A Prince's Ransom: Kidnapped by the Billionaire (50 page)

“Unless you want me to pull this trigger,” the man hissed at her, “you will get in this alleyway.”

“Leave her out of this,” Sebastian growled with a fury that made her insides twist into painful knots. “Leave her alone.”

“You brought this on yourself, Sebastian,” the other man answered, and Tobin couldn’t bite back the whimper that tore itself from her throat when he pulled back the hammer of his gun.

“Alright, alright,” she gasped out, stepping into the alley.

“Tobin, no. Don’t, run—scream, get out of here!” he tried to order her, but despite the fear rioting inside of her, she shook her head and stepped further into the darkness.

Their assailant sneered. “Good girl. Now let’s go. C’mon.” He grabbed Sebastian’s arm and pulled him further into the alley, keeping himself between them, his gun pressed against Sebastian’s forehead. Tobin walked slowly, trying to blink back tears that threatened—only to notice that someone else was at the end of the alley in the darkness, and those tears slid down her cheeks despite her wishes. He had a gun too.

“Now, Sebastian, if you don’t want your girlfriend here to take a bullet to the brain, you are not going to struggle when our friend here ties you up, are you?”

“No,” he answered angrily, and the other man was approaching him. Tobin’s heart thundered painfully when she saw the zip ties he held; she remembered what those felt like too well, so absolutely unyielding and painful to try and break. She had never wanted to feel them again, but now… now she watched as Sebastian’s arms were forced behind his back, and then the man approached her and did the same, her purse being discarded on the ground. She swallowed a sob and shut her eyes moments before a burlap sack was pulled rudely over her head.

“Now… this way.” The second man was speaking, and he grabbed her arm and yanked her down a turn in the alley. It didn’t take more than a few minutes before she was being shoved into a car she couldn’t see, and tears were soaking the sack covering her head.

Tobin had been left alone for hours. She didn’t know how long, exactly—it almost didn’t matter. Some new warehouse, a new seat on a cold metal chair instead of the cold cement floor, and her wrists each zip-tied to the arms. She had been pulling at them, knew that there were red welts embedded into her skin. Her ankles were caught to the legs, too, so that the only thing she would manage to accomplish by struggling too much would be tipping herself over like an idiot. God, she hated this burlap sack, though. She hated the flickers of light and vision she got through it. She hated the way it scratched at her cheeks and nose, the way it made it harder to breathe. And it smelled like wet hay. She hated it; she would give almost anything for it to be taken off. She didn’t know where Sebastian was, where he had been taken.

Her only solace in that respect was that she hadn’t heard any gunfire… yet. They had been driven by their abductors for over an hour; she was certain they were outside the city, beyond where people would immediately look for them. She didn’t even know when people would start looking for them, though, because for all she knew, the cops watching her wouldn’t look up until everyone was going inside again. The restaurant would just assume they hadn’t wanted to wait—they probably had a lot of people like that. Why would anyone think to wonder until it got really late? Until the police wanted to know when she was going to go home so that they could switch shifts with another unit? They could be dead by then. They could be dead long before then.

Gritting her teeth, she shut her eyes uselessly beneath the burlap sack and pulled on her right wrist as hard as she could—only to gasp in surprise and pain when there was the sound of the door behind her opening. She hadn’t known there was a door there—that wasn’t the same one she had been shoved through hours beforehand. Stilling, listening, she heard pained grunts and someone being half-dragged across the cement, moving past her. Another metal chair clanged loudly when someone was forced into it. As if she hadn’t been certain already, the sound of Sebastian growling obscenities under his breath—which sounded labored and pained—told her exactly who it was. He was probably being tied up the same as she was, and she forced herself not to whimper anymore, not to start crying again.

She did gasp, though, when the burlap sack was pulled off her head, scraping against her skin, and she blinked for a moment before looking toward Sebastian. Her blue eyes widened in horror to see his face swollen, possessed of a fat lip and two black eyes and blood in multiple places. Too many places. Based on how badly he was coated in sweat, that wasn’t the only place he’d been beaten.

“Sebastian?” she whispered, unable to help the horrified concern that filled her voice.

“I’m fine,” he assured her immediately, forcing his better eye open to meet her gaze as best he could. “I’m fine, Tobin.”

“Well, well, well, Sebastian.” She hadn’t realized they weren’t alone, and her head turned toward the voice—a large older man was standing nearby, leaning on a lion-headed cane, a mild, satisfied smirk on his face. “I can see why you were so distracted, with this pretty face in front of you.” Tobin cried out when he stepped forward and grabbed her face roughly, tilting it toward him and seemingly admiring it. “I mean, it’s not quite as pretty as that poor, lovely blonde that ended up getting in the line of fire, but certainly pretty enough to warrant playing around with for a little while.” The blood drained out of her face as she stared up into the cruel face above her.

“Get off of her, Capozzi!” Sebastian shouted at him, managing to get enough leverage to slam the legs of his chair down on the cement, getting the other man’s attention. Capozzi. Oh, God. This was Capozzi.

“Tsk. You’re in no position to be making demands, Sebastian. Or haven’t you learned your lesson yet?” His eyes flicked from Sebastian to one of the other men in the room, who immediately stepped forward and grabbed a handful of auburn hair, wrenching his head back painfully. He growled, and from the corner of her eye, her face still held in this despicable man’s claw, she saw several thin red welts stretched out over his throat. Like he had been… repeatedly strangled with something.

“No!” she cried out despite her own fear, tearing her chin free and arching forward toward them. “No, leave him alone! Haven’t you done enough already!? Get off of him!”

The other man stopped, staring at her—and Capozzi laughed. It was a terrible, sickening sound that made her completely nauseous, but she was struggling more ardently now, trying to pull her wrists free. Sebastian’s head was still wrenched back, and he was struggling too, writhing angrily and trying to get to her.

The sudden, deafening sound of a hand connecting with her cheek stunned her, and she yelped as she was whipped to the side, her shoulder slamming into the metal frame of the chair. Stars danced before her eyes, making her completely dizzy, and she could hear Sebastian shouting furiously, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. Tobin’s breath was ragged as she turned her head slowly back about, the taste of something metallic in her mouth that slowly dawned on her as being blood. Her blood. She pressed her lips together and opened them again, coughing as she leaned over her lap and saw the redness spatter onto the cement between her feet. For a long moment, she sat there, too stunned to do anything else as Sebastian fought furiously and the brutes who had been torturing him tried to subdue him.

Then there was a hand in her brunette curls and she whimpered as her own head was wrenched back, and she was left staring into Capozzi’s face. It was such a cruel face. How did a man’s face look so cruel as his did? She knew there were fresh tears on her cheeks—although she couldn’t feel them, she just knew they were there, and she forced herself to meet his gaze. He sneered at her.

“Feisty little bitch, aren’t you?” he growled, low enough that Sebastian might not be able to hear over his struggling. “You’ve caused me quite a bit of trouble in all of this, you know. Too much for you to ever get out of it with your life. You can thank yourself for the fact that he’s going to die too, Miss Emerson. He was my best lieutenant and thanks to you… thanks to you, I have to make sure that the rest of my Family knows what happens if you disobey the rules. It’s such a shame. He was so full of potential.”

Tobin’s jaw clenched painfully, teeth grinding on each other more and more with each filthy word this despicable man spoke to her. And then, without thinking about it, she hawked up a loogie of saliva and spat it into his face, some part of her perversely admiring the spray of blood that coated his face from how close he was bent over her. He let out a furious shout and stepped back, lifting his coat sleeve and wiping it off of his face.

“Go to hell,” Tobin hissed at him, her blue eyes burning in the darkness of the little room. Sebastian and the other were still now, the former’s eyes livid and yet at the same time filled with a sort of… horror, that she had done that. He would’ve much preferred she didn’t make it so personal, she knew, and instead give him a chance to talk Capozzi into letting her go. Even though it would inevitably mean his death. He didn’t have that chance now—that chance to save her. The only one, she knew, he was likely to get.

Capozzi finished wiping off his face and stared at her again, silent for a long moment, his hands tight around the top of his cane. For a few seconds later, Sebastian was jerking his head loose of the other’s grasp. “Hey! Your problem is with me!” he shouted, trying to get Capozzi’s attention back. “I’m the one who started all of this! I was the only one whose face she saw that mattered. Jesse is completely unknown to the cops.”

“Your reasoning is a bit too late, Sebastian. She has now seen my face, hasn’t she?”

“And who’s damn fault is that!?”

“Still yours, I assure you. You know the rules, and you let your cock get in the way of what needed to be done. You brought all of this on yourself—and on her.” He sneered again, shaking his head like he had the right to be disappointed. “Of course, if I had known how much of a pain she was going to be, I would’ve prepared a bit better. We have all the time in the world, out here, and for all the trouble she’s caused me, I think I’ll cause her a bit of trouble before I finally get rid of this nuisance once and for all. What do you think, Sebastian?”

Tobin glanced over at him—and knew that the expression on his face, one of unhidden, unabashed horror, meant that Sebastian knew very well what Capozzi had in mind for her, and her throat tightened. “No. No, Capozzi! You leave her alone, you don’t touch her!”

“Hm,” he mused, sinking back into complete, sadistic composure. “We’ll see. We’ll just have to see what you can do to change my mind, Sebastian. Maybe if she hadn’t spat in my face like the bitch she is, it’d be a bit easier. Personally, I think it might be more fun this way.”

“NO! Capozzi, you can’t!” Sebastian howled at him, even as he turned, and with his other goon following him, the two left. They slammed the door shut behind them, leaving Sebastian to scream at nothing for the longest time. Tobin shut her eyes, tears sliding down her cheeks. Somehow, despite everything, she was still glad not to have her head stuffed in that sack anymore.

Sebastian shouted himself hoarse, yelling at the top of his lungs, demanding Capozzi come back—demanding that he leave Tobin alone, that he let her go. He was well aware of how impossible that demand was. It had been impossible before she had antagonized him, and now… but he had to try. Tied to a chair, beaten black and blue and bloody, there was nothing else for him to do except to try. He had promised he would protect her, and he had promised that Capozzi wouldn’t hurt her again. How quickly that promise had been broken. But the things that would be done to her, he wouldn’t let those happen. Whatever Capozzi wanted.

Trying to keep his breathing under control again, well aware that he had been on the verge of panic for quite a while, he looked back at her. Some part of him didn’t want to, because in the meager light of the single bulb that swung slowly back and forth overhead, the evidence of Capozzi hitting her was too obvious. Her lip was split, her jaw and chin already a little swollen, already a little bruised. Nothing should be able to leave those marks on her. Nothing. She was his Tobin and she was perfect—dammit, he had to save her.

Unlike him, though, when the men had left them alone, she had slumped over in her chair, her chin resting against her collarbone. Tobin had been flinching every time he had shouted, but he hadn’t been able to help that, at the time. Now, he regretted it immensely, his chest feeling tight as he searched for her blue eyes.

“Tobin?” he asked softly, his voice rough and yet so much gentler, now that they were alone. Now that he was talking to her instead. “Tobin? It’s alright—I’m going to get us out of this. I will get us out of this and you will go home and see your dad again and your cats. You will get out of this.”

“Stop,” she whispered all of a sudden, when he had been certain she wouldn’t say anything. “Just stop, Sebastian. I’m not a child. I’m not some naïve little girl. I know you can’t save us from this. I know you can’t save me from whatever he has planned.”

“That’s not true!” he insisted, forcing his voice not to become the shout he wanted it to. “It isn’t, Tobin. I know how this looks, I know how hopeless it seems. But I will get us out of this. I don’t know how yet. But I promised you I’d keep you safe—”

“Do I look safe to you right now?”

“—and I will keep that promise! No matter what. This night, this night is going to be the last time you have to worry about any of this. After this night is over, you will be free to go on with the rest of your life. It’ll be nothing but a bad dream, a memory, and you will be happy again.”

She lifted her gaze and met his. How little light shone in those dark blue eyes made his heart want to rip itself from his chest. He had done this. He had gotten her involved in this world and now… now he had probably gotten her killed. “I want to believe you,” she whispered after a long, long moment. “I do. All your assurances, all your promises. But look where we are, Sebastian. How… how would we ever be able to get out of this on our own? I just…” Her voice trailed off, and she shut her eyes.