Corbin (The Mavericks Book 17), page 13
“You’ll get over it. I’ve seen women get over all kinds of shit. It’s really not a big deal.”
She just stared at him in horror. Jewel was still alive, but she was unconscious. The bullet had gone into her side, and she needed a doctor, but, with this asshole here, the chances weren’t good. Except Corbin knew. He’d be here soon. She pressed her hand harder over the wound to slow the bleeding.
“Come on. We have to leave.”
“I thought you wanted to make a bargain,” she said in surprise.
“Yeah, well, the one bargaining chip is already damaged and too much trouble. And you? … Well, he’s not getting you.”
Her heart sank, and she knew it was back to her unborn child. “You’re talking about my baby.”
“Yeah, sure as hell I am.” He laughed. “The money I’m getting paid for that sucker will let me get away from here and set up a whole new life.”
Shocked, she stared at him. “For one child?”
“Yeah.” He looked at her for a moment. “I guess you probably wouldn’t sell it to me, would you?”
“No,” she said immediately.
“I didn’t think so. That’s too bad.”
“You know a lot of women are out there …”
“Yeah, probably.” He nodded agreeably. “So, yeah, you’re right. I’ll try that after this. Because honestly? Dealing with you guys is a pain in the ass.”
She stared at him. “Am I supposed to apologize or something?” She stared at him in disgust. “You ripped us out of our lives, held us captive, and you’ve stolen what’s most important to us, and here you are, blaming us?”
“Whatever.” He glared at her. “Come on. We need to get the hell out of here.”
“Fine.” She struggled to her feet, grateful that she’d had some food. Like hell he’d give her food now. Jewel needed help. She had to trust in Corbin to get here in time to save Jewel. Nellie snatched a bottle of water off the counter, as she moved out.
He looked at her and nodded. “Smart. I probably won’t have too much time to get fussy over the next little while.”
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere to hole up safe, until you have your baby.”
She kept her shudder to herself, but it was damn hard. “You know that I’ve still got months to go, right?”
“Yeah, I do. Although there is talk about inducing you, when you are closer, so they can control the delivery.”
She swallowed hard, as he dragged her down the hallway. She hated to leave Jewel behind, but Nellie really wasn’t given a choice. “You could have let me at least bandage her wound.”
“Or I could just pop her once more,” he snapped, with a hard look at her.
Given the choice, she was okay to leave and to keep this asshole away from Jewel. “Did you kill our guard?”
“Unless he’s got a hard head, I doubt he’ll survive.”
“So what’s that now? … Three murders?”
“Once you’ve done one, it really doesn’t make a difference. You’ll get hit the same as if you killed multiple people. And they just get easier.”
“Including your friend. What happened to him?”
“He got soft,” he said in disgust. “And that, I didn’t see coming. I’ll blame you for that.”
“Me? Why?”
“In a way, I shouldn’t have had him look after you. He’s always had a soft touch for pregnant women. He tried to get me to let you walk away, but that wasn’t happening. I tried to explain to him how much the money would make a difference in our lives, but then I realized that, if he’ll be a pain in the ass, the money would make that much more of a difference in my life if I didn’t have to split it.”
“So you shot him?”
“Yeah, I did.” He sneered. “And you know something? I think he saw it coming.”
“Of course he did,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry. He at least seemed to have some compassion.”
“Like that’ll get him far in life,” he snapped.
“How did you guys even meet?”
“In jail. He was a junkie and a dealer. I just brought him up to the big players’ world.”
“What about the babies?”
“I’ll go get them tomorrow, but not until I get you locked up somewhere safe.”
She shook her head at that. “Or you could just let me go.”
He laughed at her. “That is not happening. Believe me. So don’t waste your breath on it.”
She subsided, not wanting to piss him off. He was the kind of guy who would take her down, if he thought that she was playing games with him.
He looked at her and nodded. “Smart choice. I’m not soft, like Frankie. I’m not an asshole, but I’m not soft.”
“No, and you have a plan.”
“Exactly, you got to have a plan in life. It’s losers who don’t. Frankie was like that, and his plan was to get his next fix. Other than that he didn’t give a crap. Look where that got him.”
“Yeah, a one-way ticket to hell.”
“Maybe, if hell is there, I’ll deal with Frankie when it’s my number.”
“You’re prepared to die over something like this?” she asked curiously.
He frowned at her. “I ain’t going to die.”
“Well, the guys dealing with you, … surely they must have a plan to not share profits too.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “You’re a pretty smart cookie,” he murmured. “It is a possibility, isn’t it?”
“It’s a big possibility,” she murmured. “Why would they share when you wouldn’t?” It seemed like it was a really good time to shut up and to stay quiet, so she did.
He didn’t say anything for a long moment, and then he swore. “Well, hell.”
“What?” she murmured.
And then he thought about it some more. “No, they won’t double-cross me right now. They need you.”
“So what’s to stop them from just taking me?” she asked quietly.
He looked at her in horror and then nodded. “That is something that they would do too.” He frowned, his mind racing obviously. “I have to figure this out. I need time.”
“And you will, just stay calm. Get part one of your plan down and then work on part two.”
He laughed at that. “I can see why Frankie liked you.”
“Hey, I’m easy to get along with,” she muttered.
“Yeah, you’ve also got a brain in your head”—he grinned—“and that thing about working on part one, then part two? That’s exactly what I will do.”
She nodded. “Just don’t be so rigid in your plans that you can’t change them.”
He looked at her and frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Something like this, like shooting your partner. Shooting Jewel. Killing Mary,” she explained. “You got to be adaptable. Otherwise, when shit goes wrong, there’s absolutely no way to adjust.” By now they were at his vehicle, and he stuffed her into the front seat.
He nodded. “No, that’s true. First, I got to make sure I’m safe. There’s no point in having money if you can’t spend it.”
He drove in the darkness at a speed that made her very nervous. Several times she clutched the side handle.
“I’m a good driver. Don’t worry about that.”
“Maybe, but any kind of accident and of course …” She put a hand to her belly.
“Right.” And he groaned and slowed down. “I’m not used to thinking about anybody but myself.”
“How’s that worked out for you?” she murmured. “If you’re trying to get a good payout, then you need to take a little bit better care of your cargo.”
He snorted at that. “Or I could just drug you and keep you quiet the whole time.”
She nodded. “Or you could do that. But, of course, then maybe me or the baby or both of us might not survive.”
That shut him up. But she also knew that she was walking on thin ice with him. She wasn’t sure how to get through to him and wasn’t even sure it was possible. He had it in his head that this is what he would do, and she highly suspected that nobody would change his mind. She yawned.
He looked at her and nodded. “Yeah, you were always the one who slept the most.”
“It’s the pregnancy,” she murmured.
“Well, it’s good to know. Just in case I have to grab somebody else who’s pregnant.”
“I thought this case would set you up.”
“It will, but I might need another one in order to set me up better.”
She realized that he just wouldn’t stop. No matter what happened to her, he would do this again and again. And her resolve deepened. “And you know that, the more times you do it, the more chances you have of getting caught.”
“Yeah. Which is also why we have to make sure the payouts are good.”
She couldn’t imagine. “How can you even find people who want to pay for a child like this?”
“That’s why the baby brokers are there.”
“Oh, right. Those brokers who don’t want to split the profits.” He glared at her, and she shrugged. “It’s what you said yourself.”
“No, I said that I don’t want to split the profits with Frankie.”
“Well, you won’t be doing that now. That’s obvious. You killed him. Sure hope he wasn’t a good friend.”
At that, he was quiet for a moment. “Oh, he was.”
“Wow,” she muttered. “I guess you really don’t understand what a friend is.”
“No, he didn’t,” he snapped. “And he made my life a fucking nightmare now.”
“Are you blaming him for that?” she asked curiously.
“Well, it is his fault. If he had just looked after you and not let you go …”
“He didn’t let us go.” She stared at him, hoping to make him suffer—at least a little bit.
“What do you mean? The door was open.”
“No, Jewel picked the lock.” He stared at her in shock. “There was a nail inside our room. I don’t know how she did it, but she picked the lock.” At that, her captor started swearing a blue streak. “Is that why you killed your friend? … Oh, my God.”
He continued to glare at her. “I thought he left the door open for you.”
She wouldn’t let him get away with that, so she shook her head and lied. “No, Jewel picked the lock. And then we just booked it.”
“Jesus Christ, and he told me that he was in the washroom and didn’t know.”
“That would explain why he wasn’t there when we got out.” Then she thought about and added, “Wow, you killed him for nothing. Well, no,” she quickly amended, “you killed him because you didn’t want to split the profits.”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t have done that,” he muttered, “if I knew that he hadn’t let you go.”
She didn’t say anything. She just let that thought roll around in his brain, while he tried to figure things out now because that, in a way, changed everything. “When you thought you had been betrayed, you acted differently.”
He started to swear, slamming his hand against the steering wheel, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he roared.
She didn’t say anything because what could she say? She knew the truth, but she wasn’t telling him. Frankie deserved that much at least, and this asshole deserved to be haunted by the lie. She didn’t even know why she felt a little bit of loyalty toward one of her captors, except he had made it possible for her to escape. When her current kidnapper fell silent, she looked over at him, but he was glaring into the window. Then she yawned again.
“Stop yawning.”
She stared at him. “How am I supposed to do that?” she cried out in exasperation. “I’m pregnant. I need lots of sleep.”
He sneered. “Women had been having babies for thousands of years. Do you think they got a chance to just sit down and rest?”
She stiffened at that. “Probably not, but they weren’t being dragged around and starved either.”
He looked over at her, frowned. “Didn’t you get any food?”
“Not much,” she lied. “Some toast is all there was. How did you find us there anyway?”
“I saw you guys go down that alley, so I waited,” he murmured. “I was already trying to figure out how the hell you got loose in the first place. I had to go plug that leak, and I had the arrangement already for the baby, so I had to go deal with that,” he muttered. “I figured that, as long as you guys were in one place, and you didn’t know you’d been found, it was all good, and I could come back later. So it worked out for a change.”
She nodded. “It did work out. At least for you.”
He snorted. “Yeah, for me, and I don’t give a shit about you.”
“Got it,” she muttered. “Message received. I’m just inventory that you’re trying to keep safe.”
“That’s a good way to look at it. Yeah.” He laughed. “You’re inventory. An asset. That’s that. Don’t ever forget it, bitch.”
As they came up to an intersection, quite a few other vehicles were around. When another vehicle came ripping up behind them, Nellie forced herself to not turn around, but her heart slammed with joy. It was Corbin. She knew it.
When her kidnapper pulled ahead through the intersection, Corbin came right up on his ass. Her kidnapper started swearing again. “What the hell does that fucker think he’s doing?” He picked up speed. He looked over at her. “Hold on. Could be a bumpy ride.”
She was already hanging on to the side of the door. She already knew what was coming. Corbin unleashed meant all kinds of shit would go down.
Leaving Aiden with the four kids and a team racing to Jewel’s side, Corbin immediately picked up the trail from the satellite feed that Hatch had given him. Now Corbin saw the vehicle right ahead. He’d hauled ass to get here as fast as he could. But realizing a passenger was in the front seat and that she appeared to be sitting up, possibly okay, settled something inside him.
He didn’t know when the hell he had started to care, beyond the fact that she was a job, but he did. And something about her appealed in a big way. He would like to take her for a long trip to Hawaii, where they could lie on beaches and talk about life and not discuss all the rest of the shit, but she also had a partner, and that was something that Corbin could not forget.
It felt damn wrong too.
He hated that he was getting possessive about a woman who wasn’t single. That would never be a good deal for him. But, at the moment, all he could think about was getting her free from this current asshole.
She’d been through enough. Seeing her up front in the kidnapper’s vehicle, realizing the guy was taking her someplace, Corbin wanted to just bide his time. Yet, at the same time, he couldn’t let this guy get too far ahead. He quickly called Hatch while he drove. “They’re right in front of me.”
“Okay, now calm down.”
“Yeah, already did. Anybody get to Aiden?”
“Paramedics got there a few minutes ago to check on the kids. Another team is working on Jewel.”
“Good. What about this asshole I have now?”
“It’d be nice if you’d let him lead us to wherever he’s trying to take Nellie.”
“I imagine that will be a safe house of some kind.”
“That’s not a bad thing,” he murmured.
“Or I crash the vehicle right here and now. I grab her and pop him one.”
“Well, you could, but what if something happens to Nellie’s child?”
Corbin groaned.
“And have you seen Jewel’s daughter? Is there a car seat in the vehicle?”
“No, not that I can see.”
“And that’s another reason not to crash that vehicle. You don’t know that Jewel’s daughter is not in the trunk or on the floor or asleep in the back seat or whatever.”
“I know that. I know that.” And Corbin pounded the steering wheel in frustration.
“Stay in control.”
“When have you ever known me not to be in control?”
“Well, this one seems to be pushing your buttons.”
“I hate assholes like this, and you know that.”
“I know.”
“How is Aiden?”
“He’s fine. He’s also pissed off about the kids, but he’s not leaving until they’re taken care of.”
“Yep, that’s good. That’s exactly where he needs to be.”
“Well, according to him, he needs to be on your ass to make sure you don’t do something stupid.”
“I wasn’t planning on doing something stupid,” Corbin said in a hard voice. “But I am planning on getting her away from this asshole.”
“That may be,” Hatch noted, “but we still have one missing child, and, according to what intel we are getting, a couple brokers are involved. Or at least there should be two brokers involved. We’re not getting very much else, so we need your guy alive.”
“I talked to Frankie, the guard, before he died,” Corbin stated. “An exchange was to happen tonight.”
“Right, so we have to find out if anything is left at that import-export warehouse.”
“Didn’t you get an address?”
“I did. We’ve got a team on it right now, but I haven’t had an update yet.” He paused, then said, “Hang on. I’ve got them coming in now.” And, with that, he logged off, only to call Corbin a few minutes later. “No sign of anyone. They’re checking cameras on the closest intersections to try to run them down.”
Not taking a chance of being seen by Nellie’s newest kidnapper, Corbin quickly turned a corner. And then he caught back up with them a block down the road. If nothing else, it should confuse that asshole with Nellie. Corbin was all about that. Anything that would cause a distraction was good. Hatch was right. Corbin didn’t dare crash the vehicle.
He wanted to reach out and just pound this guy into the ground, but they had other priorities right now, and getting Nellie safely away from him was just one of them. And Corbin didn’t want to be the one who talked to Nellie’s father when he found out she’d been taken again.
It pissed him right off to know that. Also, unfortunately, the guard he had set up to watch over Nellie and Jewel tonight wouldn’t make it either. And that was something that he would have to come to terms with too.
