Rock Chick 05 Revenge (69 page)

“Be snappy.”

Disconnect.

There was a knock on the door before I completely flipped the phone shut. I shoved it in the back pocket of my jeans as I walked to the door. It started ringing again but I ignored it while I opened the door. I had a smile of greeting for Matt on my face.

The problem was, it wasn’t Matt knocking on the door.

It was Noah.

Fuckity, fuck, fuck,
fuck!

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Convoy, Chaos and Cookies

“My life sucks,” I told Noah.

He pulled a gun out of the pocket of his jacket and pointed it at me.

I stared at it. “You have got to be kidding me,” I said.

“Not even fuckin’ close,” Noah replied

My cell in my back pocket quit ringing just as the phone in the room started ringing. I didn’t have a chance to do anything about it as Noah grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the room. The door closed behind me, shutting out the sound of the ringing phone.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Noah answered.

He didn’t know?

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I mean I don’t know, shut up. We’re takin’ a ride.”

We were walking toward the elevators, Noah’s hand on my arm pushing me in front of him. One elevator dinged, it opened, Matt walked out and halted when he saw us. His body went tense and within a second Quick Draw Matt had a gun. I didn’t even see where he got it. He just had it trained on Noah.

Eek!

“Let her go,” Matt demanded and any normal person would obey him mainly because he sounded scary, not to mention he had a gun. This surprised me because I didn’t think he had it in him to sound that scary. Sure, he was a hottie with a great body but he didn’t seem as badass as the rest of the boys. At his tone I realized I was wrong about that. Way wrong.

Noah had his gun pointed at my back. When he saw Matt’s gun, he moved it to my temple.

Uh-oh.

“Back off,” Noah said.

Matt’s eyes were at my temple, his mouth went tight, he took two steps back and we took two steps forward.

“Call the elevator,” Noah ordered and I suspected he was talking to me mainly because he still had my arm in his hand and he shook me. I tagged the elevator and it opened immediately.

Matt didn’t take his eyes off us and I didn’t take my eyes off him as Noah backed us into the elevator all the while turned to face the doors.

Matt stood outside the doors, eyes on me and they were active which I took as a good sign mainly because, at that point, I was holding on to anything I could get.

The doors closed.

Shit!

Noah took the gun from my head and put it to my back again.

“Noah, this is a bad idea.” I told him.

“I think you know by now, Ava, that my name is Walt,” he replied.

“Okay then, Walt, this is a bad idea,” I repeated.

“Got no leverage. They messed up Kurt, they messed him up bad. Motherfuckers. They aren’t gonna mess me up. Fuck that. You’re the only leverage I got. They won’t come near me if I got you.”

I wasn’t certain that was true. “Noah, I mean Walt, I’ll talk to Luke. Just let me –”

“Time to talk to Stark was after I taped you to a post.”

“I tried, Luke didn’t feel like giving up. He’s not big on that kind of thing. Maybe I can be more convincing this time.”

“You had your chance.”

Shit a-fucking-gain.

The doors opened, we stepped out, Noah stopped, jerking me to a halt and he went still.

I was looking at the floor. My eyes came up and I saw Ren, Sissy, Dom and Uncle Vito standing there, looking like they were waiting for the elevator.

What the fuck?

“Hey guys,” I said, trying to sound casual.

They all had their eyes on Noah.

“Are we having the family meeting?” I asked, still trying to sound casual.

“We were,” Dom replied, his eyes hadn’t left Noah.

“I’m kind of busy right now,” I told Dom.

At that, Ren’s body moved but he halted when Noah put the gun to my temple.

“Move back,” Noah said.

None of them moved. They changed but they didn’t move. Sissy’s face went pale, Ren, Dom and Uncle Vito went solid.

“Move back!” Noah shouted, getting nervous and people turned to stare. I heard a few audible gasps and a small scream when eyes hit us.

I didn’t think Noah getting nervous was a good sign so I said softly, “You guys, please move back.”

“This ain’t a good idea, son,” Uncle Vito advised Noah.

“Move back,” Noah repeated.

“She’s a Zano,” Uncle Vito went on.

“She’s not a Zano,” Noah flashed back.

“She’s a Zano,” Ren said firmly.

For goodness sake, were we going to go through this again?
Now?

“It’d really help me out, say, not to get my brains splattered across the Hotel Monaco lobby, if you guys would
step back!
” I shouted the last part.

“What’s the breakfast hold up?” Shirleen was trundling up. She skidded to a halt, my eyes went to her and hers were wide. “Shit! Is that Noah?” she asked me.

“My name is Walt,” Noah corrected.

“Whatever. You crazy, boy?” Shirleen asked, her gaze moving to Noah.

“Everyone, get out of our way!” Noah demanded, now not only nervous but losing patience and I guessed this was a
very
bad sign.

“Yeah, you’re crazy. Do you know you got a gun to the head of Luke Stark’s woman?” Shirleen informed him and then continued to share. “He ain’t gonna like that much.”

“Shirleen –” I started.

“Ava…?”

That was my Mom.

Hell.

And.

Damnation!

Mom peeked around Shirleen. “Ava!” she shrieked when she saw me.

“Mom, calm down,” I said.

“What’s happening…? Holy crap,” Marilyn had arrived, Sofia at her side.

Did I already mention my… life…
sucked?

“Everyone, get fucking back!” Noah yelled.

“That’s my sister,” Sofia told Noah.

“I don’t care, get fucking back,” Noah clipped.

“You have a gun pointed at my sister’s head!” Sofia screamed.

“Take that gun away from her head, right now, you jerk!” Marilyn shouted.

“Guys, you aren’t helping,” I told them.

“This is outrageous. We’re in the lobby of a nice hotel. This kind of thing doesn’t happen in the lobby of a nice hotel,” my mother snapped. “Not to
my
daughter anyway. Put the gun down.”

“Ava, get rid of these people,” Noah said in my ear.

“Folks, can we all just –” I began.

“Has anyone called Luke?” Mom asked, she was digging through her bag. “I’m calling Luke. Who has his number?”

I’ll ask again. Why me? Why me?
Why me?

“Please, everyone can you just –” I began again.

“Holy shit.” That was Riley, who had come around Sofia’s right side and jerked to a stop at the sight of Noah and me. “What the fuck are you doing?” Riley exploded, staring at Noah and looking not like a mild mannered personal trainer but just like a badass motherfucker.

Even in my current circumstances, I was impressed.

“Do I know you?” Noah asked.

“Yeah, you know me. I’m Ava’s personal trainer. I was at her birthday party last year.”

“Oh yeah. You ever finally get the nerve up to fuck her?” Noah asked, sounding nasty.

There were gasps all around but I heard a couple of growls, one I suspected came from Ren, the other one I knew came from Riley.

I was beginning to wish he’d just shoot me.

Then we heard, “What the fuck!”

It was Ally. She’d rounded the other side of Ren and Daisy rounded her side.

Everyone stopped and stared at the new arrivals.

Ally looked normal, jeans, kickass belt, cowboy boots and vintage AC/DC tee.

She wasn’t the reason everyone stared. Everyone stared because Daisy did not look normal. Daisy had the bottom of her platinum blonde hair in pigtails, the top teased out to maximum volume and she was wearing a baby pink, velour, Juicy Couture tracksuit that was skintight. If that wasn’t reason enough to stare, she had the top zipped down to expose so much cleavage, the actual presence of the top was unnecessary except for the fact that it covered her nipples thus stopping her from being arrested for indecent exposure.

“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Daisy said, staring at Noah and me.

“What’s the hold up?” We heard from the back. “The longer we take on breakfast, the longer it’ll take to get to the mall –”

The person stopped speaking because she’d pushed her way to the front and we saw it was Olivia.

“Muthafucka,” she breathed when her eyes hit me.

“All right people!” I shouted. “Everyone move back.
Back!
” I screeched.

Everyone moved back except Ren and Dom because somehow they disappeared, vanished, no longer in sight.

Crap!

Noah moved us forward, my posse stayed close but moved back. We did this all the way across the lobby, everyone else in the hotel watching our progression in stunned silence as I heard the noise of faraway sirens.

When we hit the doors, Noah took the gun from my head, grabbed my hand and pulled us through. He ran down the sidewalk, taking me with him. I stumbled, nearly falling on my high-heeled wedges and I cursed my mother for her meddling into my wardrobe choices (though flip-flops wouldn’t likely have been any better, I had learned that lesson the hard way).

He didn’t break stride and kept dragging me. I righted myself just as we ran into traffic, straight to a car that was stopped at a light.

Noah pulled open the door, shoved the gun in the driver’s face and clipped, “Out.”

“But… this is my car,” the driver said, eyes wide, obviously not thinking clearly because all of a sudden on a sunny Denver day he found himself staring at a gun.

Noah moved the gun to the side, pulling the trigger and drilling a round into the pavement.

I jumped, the driver jumped and then Noah pointed the gun at the driver again.

“Out!” Noah shouted.

The driver got out.

Noah shoved me in first. I scrambled over to the passenger side and Noah got in behind me. Before I had myself settled, we took off on a squeal of tires, running the red light and making cars swerve and honk.

“Noah!” I yelled. “I mean, Walt! You’re gonna kill us.”

“Shut
up!
” Noah shouted.

I put my seatbelt on which wasn’t easy. Noah was driving erratically, jerking the wheel back and forth, passing cars, speeding up then stopping fast and running red lights willy-nilly.

Once I got my belt on, I turned to the front.

You would think I’d be scared. I wasn’t scared. I was pissed way the hell off.

I’d had
enough
.

“This just cuts it,” I grumbled. “I cannot believe you just kidnapped me. First, you charm your way into my pants. Then you steal my money and Aunt Ella’s jewelry, leave me high and dry and make me swear off men. Then!” My voice was beginning to rise. “I find myself a good guy,
the
best guy
ever
, and he wants to protect me and he goes after you. Instead of taking it like a man, you take it out
on me
.”

“Ava, shut up.”

“I will not shut up. You’re a jerk. You dry humped me. What was
that
all about?”

“You have a sweet ass,” he said, as if that explained it.

“So? It isn’t
your
sweet ass anymore, it’s Luke’s,” I snapped. “Did you tell your partner I tasted like cherry pie?”

“You do,” he replied on a reminiscent grin.

I growled then bit off, “Men!”

The phone at my ass started ringing, I leaned forward and pulled it out.

“Don’t answer that,” Noah ordered.

“Fuck you,” I shot back, saw the display said “Luke calling” and flipped it open. “Yo.”

“Babe,” Luke replied.

“I’ve been kidnapped again,” I informed him.

“I know. I’m following.”

I turned my head to look around my seat and saw Luke’s Porsche behind us. He was at the wheel talking to me on the phone. Next to him was Ren’s Jag; Ren driving, Dom sitting beside him. I kept looking and saw Ally’s Mustang behind Ren, Daisy sitting beside Ally, more people in the
 
(I couldn’t really see but I suspected they were my sisters). Olivia’s Lexus was beside Ally, Shirleen sitting next to her what I reckoned was my Mom in the back. I couldn’t be certain but I thought I saw Riley’s Pathfinder trailing the pack. They were all speeding and weaving, following Noah and me down Speer Boulevard in a highish speed chase.