Eluded (7 page)

Nine

I
dressed in fresh clothes
then made a few phone calls to my men, only spouting the address to
Lauren's hotel and giving her room number. They knew exactly what
the call meant—keep a watch on things. Before leaving, I looked out
the window and checked the streets down below. One could never be
too safe in the current situation. After setting fire to the
building where the scum met, and then killing James, one of their
leaders . . . well, I had purposely started a war. They would be
hunting me, but unfortunately for them, I was the alpha in this
game. Since I got the confirmation of Lauren being targeted, I knew
that I had to get to her tonight.

The air was crisp on my lungs, and
it burned to breathe in but also made me feel alive in a sense. I
cracked my knuckles as I walked down the stairs then got inside of
the car. I backed out of the drive like a bat out of hell and
floored it to the hotel. Before I made it, I noticed a set of
headlights tailing me. I sped up, only to watch as they did the
same. The fuckers forced me to turn onto a side street and, just as
I thought, they followed. I floored it, took a few side streets,
and pulled into an alley. Then I reversed and waited for the
vehicle to pass. Just as I suspected, a black van. Once it passed,
I zipped from the alley and followed, at a distance, and without
any lights. My phone rang and I answered.

"Ab. Your girl's hotel room is
trashed. Door is broken in and she's missing. They've got
her."

Rage engulfed me. "Those
motherfuckers. Round up everyone. Warehouse in twenty." Then I
ended the call.

As they slowed, I turned my lights
on and slammed my foot on the gas. Like clockwork, they sped up,
but not before I crashed my car into the back of the van at full
speed. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, as the van slammed
into a light post and the airbag deployed in the Audi. Glass
shattered and sparkled around me. The speed that I hit the van with
was dangerously fast, and I was sure I had a concussion.

After the initial shock of what
happened had set in, I stumbled out of the car, which was a heap of
twisted and bent metal, and pulled the knife from my waistband. I
sucked in a deep breath and staggered to the passenger side of the
van. I gripped the knife with white knuckles, opened the door, and
saw a man with blood dripping down his face.

When realization set in of who I
was, he sneered and said, "You're a fucking dead man." Before he
could release himself from the seat belt and grab his weapon, I
reared my knife back and stabbed him several times in the chest,
using every ounce of strength I had left. Blood dripped from his
mouth as his life faded away to nothingness.

I steadied myself and walked
around to the other side of the van where a body lay on the ground.
Shock coated me, then anger, as I stared into the face of a woman.
She reached for my boot and I hesitated. Never. Never had I seen a
woman working with the sick fucks who captured women. The thought
of her being a part of them repulsed me and would make killing her
that much easier. I bent down and looked into her eyes. Fear
resonated inside of her, fear of me. Her body was badly broken
after being ejected from the vehicle, and a small piece of me
wished she had died in the accident.

I sucked in a deep breath as I
contemplated what I would do with her. Time seemed to stand still.
I opened my phone and called Liam, my right-hand man.

"I'm on Cursitor Street. I need a
ride."

"I'll be there in six
minutes."

The woman moaned in pain, and I
saw her as more of an inconvenience than anything. I leaned against
a building and made sure to stay awake. When Liam arrived, he shook
his head at me.

"You just couldn't fucking help
yourself, could you?"

I laughed at him and, as we walked
past the woman, I stopped. "We are taking her with us."

"Just end her," Liam
said.

"No. She has information that I
fucking need. Bring her with us."

He moaned in disdain, as he always
did when he disagreed with my desires, but he listened. As I
stumbled to the car, he picked her up and carried her. I opened the
back door, and he threw her in. She moaned.

"If she bleeds on my seats, you're
cleaning it. And if she dies back there, you're disposing of her,"
he said.

"Well, aren’t you full of orders?"
I leaned my head back as sleep called me.

"Abbot. Stay awake," he said,
slapping my cheek as he zoomed in and out of the back
streets.

"We're almost there. I've already
called Dr. Detrick. Of course he asked what you had done this time,
and I told him the usual. I've also sent some guys with a truck to
take your car from the scene. Stay awake."

I sucked in a deep breath. Sleep
sounded amazing, and I couldn't quite comprehend everything he
said.

"There were cameras in nearby
shops. I've got a group to take care of that as well," he said. His
voice sounded like it was coming from a faraway place.

He hit the ramp of the warehouse
quickly, and I thought we might have gotten a little air. He
slammed on the brakes as I faded in and out. My vision blurred as I
tried to focus.

Dr. D met me at the door, and a
few of my men helped carry me to a room upstairs. The warehouse was
equipped for living, surgery, and killing. It was the perfect mecca
for our operations.

"You've suffered a concussion. How
fast were you going when you decided to slam your car into the back
of that van?"

I opened my mouth, and then closed
it as I thought about his question. "What?"

"Christ, Abbot. You were going
extremely fast. I understand you're not afraid of anything, but you
have to be more logical with your decisions. You could have fucking
died."

"The devil doesn't want me
yet."

Dr. D turned and looked at Liam,
then spoke. "Does he think this is all a joke?"

"Probably," Liam said.

"Damn it. He is a hazard," Dr. D
said.

"I'm right fucking here. While my
ears may be ringing, I didn't lose my hearing."

They both rolled their eyes at
me.

"You're slurring your words, and
you have a delayed response to everything we fucking say. I hope
this serves as a lesson for you, Abbot. You can't be reckless like
this. About fifty men depend on you day in and day out. Take your
life seriously," Liam said.

It wasn't the first time I had
heard this speech. The whole "your life is precious, be careful"
speech. The one that was supposed to inspire me to be more cautious
with my actions. I knew I would be okay, and stopping that van was
top priority. Of course, it didn't help that I had just found out
that Lauren was kidnapped after I had decided to take her.
Obviously, that fact added fuel to my raging fire.

"When the bitch wakes up, save her
for me. She has answers to my questions."

Liam nodded his head and walked
away. The doctor instructed me to stay awake, though I didn't want
to. He sat in a chair in the corner of the room and pulled out his
cell phone. I leaned my head against the wall, and each time I
closed my eyes, he woke me. I had a feeling it would to be a very
long night.

ABBOT

Ten

J
ust as expected, the night
was never ending. Dr. D stared at me for hours, and finally, after
I was deemed okay, Liam drove me home. The fog had moved from my
head but seemed to fill the city streets as the early morning sun
lit the sky. When I awoke, my body felt like my muscles had been
torn from my core. My head pounded to the rhythmic beat of my
heart, reminding me that sometimes I did ridiculous things. The
combination of sore muscles and pain, sickly enough, made me feel
alive. That alone would fuel the rest of my day.

I stared out the window and
watched a bird soar above the buildings. The sky was grey-washed,
and its dark wings complimented the mood. A falcon of some sort
flew above and prayed upon something, waiting to swoop in and take
its kill; a true predator. At that moment, the bird spotted me, and
I felt something toward the animal. I understood it in a way that
not many would. Killing to survive. Killing to rid the streets of
rodents. Birds of a feather.

I lifted my arms above my head and
tried to stretch the soreness away. Several vertebrae in my back
popped, only temporarily reliving the tightness. Dr. D sent me home
with two bottles, one to relieve the swelling and the other to
erase the pain. I didn't think I'd need either one, but after
walking and moving my body, I realized I would.

After a glass of water and both
pills, I carefully dressed. That was when I noticed the bandages on
my arms and legs. I removed the wraps, which revealed deep gashes
on my leg and cuts on my arms. So much rage had fueled me last
night that bits and pieces of what happened were erased. The
concussion could have been to blame for that, though.

Lauren. I couldn't get her off my
mind. The way she smiled at me before going into the hotel, and now
that she was stolen from her room, I would stop at nothing to find
her. After everything that had happened, she haunted my thoughts. I
knew what they did to beautiful women like her, and time was
running out.

A small part of me regretted
crashing the Audi. I fucking loved that car. I loved fucking in
that car. And now that it was completely destroyed, I'd have to buy
another. Two-door luxury cars were my weakness, and shopping was my
kryptonite. Just the thought of talking to car salesmen who wanted
to push the most expensive vehicle on me, knowing that it might not
be in my best interest, bored me to death. So . . . I'd let Liam
shop for it.

Liam was one of my right-hand men.
He wasn't afraid of me in any sense and didn't put up with my
bullshit. He often kept me sane when I felt insanity and rage take
over. If anything ever happened to me, I knew he would step up and
take care of the men. Some people were born leaders, and Liam was
one of them.

I picked up the cell phone and
called him. "I need another vehicle. Black. Dark tint. You know
what I like. Possible to have it to me before one?"

"With all due respect . . . that's
in an hour. Do you have any idea how much damn paperwork there is
when buying a vehicle? Of course you don't, because you never buy
them."

"Quit whining. You'll be quick. I
need it by one." I hung up the phone and could only imagine the
look on his face. If I didn't accomplish much in my lifetime, the
least I could do was teach Liam to be a man and have
patience.

At sixteen, he had learned how the
world worked and how dark it could be. His father constantly abused
him and his mother, and one day he’d had enough. He stood up to his
old man and said that if he ever laid another hand on him or his
mother, he'd kill him. Three months later, his father was dead.
Before the police could find Liam, I picked him up on the side of
the road. Told that fucker to get in the damn car if he wanted to
live. He rolled his eyes and flipped me off, so I parked the car,
chased him down, wrapped my arm around his throat, and pulled out
my knife. He wasn't afraid, no fear consumed him, and he got into
the car. It could have been because when he looked into my eyes, he
saw that I had killed and would do it again. It's been six years
since then, and although he was now almost twenty-two, his thoughts
on the world hadn't changed. The two of us were a lot alike in that
manner, and I thought of him as my little annoying
brother.

I sat on the couch and turned on
the television. More pictures of pretty missing girls flashed
across the screen, along with the number to the police station. The
total missing was up in the fifties now, and the numbers were
steadily climbing. I turned off the TV and leaned my head against
the couch cushion. I must have dozed off, because I was being
awakened by the sound of the annoying fucking buzzer that I’d
wanted to disable more than once.

Moving as fast as I could, I sat
up, walked to the door, and stared at the monitor to see who was
below. I had the best security system money could buy; cameras
everywhere, guns that I had purchased on the black market stuffed
in different nooks and crannies . . . oh, and tons of knives. One
could never be too protected.

Liam dangled a set of keys at the
camera, and I could tell he was annoyed, so I waited for a few more
minutes as he buzzed repeatedly. Patience; I swore to myself I'd
teach him some. I wondered how long it would take before he walked
away. After five minutes, my phone vibrated. When I answered, Liam
yelled at me.

"I know you're fucking up there.
Open the damn door. I have shit to do today, too."

I laughed as I watched him shake
his head back and forth, cursing me under his breath.

"I'll come down." I took the
elevator, and when I stepped outside, the ground was a little damp.
Must have been a light shower as I snoozed. The street was lined
with expensive cars, and I couldn't make out which one was mine. I
owned a building—yes an entire building—in the business district,
and luxury cars always filled the streets. It seemed like the place
to be, because the shits who stole women stalked these streets. I
had always heard to keep my work life and personal life separate,
but it seemed that the two intersected with one another more often
than not.