Hollywood's Baddest (12 page)

“Larry, did you get any money?” he asked with pseudo curiosity.

Larry shook his head slowly and deliberately. “No, Wade, did you get any money?” he asked in a stony voice, never once taking his eyes from Alexis.

Wade looked back at Alexis. “No. I got no money, but the money is still due, and I got a little woman here who was supposed to help us get that taken care of.” Wade’s eyes gleamed and his smile faded some, and Alexis no longer wondered if he was in a pleasant mood or if he was psychotic. She knew the answer, and the truth of it, staring back at her from the two dark black holes that were his eyes, terrified her. She felt as if her heart had stopped right in mid-beat, and every part of her body tensed solidly with fear.

He hovered over her closely and his voice grew low and cold. “Where’s Lucas?” he asked pointedly. She froze and didn’t respond. She wasn’t going to tell him anything; not only because she didn’t want anything to happen to Lucas, but also because she truly did not know. For all she knew he had just woken up in the bed of another woman.

“Where’s Warren?” he asked, and she blinked in surprise. She wondered why he would want to know where Warren was, but then she realized that he’d want to know that because Warren was the closest connection to Lucas, just like she was a close connection to Lucas, and they had probably taken her because they couldn’t find either Warren or Lucas, and the attorney in the case, she was the next closest person to them. It all made sense.

She gazed back at him silently and kept her mouth closed. He narrowed his eyes at her and grew angry.

“Answer me you little bitch! Where are they!” he demanded as rage began to color his cheeks and fire grew in his eyes.

She didn’t say anything. She kept her face still, and she made sure that there was no kind of visible response in her.

He leaned back up and threw his hands in the air, turning to look at Larry. “What am I going to do with this unhelpful pain in the ass, huh Larry? Should I start torturing her a little bit? Maybe loosen up her tongue?”

Larry pressed his thin lips together until they disappeared. He shook his head slowly and, his eyes still locked on her, he spoke in a quiet voice that sent a shiver up her spine and made the hair on the back of Alexis’ neck stand on end.

“I think we should go see what the boss wants to do. She isn’t ours; she’s his. So, let’s go tell him how… uncooperative she’s being and see what he wants to do about it.” Larry lifted his chin slightly, and that was it. He remained otherwise motionless.

Wade stepped back from her and nodded. “That’s a wise call, Larry. That’s smart. We’ll do that.” He glared hotly at Alexis. “You stay here, and don’t do anything stupid. We’re going to go see what we should do about you.”

Larry pushed himself off of the table and walked toward her, stopping by the wall long enough to pick up a length of rope that was sitting in a pile there. He went behind her chair and reached for her arms, grabbing them roughly and pulling them backward until he had them connected. He wrapped the rope around her wrists tightly and tied it off, giving it a solid yank before he stood up and walked toward the door at the end of the room in the corner.

Wade watched her a few moments longer and then he turned and followed Larry out of the room, slamming the door behind him. She could hear their footsteps in the hallway outside of the door. She heard the elevator hum as they stepped into it, and then she heard it leave the floor. After that, all she heard was the sound of her own breathing, and nothing else.

She closed her eyes for a second to soak in the relief of being left alone, and then she took a deep breath and worked at the ropes around her wrists, pulling and tugging on them, turning her arms and hands every way she could. She knew she had to do whatever she could to try to free herself and find a way out before either of the men or their boss could do anything more to her. She had herself to think of, but more than that, she had a tiny baby in her that she had to think of and protect as well, and that sense of motherhood in her gave her more strength and determination than she ever knew she was capable of.

Alexis managed to stand up and slide her arms up over the back of the chair so that she wasn’t bound to it any longer. She did her best to wrestle with the ropes, but realizing that she wasn’t getting very far with them and knowing that every single precious second was passing right by her, she tried another way to get out of them. She sat on the floor and curled into the smallest ball she could, thanking endless yoga classes for her flexibility, and she pulled herself through the circle of her arms until they were in front of her.

Being able to see the way that the rope was tied made all the difference in the world for her. She was able to maneuver her hands from the loops of rope, and pull it off her. She dumped the rope on the chair she had been sitting on and looked around the room in desperation. She wasn’t sure if she could get to the door in time before they came back, so she looked for another way out of the room. There was no other doorway; only the few windows around the walls that weren’t covered, and one of them happened to be very near where she was.

She reached into the inner pocket of her jacket and pulled her cell phone out. She had hoped that she could call the police, but there was no signal at all. Groaning in frustration, she went to the window and looked out of it. There was a fire escape just outside of it, and it looked to her as if she might be able to get out that way. Just as she began to push at the window, she heard the elevator and realized that Wade and Larry were on their way back into the room. Panic flooded through all of her and she realized that she only had seconds to decide what to do.

She knew she couldn’t get the window open in time and get out of it, so she decided to try to play her captors just a little longer in hopes of having a second chance to escape. Looking at the phone in her hand, an idea came to her that she thought might be of some help to her on the off chance that she was able to get out of her situation.

Turning the video recorder on, she set the phone in the window and turned it toward her chair so that it was recording everything going on. She thought that at least if anything did happen to her, there would be evidence of it that could put her captors in jail. She hurried back to her chair as she heard the two men coming out of the elevator and down the hall, and she was able to get herself seated again and the rope somewhat tied around her wrists before they walked in and headed for her.

“Well, well, well.” Wade said as the two of them approached her. “Looks like it’s bad news for you.” He sneered and her stomach hardened into a solid knot.

“What am I doing here?” she demanded then in as strong a voice as she could manage. She wanted to try to distract them or at least to delay whatever it was that they were going to do so she could try to find a way out.

Wade’s eyebrows raised and his eyes widened. “Oh ho! Look at that! The little thing does speak.” He chuckled a little and cracked his knuckles.

“Is this because of Lucas? I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing! I’m just his attorney; that’s it… you have the wrong person! I did call and leave him a message, and I told him that you guys wanted your money, but he says that he doesn’t know anything about it and he won’t come up with any money for anyone.

He keeps saying that he’s innocent, that he doesn’t do drugs and that he doesn’t know any dealers, so keeping me here isn’t going to get you very far with him. I don’t mean anything to him. I’m seriously just a business associate, and that’s it! I’m nothing to him!” she insisted, trying to persuade them that she wasn’t remotely involved or valuable at all.

“She speaks a lot.” Larry said, looking unenthused about her and everything she said.

“The question is, Larry, does she know what she’s talking about?” Wade laughed.

Alexis grew angry and shook her head. “I do know what I’m talking about! That jackass Lucas and his stupid drug problem are what got me into this whole mess to begin with! If he hadn’t been doing drugs and wrecking his life, he’d never have gotten busted and I wouldn’t have been stuck with his case, and now look at me! Look where I am thanks to his drug problem!

I’m tied to a chair in a warehouse with two kidnappers or killers or drug dealers, or whatever you two are, and god knows what’s going to happen, and it’s all because of him and his stupid drug problems!” the more she began to go off and complain about just how much Lucas had wrecked her life, the angrier she got, and the more she showed it, until there was no slowing it down, no tempering it, and no holding back.

Both men stared at her in surprise, and Wade began to laugh softly at first, but by the time she finished and was visibly fuming over where Lucas had gotten her, Wade was belly laughing and he even reached down to slap his thigh.

“I like her, don’t you Larry? I do. She’s got spunk.” He shook his head as his laughter began to fade. “Listen, we thought that bringing you here might encourage Warren to give us the money he owes us, but it looks like he’s the hardest one to find, and he’s not talking to us anymore, so that leaves you in a sticky situation.”

She blinked at Wade in surprise. “Warren…? What do you mean he’s not talking to you anymore?”

Wade chuckled again and shook his head. “She’s a funny girl. I like her.” He slid his hands into his pants pockets and looked at her appraisingly. “Listen, we’re going to kill you anyway, since you aren’t any use to us now, like we thought you might be. See, we weren’t sure if we’d let you go, but now you know who we are and what we look like, and letting you go would just wind up getting us into trouble.

"Also, there’s the fact that without you around, Lucas is going to wind up in prison, so either way he dies or he gets sent up the river, and that’s just going to prolong his death. I’ll tell you what, since you’re about to die anyway and I like you, I think I’ll tell you the truth. That way you can die without any confusion or misunderstanding about what’s going on.”

Her heart nearly stopped in her chest just at hearing his words. She forced herself not to show the riot of emotion going on inside of her, and instead she drew in a long slow breath, focusing with everything in her on keeping as calm as she could. She was determined to get out of her situation alive, no matter what. She wished that she could steal a glance at her phone on the window ledge and see if it was still recording everything, but she didn’t want to risk either man seeing her look at it, so she took it on faith that it was doing exactly what she wanted it to do.

Wade took a deep breath and looked at her with a leering smile. “So, you think that this really is all Lucas.” He chuckled a little. “That’s funny. That means we did it all right.”

“We sure did.” Larry said snidely.

She looked from one to the other of them and lowered one brow. “What do you mean? Lucas is exactly the reason I’m stuck in this chair with the two of you!” she tried not to snap, but she knew she sounded aggravated with them. She couldn’t hide it.

Wade laughed and shook his head. “No, honey, he’s not.”

Alexis blinked up at him, trying to understand what the round man was saying. “What do you mean?” she asked in a low tone.

Wade lifted his hand to his mouth and rubbed his thumb over his chin thoughtfully. “Nah, Lucas didn’t have anything to do with this. This was all Warren.” He began to walk slowly, in a steady line between the table where Larry was leaning again, and the chair where Alexis was sitting.

She listened silently in disbelief.
He couldn’t be telling her the truth,
she thought.

He paced slowly and continued. “You see, Warren’s got this old grudge against Lucas… some bad blood from years before. Lucas doesn’t know it. Warren has been out to get Lucas for a long, long while. He’s been biding his time and getting as close as he could to Lucas for years, just so he could drive the dagger in even deeper.”

Alexis’ mouth fell open and she stared at Wade. He couldn’t be telling her the truth, she thought. There was no way.

He turned on the spot and she winced, worried that he would see her phone in the window, which she noticed was still recording. He was looking at the floor as he turned, and he didn’t see it. She breathed a silent sigh of relief, and he paced slowly back the other way, one step in front of the other.

“You see, Warren hates Lucas. He has been out this whole time to destroy him. Destroy everything about him… his career, his life… everything. He worked his way into becoming Lucas’ manager so that he could have more control over what was going on in Lucas’ life. He helped Lucas get to the top… just so he could take him down from the highest point possible.” He turned to look at her then.

Their eyes met, and in that moment, she knew that Wade was telling her the truth, and her whole body went ice cold with dread.

“Oscar night.” Wade said as a wicked grin spread over his face. “Oscar night… the pinnacle of Lucas’ career. He was the toast of Hollywood… of the entire entertainment industry, and that is just what Warren wanted, so he could bring him crashing down.”

Alexis could not speak; her heart was in her throat. She shook her head once, slowly, wishing that it wasn’t true, but seeing in Wade’s eyes that it definitely was.

“Why do you think Lucas had his own party at his house? So that Warren could have us there, so we could be alone with him in his office. Who do you think sent Lucas in to meet the two guys Lucas didn’t know? Warren did. He told him to go meet us, and Lucas, trusting fool that he is, did. He walked right in there and Warren closed the door behind him. Warren hired us to come in and meet Lucas, he hired us to plant the drugs all over the desk and on Lucas in his fancy jacket. He hired us to spike Lucas’ drink when we shared a shot with him, so that he passed out long enough for us to get out and the cops to get in. Who do you think tipped the cops off about Lucas’ drug problem and possession? Warren. Lucas doesn’t do drugs. He was telling you the truth. He doesn’t have anything to do with drugs, but that’s not going to help him now, is it? There’s no way out of this for him!” he threw his head back and laughed maniacally.