Hawk (Sex and Bullets Book 2) (12 page)

I shake my head, although my heart misses a beat. He’s talking to me. Opening up, and suddenly everything else takes a backseat. “But why you? Why not let a cop handle it?”

“I need to do this. My parents were part of it, do you understand?” His gaze is clear and earnest. “It’s my responsibility.”

“No, it’s not. Hawk.” I put a hand on his arm. “You don’t need to die for your parents’ sins.”

“I don’t want to die either.” He winks, and I stare at him, at the old Hawk, the flirt, the charmer, the easygoing and carefree rich boy I knew before. “Let’s just hope things work out in my favor, okay?”

“I can’t leave you here.”

“You have to, babe.” He closes the distance between us, takes my face in his hands, and gives me a quick, hard kiss on the lips. “You have to. This is my family’s mess to clean up, not yours. I want you safe and far from here, no matter how fucking much I like having you around.”

I swallow hard. “How will you get out?”

He sighs. “My watch. It should send out a signal tonight with my location. Look, if you want to help me… if I don’t call you by tomorrow, call the police.”

“Didn’t you say that by doing that I’m signing your death warrant?”

He doesn’t reply, his face hardening, and then he releases me, opens the bathroom door and steps out. He closes it behind him and walks away.

That’s what I should do, too. Obey his wishes. And make that phone call, like he asked me, if he doesn’t contact me tomorrow.

But when have I ever done what I’m supposed to do?

***

Of course, Hawk is in smartass mode when I finally gather my courage, climb down the stairs, creep through the open door and return to my hiding spot behind the boxes.

He’s on the floor, and my stomach clenches with fear even though he’s talking and doesn’t seem to be too shaken.

The one shaken is me. I’ll never be inside a warehouse again and not feel like throwing up.

“Oh come on,” Hawk is saying to a guy I’ve never seen before. Another huge, tank-shaped guy with a scar on his cheek. “That’s all you got? ‘You’re dead?’ How about ‘Suck my big hairy dick,’ or at the very least, ‘Eat shit and die’?”

I smile at that. That’s the parting shot I had chosen for him. Feels like weeks have passed since then.

“I would challenge you to a battle of wits,” Hawk drawls, “but I see you are unarmed.”

“You think you’re so smart,” the guy spits and kicks at Hawk who rolls, hopefully out of reach.

“Shakespeare thought so.”

“Shut up. Boss wants to see you.”

“Thank you for letting me know. I’ll see if I can make time in my busy schedule. Wait… oh no. Sandivar isn’t the real boss, is he? I bet nobody knows who the real boss is, least of all you.”

The thug kicks at him again, and this time his boot connects with Hawk’s side because he lets out a pained grunt.

God, he’s pushing it again. Pushing for information, I know that now, but it doesn’t make watching any easier.

“You’ll never meet the Big Boss,” the thug hisses so low I’m not even sure Hawk can hear him where he’s curled on the floor, turned away, his face a mask of pain.

“I bet you don’t know who he is,” Hawk mutters.

“You think I don’t know what you’re doing? I’m Sandivar’s right hand, he tells me everything.”

“His right hand, huh? The one holding his dick?”

Oh crap.
Seriously, I can’t look. I peek through my fingers.

The thug grabs Hawk and lifts him to his feet. “You think I’m stupid, that I’ll give you names? That I don’t know that’s how you got your dad to confess and put him in prison?”

Hawk grunts, grabs the man’s arms and glares are him through his filthy hair. “I have no recording device here.”

“That so?” another voice asks and awesome, the Boss, Sandivar, is here. He’s holding… a watch? “And what about this?”

“That’s my father’s watch,” Hawk says, trying to shove the thug off him and failing. “He gave it to me when I was twelve. Family heirloom.”

“Funny he didn’t explain to you the use of these buttons here. See, I have a similar watch. It can record, both video and audio, and… see this? It has a GPS function, too, that can be used with a timer. Quite nifty, right?”

The thug releases Hawk who stumbles backward, then catches himself, his face white. “Fuck.”

“Well, since you betrayed your father, the one who gave you this watch… you don’t mind if I smash it, do you?”

Hawk flinches when the watch crashes to the ground, and the Boss nods at the huge guy with the scar to step on it.

And oh boy he does, shattering it under his heavy boots, again and again.

The GPS signal he talked about.

Gone.

“Now that we got this out of the way… The transaction you told your lawyers to rush didn’t come through.”

“It takes fucking time for such a transaction to—”

“Don’t bullshit me anymore. You think you have secrets from me, Jamie Fleming? I know everything about you. I know things about you that you don’t even know. I know how to hit your friends and make them bleed. You can’t hide anything from me, and I have you in the palm of my fucking hand.”

Hawk curses, and he fists his hands like he’s two seconds away from launching himself at Sandivar.

This isn’t going well at all.

God, how can I get Hawk out of this place? He can’t fit through the bathroom window I have been using. His shoulders are twice as wide as mine.

Think, Layla. You said it yourself: you know this place like the palm of your hand. There has to be another way out.

Someone else walks into the line of vision, brandishing something in his hand. “Boss,” he calls out. “Check this out. Found it in the bathroom upstairs, by the sink.”

“A bracelet?” the scarred guy asks.

“Looks like a woman’s bracelet. I wonder which of you ladies forgot it.” He grins, then lifts the item in question and goes cross-eyed looking at it. “A fine thing, too. I swear to God, Boss, it wasn’t there yesterday.”

I grip my wrist, where my bracelet is supposed to be.

Nothing.

My blood runs cold.

“Someone else is here,” the Boss says. “A woman.”

“I’ll find her,” the thug says.

Hawk takes a step forward. He doesn’t know I’m still here, but I see doubt in his eyes. He’s not sure.

After all, every time I promised to leave, I came right back.

The Boss’s goon moves around the basement, checking between rows of containers, and I keep very still.

“What did we say about trust, Jamie Fleming?” The Boss taps something on his cell phone. “No transaction, no trust. And a girl in here? Tsk.”

“There’s nobody else here,” Hawk grinds out.

“Let’s see, shall we?” He draws a gun from the small of his back and aims it straight at Hawk’s head. “Let’s see if she comes out now.”

Holy shit.
It is a gun, a gun pointed at Hawk’s forehead, and black spots dance in front of my eyes.

He won’t do it.

The Boss clicks the safety off his gun, the click loud like a gunshot to my ears.

Shit.
Sweat trickles between my shoulder blades. I start unzipping my purse to get to my phone. If I send an SOS to Dodo, would she get it and come find me? I did tell her initially I was spying on my dad, and she knows the company warehouse.

I just need to get to my phone. I tug harder on the zipper, and it moves, inch by inch,
snick, snick, snick,
as my eyes dart back and forth along the row where I’m hiding.

Come on. Just a few more seconds. Just a few more.

The moment my hand fits through the opening, I thrust it inside and rummage for my phone. My panic is rising as my fingers tangle with loose receipts and random things, like the case of my sunglasses, my wallet, my lipstick, my card holder. A tampon, a pack of chewing gum.

Crap.
Why can I never find anything in my purse when I urgently need it? Where are you, phone? Come on, come o—

“Hello there.” A huge hand curls around my arm and hauls me to my feet. I sway, hit by a wave of dizziness, and look up into the thug’s scarred face.

Then I bend over and throw up all over his pants and shoes.

Ugh.
Gross.

But hey, who says only Hawk can make a statement? He pissed on them. I threw up.

I’m pretty sure I win, hands down.

***

Hawk says nothing when he sees me dragged into the open by Scarface. A muscle is jumping under his eye, though, and his face is deathly pale.

I failed him. Failed us both. Now I can’t call, can’t leave, can’t help him.

My face is too hot as I stumble in the thug’s hold.
So stupid, Layla. Hawk was right, you should have left. He depended on you.

And you stayed, as if you can fight off these people and save him, keep him from getting more hurt.

God, what a joke.

“Do we know her?” Sandivar asks indifferently. “Does she look familiar?”

“Hawk sleeps with her,” the thug says, throwing me down, at Hawk’s feet. “Seen pictures of him with her.”

“The little girlfriend, then. I wonder how she got in here.” He frowns. “How did she get in?”

“The bathroom window wasn’t locked. She could have fit through.”

“I see.”

Hawk gathers me in his arms, lifts me to my feet, and I cling to him, terrified, breathing in his scent of male spice and blood.

“Let her go,” he says. “She only wanted to see me.”

“Only wanted to see you,” he mocks. “And how did she know where you are? Do others know?” Sandivar stands in front of us, cold and angry. “Did she call and tell her friends, or the police?”

“I didn’t,” I say, my voice steadier than I thought it would be. “Didn’t tell anyone.”

Sandivar’s gaze would freeze a glacier. “Check her phone.”

Scarface digs through my purse and finds my phone on the first try.

So not fair.

He clicks through my call history, then my messages, and I’m too exhausted and scared to even care about that violation.

“She called someone called Dodo this morning. And before that a call to the police.”

Oh crap.

Sandivar nods, his expression grim. “The police wouldn’t believe her. They think he’s on a business trip.” He glares at me. “Lock them up. Lock the door to the stairs. Don’t leave them any escape route.”

“What about the prisoners?”

“Prepare to move them elsewhere. Bring the van. And keep checking with the bank for that transaction, although I’m quite damn sure Mr. Fleming here thought he could play us for fools. He’s about to find out that doesn’t fly with the Organization. He’s made the biggest mistake of his life.”

Hawk

“Dodo?” I mutter, sitting on the floor for a change, my back to the pillar, Layla in my arms. She’s dozing, her head on my shoulder. “Like the bird?”

Or thinking. She’s so quiet.

She stirs now. “My friend, Dorothy. I had to talk to her, but I didn’t tell her anything. You said I shouldn’t.”

“I also said you should leave, but did you? Nah.”

But I’m not upset. Scared for her, sure. And okay, I was so fucking pissed when I realized she really was here after all, but now that anger has faded.

We need to get out of here.

“You called the police,” I say, a statement, not a question. “About me?”

She shrugs, a tight roll of her shoulders. “It was when I first saw you down here, tied up. I tried. Sandivar is right. They didn’t believe me.”

I bet. Between the Organization’s machinations and my own game of deception, even if the cop she talked to knew what was going on, he’d have pleaded ignorance.

“Are you all right?” I ask her, stroking her hair. “You threw up on that guy. Best move ever, gotta say, but are you feeling okay?”

She sighs against my shoulder. “I’m fine. Too much stress. Couldn’t bear seeing them hit you again.”

Something unclenches in my chest. I don’t know what to say to that. It feels good, knowing she couldn’t bear seeing me in pain.

Regroup.
“You don’t happen to know another way out of here?”

“I’m trying to think of one. Hey…” She rubs her face on my shirt, like a cat, and mumbles something.

“What?” Dammit, I hate that I didn’t hear what she said, that I need to see her lips, or have her speak louder, because maybe she won’t open up again like this, when she’s whispering things against my shirt.

She lifts her head, looks at me. “I said, ‘Sorry I got caught.’”

“But not for staying?”

“No, not for staying. I don’t regret it.”

A grin spreads on my face, even though I fight it, because hell, she put herself in grave danger, but I can’t deny anymore that having her here, beside me, makes everything seem possible somehow.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I tell her gruffly, and she presses herself to me.

Which gives my dick ideas, and I tell it to suck it.

We need to get out before we get moved God knows where. Before my bluff with the lawyers is fully revealed, the damage irreversible.

If he hadn’t smashed my watch, we’d be getting rescued right now.

And if she hadn’t lost her bracelet in the bathroom while I fucked her on the counter, we’d still have a phone to call for help.

The way I see it, this is all my fault. “You need to get out of here,” I whisper in her ear.

“They’ll be guarding the bathroom like it’s Alcatraz. No way can I get out the way I came in.

“My grandpa always said there are more ways to do something than the ones you see at first glance.”

“You never talked about your grandpa before.”

I chew on the inside of my cheek. “That’s right, I haven’t.”

“You don’t tell me things.”

She sounds like she’s pouting, and it should annoy me, but it makes me smile. Like it’s cute. Damn. “That’s the point. I don’t tell things to anyone.”

But for some reason, I wanna tell her about my grandpa. Even though I should be letting her think of a way out. Even though I should be going around the basement, checking every possible exit, or thinking up a clever plan.

Even if I haven’t told anyone about him before, not even Rook and Storm.

Fuck it.
I’m gonna tell her. I need five minutes of rest anyway. My head throbs, my body aches, and she’s in my arms.