23. Chapter 23

twenty-three

Lucas

I never expected to survive the car crash, but it still took me a moment to feel any surprise when I became aware of my surroundings again.

The pain hit me first: intense, throbbing, and stinging at the same time, about three or four inches above my right ear, followed by a sudden heaviness in my chest and a sharp, stabbing pain with each breath I took.

My eyes flew open and I whipped my head back and forth, forcing my eyes to stay open despite the pounding in my head, but I didn’t see Athena anywhere.

I wanted to huddle in a ball and die, but I wasn’t dead and I couldn’t curl into the fetal position on the floor because I was secured—very thoroughly—to a chair. My chest was duct-taped around the slats at the back, my hands wrapped around the chair behind my back and—I shook out my wrists—handcuffed. I ignored the elephant sitting on my chest and tried to shift in my seat, but didn’t manage to move much with my ankles duct-taped together as well. Each of those were easy enough to get out of with the proper tools and right amount of time, but all together a bit more difficult, especially the cuffs behind my back.

My head was pounding, my neck aching. The heaviness in my chest and difficulty breathing meant I probably had a couple bruised or broken ribs. But if Athena was still alive, all the pains were worth it.

Where was Athena? Was she okay? Did she make it out of the water? I didn't know where she was.

“Shit,” I swore, eyes closing in defeat.

“Lucas!” I heard whisper-shouted from behind me.

Athena! She made it out of the car. I was willing to bet that she was the reason I was still alive. I took a second to be grateful, letting that emotion be the catalyst I needed to keep my eyes open and mind alert.

“Are you alright, baby?” I asked her, squinting at our surroundings.

There was some dim lighting coming from the dusty, dirty windows high up along the walls. We obviously weren’t in the middle of the bay anymore, but I could smell a hint of salt in the air so we were still near the ocean. My clothes were still wet, though not actively dripping anymore, so I probably wasn’t unconscious too long. Definitely no more than a couple hours.

“I’m okay. Alive. Are you okay? I thought you were dead for a while there.” Her words were spoken in a light, joking tone, but I heard the slight tremble to her voice. I felt her hands shaking where they met mine, back-to-back in our chairs .

I fought off the panic going through my mind, trying to assess how to get us out of this situation. You could get out of handcuffs easily enough, but I needed a shim of some sort. I moved on. The duct tape across the chest was simple to get out from, but I needed my hands free from behind my back for it. Same with the ankles. I needed my chest free to be able to squat down and break the tape quickly.

It was almost as if Leo Lombardi was a professional and knew how to do shit like this.

“I’ll be fine,” I lied. The pain was made it difficult to focus, and it was getting harder to breathe with each minute. We had to make it out fast if I was going to be able to make it out at all. “How did we get here? Where is here?”

“Leo Lombardi. He was there when we made it to shore, but so were a lot of other people.”

“A lot of potential witnesses,” I acknowledged. He had to get us to a secondary location to get rid of us properly. “Where is he right now?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know why he left us alone like this,” she said, her whisper barely audible.

I clutched her fingers tighter, leaning my head back to rest against hers. My eyes closed in relief at the contact. Her sigh told me we both needed it.

I could feel that her hair was back to its normal texture again, the curls tickling my nose when I turned my head toward her. I wanted to breathe in her scent, but could only smell a hint of salt from the bay.

“At least your curls are back,” I began. I would get to feel them against my cheek one more time before —

Her gasp was sudden. Was she okay? In pain?

“My hair, Lucas. I pinned my hair back for my interview.”

I nuzzled against the hair in earnest, trying to figure out why she was telling me this. There was less hair against my face than expected, probably because it was still partially pulled back from her face by some pins that I couldn’t quite see…

That was it. She was a genius. I should have been surprised; Athena was a goddess of strategy, after all.

I pulled back as far as I could, angling my head to look her over. Half her hair was a tangled mess, having fallen out of the bun she’d originally styled it in, but when she tilted her head deliberately I could see the glint of something metal reflecting in the sparse light: a single bobby pin. Yes. Now we could make it out of here.

“Look at the little lovebirds, squawking and squandering their last minutes together.”

I jerked my head to the left, regretting it the instant the throbbing doubled in intensity. Leo Lombardi was leaning against a doorway across the room. He stepped fully into the warehouse, letting the door slam closed behind him.

I could feel Athena’s pulse quicken in her wrist, but I also felt the way her shoulders straightened, the shift of her hair against my back as her neck elongated. She might be strapped to a chair, but my girl was still aware, ready to face any threat with some damn fine confidence. If I could just keep my wits about me long enough to get us out of the chairs, Athena could take care of the ass-kicking part. Easily.

He stopped a couple feet away from us to my left, Athena’s right and threw something to the ground at our feet: Athena’s purse. That meant not a lot of time had passed; he probably had only just secured us to here and went back out to his car for the bag when I woke up.

“I was hoping to make your death look like an accident with brake failure, but maybe this is better. This way I can torture you for a while first and find out what else you know, what you have solid in your case against the Morellis first.”

What, was he going for Employee of the Month? I scoffed, but even that hurt. I did my best to keep my expression neutral and hide the pain so he couldn’t use it as a weakness against me.

“But first I gotta know, Blake. How did you get her to give it up so easily? I mean, I thought I was gonna get a taste at one point and man, those tits! I really wanted to fuck them.”

Athena didn’t bother to hide her gag. I couldn’t blame her.

“Too bad you can’t see them from where you’re sitting. Practically spilled out of that wet blouse, sexy lingerie on underneath. I almost feel like I’m starring in a porno looking at her like this.”

If he wanted to talk about Athena, she had more than enough going for her to distract him long enough for me to get the bobby pin free. I felt awful, but I needed to get the job done. I squeezed her hand, trying to give her some reassurance before I started talking.

“I don’t know, Lombardi. I’ve always been more of an ass man, myself. And hers is just the perfect mix of shapely and jiggly.”

Athena made a noise, but quickly cut herself off. She was going to trust me. Thank god .

“This is true,” Leo said, like we were bros. I almost expected him to fist bump me. “I got a good look at the matching thong while you two were unconscious. I could definitely deal with it if I only got to fuck that.”

Athena stiffened. Time to move the topic to something else.

“How about just the hair! Women have magical hair. Look how curly it is right now, and just a couple hours ago it was straight as a ruler and in a tiny little bun. And so soft.”

I nuzzled her hair again, letting the curls fall around me to cover my face so I could grab the pin with my teeth. The metal scraped at my enamel, but that didn’t matter. If we lived through this I’d visit a dentist.

I used my tongue to pull the pin all the way into my mouth and against my cheek. I felt like a squirrel with an acorn, but at least I could speak clearly enough to avoid suspicion.

“See, it’s still so soft, even after being in the salty, dirty bay. You can’t imagine how soft this shit is!”

I could practically feel Athena rolling her eyes, but this was for the greater good and her hair was a better distraction than the other body parts he expressed an interest in.

Lombardi didn’t fight the temptation, putting a hand up to her head on the opposite side of me, attention on her long enough for me to tongue the pin back out to my lips. I had half a second to make a decision, and I tilted my head another inch before spitting out the pin over my shoulder, praying to anyone listening that my aim was true.

My outstretched fingers caught the bobby pin. Someone up there was paying attention.

“You’re right, so fucking soft,” Lombardi said.

“I mean, how does that happen? It’s like witchcraft!” I needed to keep him talking to cover any noises I made as I worked the pin, first from one of Athena’s wrists, then one of mine. I straightened the pin and let myself ponder for half a second. Lombardi made sure the cuffs were tight on our wrists, so even if I tried using the pin as a shim I had no slack to push it through and free the cuff. Not a surprise. He was a professional. That meant he probably also knew to utilize the double-lock mechanism on the cuffs, so I had to release that first before I tried picking the lock the traditional way. I went to work.

“I bet she uses a special conditioner. All her badass criminal defense lawyer money can afford expensive hair shit,” I said conspiratorially. I saw black spots in the corner of my eyesight. Shit. The double lock was history, now I just needed to pick the regular one.

Lombardi rolled his eyes. “Women have fucked up priorities. Why waste money on that shit? She could spend the money on—”

“On a 92-inch LED TV?” I asked, remembering the ridiculously big screen from the surveillance footage. Talk about messed up priorities. Who needed a TV that big in an apartment that shitty? I grabbed Athena’s fingers, moving them to her cuff so she could catch it, then gave the pin one final twist, unlatching her wrist.

Athena was smart, keeping her hands behind her back as if nothing changed. Just because her hands were free didn’t mean the rest of her was, and we didn’t want to give anything away. I moved on to my own cuffs, knowing I only had a couple more minutes before the pain of everything overwhelmed me and I lost consciousness again.

“Hell yeah! You need a big screen to watch good movies. Speed. The Matrix. John Wick.”

What was with him and Keanu Reeves? I got my own double locking mechanism free. Almost done…

“The Lake House?” I asked, just to fire him up a little.

“I don’t watch girly shit. I like action movies.”

“And you don't think Keanu got some action from filming that movie?”

Athena snorted.

“Nothing wrong with that. I’m gonna get some action of my own in a few minutes after I find out what you know.”

“Not if I can help it,” I said, all humor leaving my voice. I would not joke about that, no matter the circumstances.

“You’re in no position to stop me. Hell. Maybe I’ll even turn your chair around so you can watch the whole thing. Watching can be pretty hot. Watching her can be really fucking hot. Do you think she’ll make those same noises with me, too?”

Was he still there while I was at Athena’s house last night? How close did he get that he could see or hear what happened between us?

My first wrist was free. I didn’t need to free the second one, and I was done with this fucking conversation. I was done with all of this shit.

“No. I really don’t.” I tensed my body, pushing out my chest and shoulders, forcing as much pressure against the duct tape as possible without actually trying to break through yet .

“That’s okay. I’ll make her scream in a different way. It’ll sound close enough.”

“The hell you will.”

“You’re secured to a fucking chair,” he taunted, moving around us until he was in front of me. He leaned forward so he was right in my goddamn face. “You think I can’t tell you’re about four seconds away from passing out? You can’t stop me.”

I used every bit of strength I had to jerk my body forward, bending at the waist as fast and hard as I could. The sudden tension ripped the tape along the back of the chair—something I wouldn’t have been able to do if my hands were still secured around it—and I headbutted him dead in the face. I used the seconds his surprise and disorientation gave me to jerk my body back and forth until the tape loosened from my arms and I could rip the rest of it off my chest.

Lombardi recovered quickly enough and got back up on his knees, lunging toward me. I swung my right wrist out, not even waiting for him to get close enough for a punch, and let the dangling handcuff swing out to whip him across the face. He staggered backwards again with a hand on his bleeding cheek, giving me a chance to get my legs free—impossible while my torso was taped to the chair, but easy as hell now that I had the ability to move.

Escape artists didn’t actually have to do much to get out. You just had to figure out what order to work in, solving one problem at a time.

But I was ill and in pain. I didn’t have much strength left in my body, so after I freed myself I landed in a heap on the floor. I rolled over to face Athena, still struggling against the tape across her chest. She was strong and determined, but she didn’t have the knowledge. All I had to do was teach her how to free herself before Leo Lombardi took me out of the equation.

As the first kick bashed against my kidney, I knew that would be easier said than done.