Page 45 of Fourteen Years

“Someone’s at the fire, they shot someone!” I gasped, as soon as I heard the voice on the phone. I wasn’t even thinking straight or operating calmly. I was better than this. I had been a cop's wife for over a decade. I rounded the trailer, not seeing Trevor anywhere, a sob leaving my mouth as the woman tried to speak calmly to me.

Apparently, the woman had informed me they were patching me through to the police.

I heard Lucas Marshall’s voice speak gruffly.

“What’s the address of the emergency?”

“Lucas!?” I was screaming now, my adrenaline going crazy, spiking as I hit the treeline and kept running from the footsteps behind me.

“Monica? What the hell’s going on?”

“They shot Jackson. They shot Jackson.” I said, incapable of forming one coherent, complete thought.

“I don’t know where Trevor went. We’re on the Flinton prop-”

I smacked into a hard chest and fell backwards, landing on my back, the breath whooshing from my lungs.

“MONICA?!”

I could hear Lucas yelling from my cell phone and couldn’t scramble fast enough to it. Someone placed a dark cloth over my face, a medicinal smell engulfed my senses, and everything went dark.

Chapter 27

My head was fucking killing me and I was infuriated.

I’d returned to consciousness with my hands tied behind my back, and my legs tied to the legs of the chair I was in. I shook my hair out of my eyes and moved my wrists to try to loosen whatever was keeping them restrained. There was one lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and the air felt damp. I had to be in a basement somewhere. Obviously nowhere near the fire.

My heart was pounding wondering where I’d been taken, but panicking even more at the thought of Monica in that truck by herself. I’d essentially left her alone. I should’ve listened to her. I craned my neck trying to look behind me but everything was black. The lightbulb was barely hanging by its last threads and hardly illuminated the space around me. The only other light shone dimly through a small, dirty window across the room.

I grunted and kicked the bucket in front of me in frustration, and anger.

The noise echoed throughout the room and more light flooded in as a door opened at the top of, what I could now see were, the wooden stairs. A thumping echoed throughout the cellar-type area where I was. It was musty and cold. Two sets of feet were making their way down towards me, making noises as if they were struggling.

Rage built in me, simmering when I saw the source of their efforts.

Mike and Chuck were struggling their way down the rickety stairs. Chuck had Monica’s arms caught under the shoulders while Mike gripped her knees, placing himself between her thighs and making his way backwards to the basement where I was. Just the image of her unconscious form and Mike’s placement caused me to see red.

My wrists strained against the ropes tying them together, cursing

“Let her go right fucking now, assholes. Monica had nothing to do with this. I’ll kill you both.”

Chuck laughed at me as they both made it off the stairs. They let go, dropping Monica carelessly. I cringed watching her head bounce off the concrete floor. Grateful for the messy ponytail she’d thrown her brunette hair back in. Providing some cushion to the back of her head, she lay still, unmoving. I couldn’t even tell if she was breathing because of the lighting and my heart rate picked up. My breaths were coming in rapid pants with my rising fury.

“Doesn’t look like you’re in a state to be killing anyone, Trevor.” Mike said, turning and narrowing his dark eyes on my face.

“Looks like we can do whatever the fuck we want.”

“What are y’all going to gain from this?” I asked, strategies switching. “All you’ve ever gone down for is theft and drug charges. You really wanna go down for kidnapping, arson, and causing harm? Murder? For what? Some small-town drug lord?”

“We got plans. Richard promised us. Something big’s gonna—” Chuck started.

“Would you shut the fuck up, moron?” Mike warned through clenched teeth.

My eyes darted between them. Either Richard had fed his two minions a line of shit or something else was going down in Reading, Pennsylvania. I was just hoping Monica’s call to nine-one-one had been enough to get someone out here immediately. Although, I wasn’t sure where we even were anymore.

“Boss say what to do with the body?”

My muscles clenched, thinking they were talking about Monica.

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