7 Degrees of Alpha (a collection of seven new BWWM, Alpha Male Romances) (63 page)

She looked up when Craig didn’t respond.

There was yet
another
man, and this one had a gun. It was pointed right at her head.

Chapter Fifteen

“Don’t be scared,” Craig told her. He was unnaturally still.

Serenity felt as though he was about to pounce. That made her nervous. She didn’t want him to do anything that might make this new guy pull the trigger.

“Scared? Are you kidding? I’m edging into god-like wrath!” she answered back with fierceness. 

Whirling to face yet another intruder, she demanded, “What the hell do you want? You want to rescue your rapist friend here? You want to rob us or steal from us? No one travels to a lakeside cabin with valuables! Why don’t you just get out of here and leave us alone?”

“Miss Lady, I am truly sorry. Truly. However, we are in a transition period and I can’t allow the police to interfere. I’m going to take my friend off your hands. We’re going to leave and not come back. Honestly, if I could, I would let you turn him over to the police. Unfortunately, I’m not in that position. Even more unfortunately, I’m going to have to tie you and your bodyguard up for the rest of the day and most of the night. I promise you, we will be gone before daylight.” Holding out his free hand he said, “Now, give me that phone.”

Begrudgingly and with little effort to hide her irritation, Serenity gave up the phone. This guy seemed too calm, like this entire situation was a nuisance.

Turning to face Craig more fully, he said, “Look. I can’t fight you. I’m telling you this so you know I’m serious. I’m not going to try to fight you. Do what I ask you to do or I’m going to shoot her in the face.” To prove he meant what he’d said, Melvin swung the gun back toward Serenity and pulled the trigger.

Craig gasped and grabbed his chest. Serenity actually threw herself to the ground! Disregarding the aftermath of the gunshot, Melvin told Craig, “Untie my friend. He is going to return the favor and tie you up. He won’t do the wrong thing and try to touch Miss Lady.” After giving the direction he said, “I’m shooting her on three.” He pointed the gun at Serenity who by now had returned to her feet.

Craig began to untie Chris. Once freed, Chris massaged his wrists and ankles. He was still recovering from his near death experience. Shakily, he tied Craig up with a butterfly loop. Standing, he hauled Craig up and walked him toward the cabin. Serenity held her ground and raised her chin as he walked past them. Melvin indicated she should follow with a wave of the gun.

Once inside, Melvin asked Craig, “Do you need to piss? If so, we will let your lady friend here help with that. Otherwise, you will be making water in your pants because I’m not going to sit here with you. I have to pack and move on down the road. Miss Lady is going to be tied up with you, so she’ll be no good either once we leave.”

Craig shook his head. “I’m good. Let her go to the bathroom and we’ll wait it out together.”

Melvin shrugged. “Dude,” he said while looking at Chris. “Walk her to the bathroom. The door stays open, you keep your ass in the hallway so we can all see you keeping my earlier promise.”

Serenity headed down the hall to handle her business, completely unable to process the past thirty minutes. Everything had changed so quickly. She made short work of her bathroom break and was back in the main room with Craig in moments.

Sitting on the arm of the sofa, Melvin told them, “Look. This is a terrible situation for everybody. Miss Lady, I’m sorry about my beastly ass friend. I hope he didn’t do much more than scare you. It looked like your boyfriend here showed up in the nick of time from the way he had him tied up out there. Now, I don’t want to hurt you. I do not. The thing is, I will. Don’t make me be that guy. Stay here. We will untie you on our way out. We just want to leave. Don’t try to wiggle free and be some kind of shero. Lie down, have a nap, and in a few hours, this will all be over.”

Turning to face Craig, he said, “You. I’m worried about
you
. I am thinking I should probably just kill you and be done with a potential problem. No matter how much I have strayed from the path my folks laid out, I have never killed anyone.  I don’t want to start with a guy who saved his girl from being raped. I could shoot you in the shoulder as a precautionary handicap, but again, I don’t want to do that. For all I know, you could bleed to death during the next several hours. So this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to leave you two tied up. We’re going to secure the doors so you can’t leave. If you get loose and come out the door, you are going to get shot on sight. If you put your head out the window, you are going to get shot. Just chill. Stay inside. Let us leave. Don’t make this worse like my asshole friend did.”

Chris chose that moment to chime in. “I’m about tired of being the
asshole
friend.”

Nerdy, quiet Melvin turned to him and gave him a look so cold it made Chris pause. “You know what, I’m tired of you being the asshole friend too,” he said in a monotone. Standing, he wondered aloud, “Should I mace them? If they’re in here with burning eyes,
that
will make them behave.”

Serenity shook her head as emphatically as possible. “No! We will sit right here. Go pack.”

Melvin waited a moment as if contemplating, then nodded and headed out the door.

Chris followed him. At the doorway as they prepared to leave, Melvin turned around and shot Chris twice in the chest. By the time Chris hit the floor, he had shut the door and continued on his way.

Serenity screamed.

Craig watched with a bored expression on his face and didn’t even flinch, as if unsurprised. Chris was groaning and holding his chest, and rocking back and forth on the floor. Blood was pouring out of the holes in his back.

“This is a lot of blood!” Serenity yelled. She hobbled to the kitchen and grabbed some dish towels. Then she hobbled and hopped back over to the man who had, just an hour earlier, tried to rape her. Once there, she dropped to her knees and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. “Good thing your friend tied my hands in the front,” was all she said while avoiding eye contact with either man—her attacker or savior.

Pretty quickly she realized she couldn’t do much tied up, so she hobbled and hopped back to the kitchen for a knife and went to free Craig. She figured she could cut him loose and he could do the same for her. She didn’t trust that she could cut her own ropes without injuring herself. After much awkward fumbling and cursing the dull knife, she was able to free Craig. He made very short work of his ankle bindings and hers.

“Are your wrists burned?” he asked as he massaged them.

“No, they weren’t on long enough for that,” she said.

“Are you scared?” he asked, looking into her eyes.

“Terrified. So glad you are here. I’m so grateful you came back when you did,” she continued, her breath hitching a bit.

For a moment, she seemed to be on the verge of crying, but he watched her take deep breaths and calm herself. Grimly, he said, “I am too. I barely made it. I should have stayed here instead of leaving this morning.” Turning his head to stare at Chris bleeding and breathing shallowly on the floor, he said, “Let’s deal with this mess.”

After raiding the linen closet, Craig and Serenity cut a set of sheets into strips and packed the wounds. When they were packed firmly with cotton, Serenity held the guy in an upright position while Craig wound a long strip tightly around the big guy’s body to hold it in place.

Looking at his finished work, with which Serenity had so willingly assisted, he asked the guy, “What’s your name?”

Sweating and in an obvious amount of pain, he answered, “Chris.” Looking over at Serenity he said, “I wish I could take it back.”

Looking him directly in the eye, she said, “I wish you could too.”

After a moment of silence, Craig and Serenity dragged Chris over to the sofa and propped him against it. “These cabins don’t have phones. Her cell has been taken and mine is across the lake. I can’t promise that you will get help anytime soon. You are going to have to fight to stay alive. We’ve slowed the bleeding down, but I can’t say what else might be wrong. You could have a punctured lung or be bleeding internally. I need to know how many of you there are and what other weapons he has.”

With some effort, Chris managed to respond, “Just three of us. He doesn’t have any other weapons. I didn’t know he had that one.”

Craig nodded and then asked, “Was the other guy in the woods your partner?”

Chris nodded his head tiredly. “Yeah, he was looking for me. Earlier, he was trying to convince me to go back to the cabin. I should have listened.”

For a moment, Craig’s face was hard as granite and he said, “Yeah. You shoulda.”

Serenity had moved to the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea. Perhaps an odd thing to do, but she couldn’t just stand there and listen to them talk. She needed to do something before she came unraveled. Craig joined her and left Chris lying against the couch. “Look, will you be okay here with him? I think I’m going to go check out the situation down the way.”

Eyes wide and scared, she said, “Alone? With him? No. Not at all. I want to go with you. What if he dies? I don’t want to be here with a dead body. I’ll stay out of your way. I promise to be quiet. But I
won’
t stay in here with him. Plus, you might need help.”

“Let me think a minute,” Craig said. “Serenity, you are just about as soft as a woman can be. You aren’t used to being manhandled. I could tell that from the first night I spent in the bed with you. You are built for the suburbs and soul music, not bar fights and heavy metal. But you are smart, and some backup is better than no backup.”

Nodding with some hesitation, he said, “The only rules are listen and react quickly. I may not have time to repeat myself. If I say get down, do it. If I say run, go!”

At her nod, he turned to retrieve his duffle bag that had been unnoticed by a stressed Melvin. He dug around inside and pulled out several weapons. He belted on some type of survivor vest and holster. The more he packed into the vest and holster, the wider Serenity’s eyes got.

Craig was so busy loading himself down with two pistols, four ammunition cartridges, a knife longer than Serenity’s hand, two smoke bombs, and a grenade that he didn’t notice her shock until she actually gasped and said, “You’ve got a grenade in your overnight bag?”

Grinning, he said, “Well, I was a Boy Scout before I was in the army. I’m always prepared.”

Looking amazed, she struggled to keep her mouth from hanging open. “For what? An invasion?”

Shrugging, he said, “Sometimes.” Having taken the remaining few items out of his bag and securing them in one of his many pockets, he told her, “Go put on some pants and a shirt with long sleeves, preferably dark colors, and some shoes you can run in, if you have them.”

Serenity went to the rear of the cabin and in a wicked rush slid into her dark blue Juicy Couture leisure suit. It was several years old and all the rhinestones had long fallen off. The logo was barely visible because it had been cleaned so often. She pushed her feet into her black Skechers. Her plan had been to spend the weekend reading and going on a few mental adventures, maybe take a walk around the lake, but now she was living an adventure. To be honest, she hoped this was the last one that involved guns being pointed in her direction.

Craig made Serenity wait while he opened the door and exited first. Wasting no time, he called for Serenity in a very low voice. Taking her hand, they headed into the woods toward the cabin where Craig had seen Anthony that morning.

Walking through the woods, sneaking side glances at Craig’s profile, Serenity was embarrassed to discover she was turned all the way on, as in panties wet and everything. Her afternoon had been a rollercoaster of events.
Calm down, girl
, she thought to herself. Who thought about sex in the middle of potential danger? Clearly,
she
did. She couldn’t help it. Muscles flexing, armed to the teeth, looking ferocious and capable and dangerous as hell, he was a walking fantasy. Plus, she already knew he had a dick worth photographing, big and pretty with a perfect mushroom head and straight as an arrow.

Chapter Sixteen

Melvin rushed into the house at breakneck speed. He had run all the way from the woman’s cabin. He burst in to find a panicked Anthony pacing back and forth.

“Where the hell have you been?” Ant screamed. “Chris is tied up and about to be arrested at that lady’s cabin! He tried to jump her apparently, but her boyfriend showed up in time to stop him.”

“I know,” Melvin said.

That stopped Anthony’s jerky circular walk. “You know? How?”

“I know because I followed you not long after you left,” Melvin explained. “I felt bad. Then I heard a lady screaming and I started running. Instead of walking into the situation, I climbed up and watched it all from a tree. I saw you act like you had no idea who Chris was. That was smart. I just left Chris down there with them. He’s dead. I shot him. They’re both tied up. We have to leave now. Forget the equipment. We can sell the batch I made last night. Everything else is a loss. They won’t stay tied up for long, and we need to get the hell out of here as fast as possible.”

“The hell you mean you shot Chris and he’s dead?!” Anthony yelled, a stunned look on his face. How did they go from an argument to rape and murder in the space of one hour? How could Melvin just casually say he had killed their friend? Their friend since elementary school was dead.
Chris was dead.
It echoed in his head like an out-of-tune melody. He wanted to vomit or pull his hair out of his head. This lifestyle had just ended…like
right now.

Melvin stopped and said, “We don’t have time for this! We’ve got to leave or we’re going to jail today! Chris was a fucking maniac. He has been for a while. He took a walk in the woods and decided to rape some chick minding her business. We couldn’t keep that guy around. So you can help me load the car and get the hell out of here with our ingredients and fresh batch, or you can stay here. I’m leaving!”

Anthony moved through the house, gathering up evidence of their presence. He dumped everything in the heavy duty trash bags he’d found. Then he rushed through wiping down as many surfaces as possible. He didn’t have time to vacuum. He would just hope whatever cops they had out here didn’t try too hard. It was a small town, so they probably didn’t have that kind of forensic equipment. He wished they had time to burn the trash. At least it was all food refuse. He had washed the vodka bottles before dumping them.

Melvin was busy loading the car with the remaining ingredients. He mumbled to himself, “We should be able to unload the current product once we get back to our old stomping grounds.”

The only thing he was worried about was if it had been a good idea to tell Ant that Chris was dead. For a moment, it looked as if a meltdown was about to start. Melvin was glad Anthony had pulled it together. He was also sorry Chris had turned into a rapist. He might make and sell drugs, but that had an actual market. People wanted to get high. Women didn’t want to get raped.

Anthony and Melvin were doing a final walk through the cabin, desperately checking for anything that could identify them. After assuring themselves that everything that could’ve been disposed of had been, and everything that should’ve been wiped down was free of prints, they exited. Anthony put a broken brick in the trash bag and threw it in the lake. It sank. He joined Melvin at the car and they got in, looked at each other, and exhaled. Anthony put the key in the ignition and turned. Nothing. Blinking, he pulled the key out, reinserted it, and turned again. Still nothing. This time he looked at Melvin while he tried to start the car. Without a word they both got out. Anthony popped the hood. They stood there looking at a tangled mess of wires.

Together, almost in harmony they said, “Chris.”

Chris had often told them they underestimated him. It seemed he’d been right. In order to insure that Anthony didn’t just up and drive off, Chris had disconnected several wires. Neither of them had a clue about cars. That just wasn’t their thing. If they had known about cars, they would have known they could have just reconnected the battery and the fuel pump fuse. It wasn’t that big of a deal. They didn’t know, though.

As they stood there with a sick feeling growing in their stomachs, they heard a cheerful voice call out a question.

“Car trouble fellas?” Craig asked with a grin too wide and full of teeth to be considered friendly. He was standing there looking like he was going on a bear hunt. His lady friend was standing to his right holding a pistol that looked too big for her, but her aim was steady and she wasn’t blinking.

“We are just trying to get out of here,” Anthony said.

“We see,” Serenity said.

Melvin just watched and tried to figure out what to do. His gun was not in his hand, and the guy with the unholy grin was armed to the teeth. Melvin was pretty sure if he reached to scratch his nose, he might wind up with an extra hole in his body. There was no point trying to pull a gun right now. Negotiation was the key.

“I know you are feeling a bit angry, but we haven’t hurt you,” he said. “The guy who tried to hurt you is dead. I only tied you up so we could get away before you called the cops. Let’s call it even, and we can all go our separate ways.” He figured it was a long shot, but he had to try.

“How about this?” Craig suggested. “How about we tie
you
up? I’ll fix your car, and we load you two and your wounded friend into the backseat for a drive into town. Then we’ll drop you off with the cops. They will get him some medical attention and put you behind bars. Or, you could pull your weapon out of your pocket. I think we both know though, if you pull that gun out of your pocket I’m going to shove it down your throat.”

Melvin and Anthony wanted to put up a fight, but even if they somehow managed to overpower, disarm, and subdue two armed adults, what would they do next? They had no car. Stealing a boat wasn’t going to get them far. It seemed they had only delayed their arrests.

“I’m going to pull out my cell phone so you can call the cops, and they can come pick us up. I’m not going to ride into town with Chris lying across my lap bleeding,” Melvin said.

“Do it.
Slowly
,” Craig said.

With a resigned sigh, Melvin tossed his phone over to Craig and sat down on the now closed hood of the car. He had felony weight meth in the car. He had shot his friend. He had some time coming, even as a first-time offender. But he had money for a lawyer so maybe he could keep it under ten years.

Anthony leaned against the car, lost in similar thoughts. This seemed so anticlimactic, waiting by the side of the lake for the police to come and take them away from here, with a wailing ambulance carrying their friend to the local hospital. No big shoot out. No dramatic confrontation. Just the slow passing of his last free day for a while. He thought,
Fuck it. Maybe I won’t get more than a decade. After all, I didn’t make the drugs or shoot anybody.

They were both delusional.

Twenty minutes passed silently. The police arrived, no sirens. The ambulance followed, lights flashing. A tall, lean man with the most erect posture Serenity had ever seen stepped out of the cruiser. Before walking up he said, “Ma’am, would you mind lowering your weapon?”

Embarrassed for the second time that day, Serenity said, “Sorry,” and put it on the ground.

As soon as Serenity had put the gun down, the officer approached and she noticed he had a toothpick tucked behind his ear. No sooner had she seen it that he reached for it and tucked it in his mouth. Sticking out his hand he said, “Sheriff Smart. I’m sorry to meet you under these circumstances. It seems my boy has been cleaning up a mess.” Then looking at his son, he said, “I thought you retired to get away from police work.”

With a heavy sigh, Craig said, “Hi, Dad.”