Authors: Diana Gardin
Chapter
24
Line of
Fire
Cooper
I open my eyes, blink twice, and close
them again against the searing pain that ricochets through my head. I groan,
and try again.
When I open my eyes, I’m sitting alone on
a cement floor in a cheerless prism of a room. I blink rapidly, trying to focus
on something, and have to close my eyes again against the pain.
What the hell happened?
And where am I?
I check my pockets for my phone. Gone.
I check for my keys, and those are gone,
too. I need to move, to figure out where I am. I slowly open my eyes again. The
pain is no less blinding, but I take a few deep breaths to steady myself and
get used to it. Then I rise to my knees.
I almost pass out. I just can’t get my
bearings, and the pain in my head is debilitating. Again, I take some deep
breaths to steady myself.
Then I take off crawling toward the giant
metal rectangle I assume is the door.
I go painstakingly slow:
one knee and then the other, one arm and
then the other. I’m a human slug leaving a trail of ache on the plain,
brain-matter-gray cement slab. When I reach the door, I arch up and try to push
down on the lever knob.
Locked.
I sit back and survey the room. There is
nothing in here with me but stacks boxes. I study one, noting a logo I think I
recognize as belonging to an electronics brand. Nothing I can use to jimmy the
door or use for a battering ram. The ceiling, high and unreachable, looms over
me like a cloud-covered sky.
Not that I have the strength anyway right
now, even if there was something I could use to bash the door down.
My eyes rove every inch of the box of a
room. I’ve found every cobweb and dust mite occupying the space. In a high corner,
I find a tiny red light blinking up in a corner.
Aha
. Whoever has me here knows I’m awake. Maybe they’ll come soon.
Before I have time to process that, the
doorknob lever noisily engages, demonstrating the fact that someone has neglected
a maintenance job. I freeze for a split second, and then I try to prepare
myself for my captors to enter the room.
Lilly pokes her head around the door.
When she sees me staring at her, she smiles brightly and enters the room, pushing
the heavy metal door closed behind us.
And it all comes flooding back into my drug-muddled
brain. The meeting with her at The Gull, all the knowledge she dropped on me.
The fact that I was dizzy and then she shoved me into a car.
I try to scramble away from her, but the vomit
rising in my throat from the quick movement forces me to stop and take a
breath.
“Easy,” she coos. “Relax, Cooper. No one
is going to hurt you. Especially not me.”
“You already hurt me!” I shout. “What is
wrong
with you? You drugged me? Was any
of your story even true?”
“I’d watch your tone while addressing my
daughter if I were you.”
A gruff voice coming from the door
invades our conversation. I turn my head and see a man stride into the room. As
I watch him walk over to us, Lilly stands and runs over to him.
“Daddy!” she said. “I did everything you
asked me to.”
She looks over at me and gestures. “This
is Cooper.”
She sounds
proud.
Like she’s introducing her dad to her boyfriend or
something. This chick is messed up. Like, in a deadly kind of way. I need to
get out of here.
Where is here?
“Yeah sweetheart, I figured that,” her dad
answers. He’s a shorter man, balding. The bit of dark hair on the sides of his
head is slicked back and he’s wearing black slacks and a black leather jacket.
He walks over to me and kneels down on the cement floor where I sit. He sticks
out his hand.
“Pleasure to see you again, Cooper. It’s
been years. Jesus, you were just a little guy running around the last time. I’m
Dan Brewer, Lilly’s dad. We’re like family, you know. Your dad and I have been
best friends since we were kids.”
I spit in his hand.
“Easy, kid,” he says, laughing. He wipes
his hand on his slacks, and looks at me with a twinkle in his eye. “Still got
that same spunk you always had. Your dad’s
gonna
love
it.”
“I want to go home,” I say. “Now.”
“You are home, Cooper,” Lilly says.
“Finally.”
I look around again. I’ve deduced that
I’m in some kind of storage building. I can tell by the warehouse feel.
Fluorescent lighting overhead washes over us, but only dimly. When we speak,
there is a slight echo all around us.
“Where is he?” I demand.
“Your father? He’s here. We just told him
you’ve arrived. So he should be here any minute.” Dan shakes his head,
chuckling. “You look just like him. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Oh, this apple was never even on the
tree,” I answer. “Does my mother know I’m here?”
“She’s on her way,” Lilly pipes up.
“So, let me get this straight.” I slowly stand
up, holding my head.
“Take it easy,” Lilly says, grabbing my
arm to steady me. I snatch it away from her, and almost face-plant for my
effort .
“What the hell did you give me?” I growl.
“Just something to knock you out for a
few hours,” she answers. “I’m sorry about the headache. I didn’t want to hurt
you. But you wouldn’t listen. And I had to get you here.”
“How did you get it into my drink? I was
watching you the whole time.”
“Before you arrived, I paid our waiter
five hundred dollars to slip it into your drink. He was happy to oblige once he
saw the wad of money I was handing over.”
I shake my head, dumbfounded. I really can’t
believe this is happening. Yesterday I was planning my future with the girl I
love and my father was someone who would never be a part of my life. Today I’m
sitting here in a warehouse where I’ve been rendered unconscious by a girl I
hate, waiting to meet my mobster father.
“So my mother has known all along that my
father is alive?” I ask. The knowledge is baffling. My mother raised me. She’s
been terrible at it, but I still grew up knowing she was the one constant in my
life. And now I’m discovering it was all a lie.
My head whips around when I heard the creaking
whine of the door handle.
A tall man enters the room. His regal grace
belies the lethal edge that lingers about his aura. His salt-and-pepper hair is
the only thing that gives away his age, because his face is handsome and
unlined. The man really does look a lot like me, and the realization sends me
spinning. He’s just older. That’s really the only difference.
I’m unable to speak as I take him in.
He strides into the room, commanding the
attention of everyone in it. He’s definitely charismatic and powerful. He stops
in front of me.
“Hello, son,” he says softly. The low
level of his voice betrays the emotions he’s experiencing under his cool
exterior.
A million emotions fight for power inside
me at that moment. Fear, because my father has ordered me to be drugged and
brought to him against my will. Elated, because my father is alive and standing
in front of me. Confused, because I don’t understand how he could have gone all
this time without wanting to see me. Anger, because he’s a criminal and he
expects me to just join the family business like a lawyer or a plumber or
something.
“Hello, dad,” I reply, just as softly.
“So nice to see you. For the first time in thirteen years.”
Unintentionally, I drench my voice in
sarcasm. I can’t seem to avoid it.
“Are you going to let me explain before
you ream me out?”
“No,” I snap. “I’m not going to ream you
out. I’m leaving.”
“Dan, Lil,” my father says. “Give me a
minute with my son.”
“I don’t need a minute,” I say,
irritated. Who does this man think he is? Right, he thinks he’s a parental
figure. It’s laughable.
Lilly looks at me and smiles
reassuringly. I look away; they leave the room together, Dan’s arm slung
protectively around his daughter.
“Whatever you have to say, you can save
it,” I order, turning to face the man who contributed sperm in order to create
my existence. “I’m out of here.”
“I think my armed guards on the other
side of that door will have something to say about that,” my father replies
casually.
“Okay,
Dad
, really? Is that the way you’re going to play it? I’m what,
like, your long lost son? You want me to take over the family business? And
you’re going to hold me hostage until I agree?”
“Cooper. You don’t understand. I wanted
to see you years ago; you must know that. I didn’t want to be away from my only
son. I’ve had so much to teach you.”
“Yeah,” I snap. “And it wasn’t how to
catch a ball or change my oil. You wanted to teach me how to run a mob unit!”
He rolls his eyes. “You’re dramatic. You
take after your mother.”
“And what the hell is up with that? She’s
raised me all these years; you’ve been in contact with her, and she said
nothing?
Nothing?
”
“My life was in danger. Until recently,
she couldn’t trust anyone well enough to let you know I was alive, or to let
you see me. It was safer that way. For all of us. But now we can be a family
again.”
“I’m. Not. Interested.” I spit each word
out like rancid pieces of meat. “I’ll just start my own family. I want nothing
to do with you, or your crime-filled lifestyle.”
My father stares hard at me, the icy blue
eyes boring into me like lasers. “You’re Wagner Goode’s son. My only son. I
am
this business. Which means that one
day, you’ll be this business. You’ll learn from me. You’ll learn to command
respect from your employees and your enemies. You’ll learn everything I have to
teach you. Whether you want to or not. This is your birthright, and I’m not
going to let you throw it away.”
“Business,” I scoff. “This isn’t a
business,
Wagner
. It’s the mob. Which
I’m guessing means drugs, smuggling, money laundering, and every other illegal
thing I can think of. I want nothing to do with any of it. Don’t you think I
have my own plans for myself? I’m eighteen years old. You haven’t seen me since
I was five. I have a life. One that has nothing to do with you or this
business.
”
I’m beginning to realize that no matter
what I say, he isn’t just going to let me walk out those doors. I’m going to
have to find a way out. And from the looks of things, it’s going to be exactly
the opposite of easy. I am slowly collecting information. There are armed
guards outside the door where they are keeping me. This is a warehouse used for
storage. Who knows how far into this building my prison cell is located? And
how many other obstacles I’ll have to pass in order to escape?
And if I do escape, then what will I do?
Camryn’s
face flashes through my mind. She is my future. I
know that, without a doubt. But can I allow her to live a life where she is at
risk of being hurt by my father? Running from him?
I know the answer to that. I could never
do that to her.
I’m going to have to find a way to put my
father away forever. Or I’m going to have to leave Cam.
The thought is agonizing. I can’t do
that. I need her, because she makes me better. She makes the life I’d had thus
far worth living, worth dreaming about again. I can’t give her up.
But I won’t put her in danger either.
A knock sounds on the door.
My father lets out an irritated sigh and
walks to the door.
“Sir, your wife has arrived.” A man
wearing a black muscle shirt and black slacks lean in and speaks to my father.
My father smiles; a tight-lipped curl of skin over teeth.
“Thank you, Marc.”
“But there’s a complication, sir. She was
followed. Two young girls in a Toyota Corolla.”
My head whips around at his last words.
My hand flies up to clutch at the shirt covering my chest, because
subconsciously, I guess I’m afraid my heart will stop beating.
My father has spent his whole adult life
observing. He observes his employees for signs of disloyalty. He observes his
enemies for signs they’re gaining ground. He’s been observing me since he
walked in.
So he notices my reaction to what the
guard has said. His eyes never leave my face as he asks, “Two young girls?”
“Yes sir,” Marc answers. “The one driving
is black, and she has a blond friend with her.”
I take two involuntary steps toward my
father and the man he calls Marc, before I even realize I’ve moved.
My father keeps his eyes trained on me.
“Thank you, Marc. Bring them in.”
“No!” The word escapes my throat as a
croak rather than the shout I intended.
Marc nods, and leaves the room.