Page 54 of Tainted Blood

“Excuse me.” I move swiftly to unlock the door and jump out. Fuck it. I’ll contact the hospital myself. Quickly, I hustled down the street with my phone hitting Ian’s number. It barely rings once when a sharp pain hits the back of my head and everything goes dark.

****

My eyes flutter open, and yet it’s completely dark. I stretch out my hands, reaching for something, and find a wall and then another and another. My feet are met with another. I’m confined in a tiny box. My heart rate speeds up as my situation hits me. I have no idea where I am, but I know that I’m trapped and that Maggie and Jacob are involved.

What an idiot. I trusted them instead of trusting my gut. I should have Ian to protect me like he insisted.

I try to take a calming breath, but my thoughts are just eating at me. I want Ian to find me so bad. I need him to find me. Tears stream down my face as I consider how different life had been hours ago. My heart’s heavy, and my hands are shaking. I’d been hit so hard from behind that I’d blacked out instantly, so it had to have been Jacob, but they were bold enough to do it in broad daylight.

Shit—the pain is so intense I feel like there’s a pounding on my head. My eyeballs ache so badly I want to cry just from that alone. I’m somewhere dark. I keep pushing and pushing, but nothing moves; there’s no give. Wherever I am, I’m here until someone comes to let me out, or I die.

“I’m so sorry, Ian,” I sob. He loves me so much and tells me every single minute of every day that we are together and every time he sends me a message. Damn it, my phone. They must have it. No, they would have tossed it, and now he can’t track me. My chest hurts, and it feels like I can’t breathe, so I call out. “I need you,” I whisper as my eyes closed.

****

Cold water splashes in my face, and my eyes squint as I try to open them. The light is so bright that it takes me a moment to adjust my vision. Finally, someone has opened my prison. When I see the face of the man in front of me, I’m regretting that he opened it. “Come on, you little bitch. Get out of there.”

My legs have been cramped for I don’t know how many hours. Does he think I’m just going to get out of here easily? He points a gun at me. I try to get up, but my legs are numb from being in the position, and I nearly fall over twice, stumbling as I try to get out of the box.

“Don’t fucking play dumb with me. Do you think I’m going to fall for that innocent shit?” he hollers at me, shakily waving his gun at me. I don’t like that he doesn’t have control.

Still, I can’t fight my own nature. “No, my fucking legs are asleep, you piece of shit. Why did you kidnap me?”

“You have to fucking know why. You can’t be that dumb. I know you got kicked out of medical school, but wow—I didn’t realize that piece of shit got himself with a dumb broad.”

“Oh, you’re an asshole,” I hiss at him.

“I wouldn’t talk shit to a man with a gun.”

“Well, you’re going to kill me regardless of whether I’m fucking kissing your ass or not.” My head hurts, my throat is raw, and my legs are numb. “Please spare me the bullshit. You kidnapped me to summon Ian? Do you think he’s going to be that dumb to come after you to get me? We hardly know each other.”

He grabs my hand. “Oh, yeah? What the fuck is this?”

“It’s a ring. My daddy gave it to me.”

“You lying little bitch.” He smacks me across the face, and I fall to the floor, banging my elbow and side.

“Wow, you always beat up women? No wonder your wife couldn’t fucking stand you.”

“Bitch, she is so close… so close.”

“I know what you’re waiting for—Ian—and that’s not going to happen.”

He chuckles. “Yes it is. You’re not just some whore. You’re the woman he selected to marry,” he says with a teasing tone, mocking the relationship between Ian and me. “That piece-of-shit bastard gave you the ring from his whore of a mother that she got from another man. If they all thought I wouldn’t recognize that ring, they are foolish. She believed I never knew about that piece of jewelry. I warned her, but she didn’t learn. It was supposed to be destroyed. One way or another, it will be.”

Chapter Twenty

Ian

The second she stepped out of the house, I had her movements on point. I’d been too fucking far away to get to her. Jack and I had been tracking Jacob Abernathy who had been dropped from the med school program after misconduct three weeks ago along. This morning, his whereabouts were unknown.

Unfortunately, an explosion on the docks has kept us distracted enough to drop the ball. The second she sent out the distress message to Claudia, I knew it had to do with Jacob. My men are already on their way to her location, and I am only five minutes behind them. Jack has gone to the hospital to check with Dr. Fisher to learn more details.

A call comes in from my phone. “Son.” It’s my real father.

“She’s in the train yard on Kedzie.” He drops me the location, even though I have her tracker leading me to the exact location.

“On my way. I’ve got it. Don’t do anything dumb,” I tell him. He’s more unhinged than I am. We both have so much built up hatred for Jack Sr. that we’re both liable to do something insane.

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