The Sacrificial Lamb (10 page)

The last thing she wanted was to catch the attention of any of these men. She considered herself lucky so far and needed to keep it that way.

The next morning both guards entered the room, and while that wasn’t particularly unusual, there was something different about them. They advanced on Alex, and she was up and off the cot in a flash. She had never been a very violent person, but someone was going to lose something important before they got a chance to hurt her.

Alex went for Mr. Meek first and got in a satisfying claw to his face that made him clap his hand to his cheek and howl. Then she whirled around and kicked Mr. Mean in the shin. He cursed and grabbed at her as she made to run for the door. She might have made it out if he hadn’t snagged the hood on the back of the sweater she was wearing. The zipper caught her in the windpipe as he yanked her backward. The pressure against her throat intensified, and she tried gasping for air in vain. She fell to the floor and lay there, stunned, sucking in breath from her constricted throat.

Both men grabbed an arm and pulled her to her feet. She struggled and kicked at them. Her throat hurt, but she screamed regardless. Mr. Meek was able to get behind her and lock her arms behind her back. Despite the pain in her shoulders, she kept trying to lurch forward and sideways to try to throw him off balance, hoping to loosen his hold.

“Stop it!” Mr. Meek said angrily. “We’re not going to hurt you, you stupid bitch!” He shook her violently. Alex stopped struggling and stood there breathing hard with her arms pinned behind her.

Mr. Mean stood in front of her with his head to one side, regarding her with a small smile playing on his lips. He stepped toward her, and she considered trying to kick him in the balls. But he seemed to read the intention on her face and came around to her side instead. He reached out a hand and stroked her cheek. Alex jerked her face to one side, breaking contact. He then grabbed her face and yanked it back toward him so she had no choice but to look at him. She took in the beady eyes and compressed lips—he looked like a feral weasel, sly and calculating.

“You’re a fighter. I like that,” he said, smiling in a very creepy way. His hand moved from her chin, down her throat. He drew a finger between her breasts, and Alex fought to stay absolutely still. She didn’t want to jerk around and give him a reason to touch any other part of her. “Now I know why Domenic seems so fascinated with you.”

Domenic?
It took her a moment to figure out he was talking about Mr. Armani. She clued in to the fact it was unusual he had mentioned the other man’s name. Until then, they had been very careful not to address each other by name in front of her, which is why she had taken to calling them Mr. Mean and Mr. Meek in her head.

“Now,” Mr. Mean said softy, “this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to call your daddy, and you’re going to tell him you’re alive and that he should do whatever we tell him to. Got it?”

“Fuck you!”

She spit in his face. He wiped his cheek calmly, looked at the spittle in his palm for a moment and then backhanded her. Unlike Mr. Armani—
Domenic
, her mind whispered—he hit her full force, and her head rocked back. Pain flared along her cheekbone, and Alex whimpered.

“Let’s try this again. I’m dialing your father right now, and you better do what I tell you. Understand?” He grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked her head back savagely. Alex clenched her teeth against the pain and tried not to cry out in agony while Mr. Mean dialed a familiar phone number.

“Hello, Sheriff Montgomery.” His voice flowed like a river over stones. “I believe we had an agreement?” With that he gave a vicious tug on the hair in his fist. She tried not to scream, but she couldn’t help the muffled exclamation as Mr. Mean put the phone to her ear.

“Alex? Alex!” Her father’s panicked voice was both the best and the worst thing she had ever heard.

“Daddy,” she whispered thickly, as tears streamed down her face.

“Alex! Baby, they’re going to find you. Just hang in there!” His voice was frantic. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

“No.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“No,” she said, glancing at Mr. Mean, wondering why he was allowing her father to ask these questions.

“Do you know their names?” her father asked.

Domenic
.

“No,” she replied, “I don’t know anything.”

Mr. Mean’s eyes narrowed. He had given her that name on purpose. Alex wasn’t sure why she hadn’t told her father Domenic’s name, but there was a reason it had been dangled in front of her like a carrot. Something was wrong. It was all too contrived, and she couldn’t bring herself to betray her one ally in this whole situation. It was possible she would regret this decision later, but at the moment, it felt like the right thing to do.

Mr. Mean whipped the phone away from her. Alex could hear her father saying her name, shouting it.

“Dad!” she yelled out. “Daddy, I love you!” Mr. Meek clapped a hand over her mouth, and she began to struggle again.

“There you go, Sheriff Montgomery,” Mr. Mean said over her cries. “We kept our end of the deal, now you keep yours.” With that he snapped the phone shut, put it on the floor, and stomped on it. He kicked the pieces out into the other room. Satisfied, he turned back and started walking toward Alex, slowly. Reaching out a hand, he grasped the zipper at the top of her sweater and began to pull it down.

“Now,” he said menacingly, “where was I?”

D
OMENIC
S
PED
T
OWARD
T
HE
W
AREHOUSE
while cursing the Chicago traffic. Even midmorning it was still congested.
Shouldn’t people be at work by now?
Fucking Carlo. If his boss’s home hadn’t been crawling with guards, Domenic would have been tempted to finish him right in the middle of his opulent office.

His plan had been to go see Carlo to try to convince him to move Alexis somewhere else and get her out of that disgusting warehouse. The problem was he had no idea where she could be held. Domenic couldn’t very well keep her at his condo, even if that was his preference. He didn’t stop to examine that thought very closely.

It seemed as if his whole world was slowly turning upside down, and Domenic didn’t like it. Here he was, going off half-cocked, which was completely not his style. Generally, he planned every move he made with meticulous care—it was how he had gotten so far in such a short time. This was unlike anything he had done in years. Not since he was a rash teen who thought it would be simple to kill the head of the mob with a knife to the heart, had he had less control of his emotions.

Earlier that day, he had driven up to the gate surrounding Carlo’s home and waved to the guard. The gate swung open, and he took the winding road up to the front of Carlo’s sprawling mansion. As Domenic strode into the mansion, Lina was walking through the foyer toward him. She acted as Carlo’s personal assistant and managed all of his affairs. Lina smiled warmly when she saw Domenic, and he returned it in kind.

“Is he in?” Domenic asked courteously.

“Is he
available
would be a better question. And hello, Domenic.” Her voice held a slight note of chastisement. He gave her his best smile and bent to kiss her cheek.

“Hello, Lina,” he said in a husky tone, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. She shuddered and inhaled deeply before letting her breath out in a heady sigh.

“I’ll clear his schedule,” she said, her voice somewhat breathless.

“Thank you,” Domenic said softly, pulling back and looking down at her. Her eyes were dazed, and she licked her lips subconsciously as she stared at Domenic’s mouth. With a blink, she came back to herself and started to walk away from him.

Domenic watched Lina leave and chuckled. She was a very attractive woman, and he enjoyed the view as she sashayed down the hallway. She made sure to swing her hips a little more than necessary to make sure he got an eyeful. They’d had a short dalliance when she was first hired, but as usual, when he noticed she was getting too emotionally invested, he ended things. Carlo had been upset when Domenic broke things off. His boss had agreed wholeheartedly to the union, and likely hoped Domenic would settle down with her. Perhaps if she had invoked stronger feelings in him, things would have been different.

Like Alex,
an insidious voice whispered. Domenic shoved that idea aside as quickly as it came.

He walked into Carlo’s office and took a seat in one of the leather wingback chairs. The office was opulent, paneled in dark wood with lush oriental carpets covering the hardwood floor. Bookshelves were built into the walls and were full almost to beyond capacity with hardback books, most of them first editions, leather-bound and expensive. There was an enormous cherry wood desk at the end of the room, in front of a large bay window, which commanded attention. A banker’s lamp sat at one corner shedding a golden light on the sparse contents of the desk. There was a laptop, a gold fountain pen, an agenda, and an ink blotter. Carlo was nothing if not fastidious.

The office no longer intimidated him. He’d been here too many times to count. Domenic frowned, pensive, and tried to think of how he could bend Carlo to his will. It had barely been a week since this girl had been foisted upon him, so why the hell was he so fazed by her? He hadn’t even fucked her for Christ’s sake!

Maybe you should,
the voice whispered.

Gritting his teeth, he stood up and paced the floor impatiently. While he was making a circuit of the office, he noticed a picture of Carlo and him. It was the day of his graduation from Harvard after completing his MBA. Carlo was smiling into the camera and had an arm draped around his shoulders. Domenic looked stiff and unhappy. It was definitely not how he expected himself to look on what was supposed to be the start of his new life.

Carlo walked into his office. Domenic put the picture down and turned toward him. Carlo looked surprised to see him, but Domenic knew his boss well enough to know it was just a façade.

“Domenic!” Carlo said, smiling largely. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this unannounced visit?” His smile belied his words, and he may as well have come out and said,
you have balls to come barging in on me without an appointment
.

“I want to talk to you about the girl,” Domenic said without preamble. So much for his plan—that shit went right out the window.

“Ah, yes, the girl. Our sweet Alexis Montgomery,” Carlo said as he walked behind his desk and sat down. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t trust Marco and Vince, and I want her removed from the warehouse.”

Carlo’s eyebrows crept up his withered forehead. “And what do you suggest we do with her? Move her into your condo?” He dropped him a wink, and Domenic could feel the all familiar rage welling in his chest. “I hear you’ve become quite
friendly
with the girl.”

“And who, pray tell, told you that?” he asked coolly.

“Domenic, I have eyes and ears everywhere.”

“I’m sure you do,” Domenic replied in a sarcastic tone. The eyes of that snake, Marco. “So? The girl?”

“We’re not moving her anywhere. She’ll be of no use to us soon, anyway. They’re making the call today.” Carlo started rifling through the agenda on his desk, and Domenic felt as if he had just been punched in the gut.

“What? When?” he demanded.

Carlo stopped shuffling and looked at his watch. “Actually, they should be calling any minute.”

Domenic was up from his chair and running out of the office before his boss had finished his sentence. He heard Carlo roar out his name behind him, but he kept moving. The call. They were calling John Montgomery to prove Alexis was still alive and to make sure he knew to do what he was told if he didn’t want her shipped to him in pieces.

Once the call was made, it was only a matter of time before Tony received his orders and killed Alexis. Domenic couldn’t let that happen. There was one avenue left open to him. He had to try to rescue her and take her away until he could deposit her in a safe place.

Marco would know the significance of the call, and he would know that Alex’s welfare no longer mattered. That meant the gloves were off. Domenic’s power over him no longer applied. Marco knew Carlo wouldn’t care what happened to Alex now that her usefulness had almost come to an end. As long as she was kept alive, he could do whatever he pleased. In Marco’s mind, it was better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.