and return my pulse to
normal. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he'd gotten to
me, but he already knew he had. It was his entire aim. He would unsettle me and
make me grateful for his willingness to allow me to breathe. I'd learned this
in a psychology class that Josh and I had taken our senior year, and now, I
wracked my brain trying to remember what our professor had said about
psychopaths who had a God complex.

"You aren't going to make it out of here alive, you know?" he
said quietly. "It doesn't matter what Malinchenko does, I'm going to slit
your throat and watch your blood flow down the drain. Like I've done with
countless other women before you."

"Oh goody," I said flatly. "Thanks for letting me know the
plan. It's so comforting."

"Your sarcasm is duly noted," he grinned. "It won't save
you, but it will certainly make my time with you more interesting."

With that, he lifted the gun and pointed it right at me. There was
something freeing about staring down the barrel of a semi-automatic weapon
knowing that I wasn't going to get shot. "You're not screaming or
crying," he said, sounding disappointed.

"That's because you just told me that you're going to slit my throat
and watch the blood go down the drain," I said in a dull voice. "I
felt fairly certain that you'd stick to the plan."

"You're a smart little girl," he told me as he lowered the gun
and flashed me a smile that chilled my soul. "This will be so much fun
when we get to the end of the road."

He turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Only
once I heard the click of the lock turning back in place and his boots echoing
in the hallway did I let my tears fall fast and hard.

"Find me, Max," I whispered to no one. "Please come find
me."