Heller’s Decision (49 page)

“Nah, I knew
we’d do better than the kid if we were patient. This tasty piece of
arse here is Heller’s whore. Much better to deprive him of his
number one cocksucker than some dumb kid. I always say, hit a man
where it really hurts.”

“Bah, you’re
biased. You’ve never liked kids.”

“Snotty little
terrorists, most of them. Tell me I’m wrong about that.”

“Please let me
go.”

“
Shut
up!
All I can say is that she’d have to be a world-class
cocksucker to make up for being such a whiny bitch.”

“Chicks can’t
whine when their mouths are stuffed with meat.” They both
laughed.

“Why are you
doing this?” I asked, lying still for a while, frustrated and spent
from all of my fruitless struggling. “I’m sure there’s been some
kind of mistake. I don’t even know you people.”

One of the men
laughed again nastily. “Don’t worry about that, sweetheart. You’ll
be getting to know us very well soon enough. We’ll make sure of
that.”

I kept quiet
for a while, trying to listen for anything that might give me a
clue as to the identity of my charming escorts. I was fairly
confident it was not a staggering coincidence that the two men had
sat in their car outside the Warehouse waiting for an opportunity
to snatch one of us, at the very same time Chris Kirnin’s wife and
child were holed up inside. It was clearly an act of revengeful
retaliation. I doubted there was anything I could say that would
deter them from this course of action, so my best bet was to make
sure I came through the ordeal as unscathed as possible.

“Thank God!
She’s finally learned to keep her mouth shut. Silence from her is
especially golden.”

I knew one of
the men’s names was Joe and it wasn’t long before I discovered the
other’s was Noel. That was good – anything I learned about them
could be useful. Though a bit panicked, I tried to think
strategically. I didn’t know what had happened to my handbag, but
it was probably back in my car – most likely stolen by now. I had
no phone and no money, not an enviable situation to find myself in,
but something I currently had in common with Niq. My thoughts of
him, stranded and waiting for me to pick him up, growing more
anxious with every passing minute, weren’t happy. Frustrated at my
inability to let him, or anybody, know that I wasn’t on my way, I
struggled anew at my bindings, achieving nothing but cutting into
my wrists and ankles.

The car slowed
down and turned, coming to a halt a minute later. The driver turned
off the engine and I heard a garage door closing.

“Out you get,”
said Noel in an uninterested voice, as if he abducted women all day
long – and maybe he did? It could have been his hobby for all I
knew.

I groped around
cautiously, fingers outstretched to feel for the edge of the seat.
I didn’t want to fall out of the car.
Tsking
with impatience
at my sluggish rate of movement, he slipped his arms under my
armpits and dragged me from the back seat.

“Shit, she’s
heavy.”

“I am not! I’m
just tall, that’s all!”

He shut the
door and propped me against the car for stability, while he bent
down to untie my ankles. As soon as they were freed, I kicked
upwards, cracking into his chin with my shoe. I shambled off in the
direction where I thought the garage door was located, with all the
grace of Frankenstein’s monster. It was an ambitious move, doomed
to failure. Still blinded by the hood and with my hands behind my
back, I’d barely taken six steps when I ran into Joe.

“Thanks for the
laugh,” he chuckled. “Most idiotic thing I’ve seen all year.”

“It’s all right
for you to laugh,” moaned Noel. “You didn’t get a mouthful of her
shoe.”

They took an
arm each and frogmarched me through a doorway.

“We’ve got
her!” Joe yelled out.

“Good. Take her
to the guest room.”

I was led
somewhere, then through another doorway. Hands pushed me until I
fell down on to a timber chair. The men bound my ankles to its legs
and briefly freed my arms before retying them to the chair behind
me. The hood was whisked off, leaving me blinking madly in the
light.

Kirnin sat on
the bed in front of me, grinning. He stank of alcohol, and his eyes
were red-rimmed with excess or tiredness. He was even more brutish
and unattractive than I remembered.

“I don’t know
what you think you’re going to achieve by kidnapping me,” I
derided, determined to show a bit of false bravado.

“This is what
you call a hostage exchange, stupid. I’ll get my family back and
I’ll get Heller’s attention. This time it can be him who concedes
to me.” He nodded his head, a snarling smile stretching across his
fleshy lips. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Heller would
never concede anything to a loser like you. You’re dreaming if you
think he will.”

Kirnin’s smile
turned nasty. “Oh, I’m sure he’ll come to see things my way,
especially if it involves the safety of his little girlfriend.”

I didn’t know
whether or not to tell him that Heller wasn’t even around at the
moment. I didn’t want to jeopardise Kirnin’s consideration of me as
a useful bargaining tool, but neither did I want to anger him when
Heller proved unresponsive, as he surely would. So I stalled.

“You’re
pathetic.”

He backhanded
me, a ring on his finger gashing my cheek. Blood instantly trickled
into my mouth. Kirnin stood and looked down at me with
satisfaction. “Good. Gag the bitch. It’s time to take some photos.
And rough her up a bit more, but not too much.”

“Heller’s going
to kill you,” I said defiantly, even though my heart hammered at an
unhealthy rate.

His ugly visage
twisting with anger, he struck out with his fist into my eye, the
force so strong, I toppled backwards in the seat even as I cried
out, hitting my head on the ground. Dazed, I lay on the carpet, my
eyes fluttering up at the ceiling.

“You keep your
mouth shut from now on. Pick her up and gag her.”

“Geez, lighten
up, Kirnin. That was unnecessary,” dared Joe, as he and Noel
struggled to set me back upright.

“Did I ask for
your opinion?” Kirnin snapped.

“Heller’s going
to kill you,” I repeated, tears streaming from my eyes.

He backhanded
me again, throwing my head to the side at the impact and ripping at
my bottom lip. More blood ran into my mouth.

“Heller’s going
to kill you.”

He curled his
hands into fists. “Gag the bitch before I hit her again.”

“Heller’s going
to kill you,” I repeated, my voice increasingly fainter each time
with pain.

He punched a
hole in the wall with his fist. “
Shut the fucking bitch up!
”
he raged, storming out of the room.

I would have
called after him, but Noel gagged me, none too gentle about it
either. They left me alone for about five minutes, which I spent
wondering if my eye socket was broken. It hurt so badly.

The two men
returned with a camera. Noel took a number of photos of me from
different angles. I was pretty sure they weren’t going to be pics
I’d want included in any modelling portfolio I assembled.

Noel left the
bedroom with the camera, presumably to upload the photos to send
them to Heller. Joe remained behind to keep me company. Lucky
me.

“Are you in
pain?” he asked.

I lethargically
nodded my hanging head. The adrenaline pumping through my body had
burnt up, replaced by pain – so much pain. I was suddenly
exhausted, hardly able to sit upright. I wanted to be at home, in
my bed. Tears of injured self-pity spilled from my eyes, even
though I could feel my left eye puffing closed, reducing my
vision.

I barely
noticed Joe leaving, but he swiftly returned with a glass of water
and a couple of painkillers. Considering he was a thug working for
my sworn enemy, I thought that was rather decent of him.

“It’s not much,
but it might help dull the pain a litle,” he said, untying my
gag.

“Thank you.” I
sucked up the tablets off his palm and he held the water to my
lips. I managed to take a mouthful, though a lot of it dribbled
down my chin on to my blood-splattered clothes.

He regagged me
and left me alone again. Nobody came into the room for a long
while, though I could hear people moving around the house. At one
stage, a car drove away and then returned. The light faded from the
part of the sky I could see through the window, evening setting in.
There were no lights on in the room, so I sat in the dense
darkness, my face screaming with pain, my muscles cramped from
holding the same position for so long. My butt was numb, I was
thirsty and I desperately needed a pee.

For a moment I
was blinded, instinctively looking away from the glare when the
door opened and the light switched on. Joe cleared a space on the
dresser and deposited a tray containing a bottle of unchilled water
and a small cheeseburger from a fast food chain. He undid my gag
and the bindings around my wrists and ankles.

I reached for
the water, gulping half of it down in one go.

“Do you need
the bathroom?”

“Yes,
please.”

“I’ll escort
you.”

I stood
unsteadily, my legs wobbly. I rubbed my wrists to encourage the
blood flow to return, even though my skin was raw and stinging
there from where I’d struggled against the bindings in the car. Joe
walked me out to the hallway to a small extra bathroom that was
simply fitted with shower, basin and toilet. I went to close the
door and he blocked me.

“Leave it
open.”

“No! At least
give me the dignity of some privacy.”

He shut the
door halfway, and turned away, allowing me the barest amount of
discretion. I almost smiled to myself as he stood patiently at the
door, forced to listen to my torrential pee. All finished, I took
some time to dab at my facial wounds with damp tissues, wiping off
crusted blood and a few fresh trickles that talking again had
re-opened.

All the while,
my eyes roamed the room desperately looking for something I could
use as a weapon. A small row of miniature toiletries lined up
neatly next to the basin, probably collected on various visits to
hotel rooms. Blocking Joe’s view of them with my body, I slipped a
shampoo into my pocket.

“Hurry up,” he
said, tapping one foot. “You’re taking forever.”

“Bet you don’t
say that to your wife,” I sassed back, though it was the last thing
I felt like doing. It just seemed right to show them some fighting
Heller’s
spirit.

He grunted an
inarticulate sound. “As if I’d dare. That woman’s tongue is sharp
enough to slice steel.”

Back in the
room and feeling that I’d sat for quite long enough, I remained
standing, sipping at my water and making brave attempts to swallow
the cold, congealed burger.

“What’s going
on?” I asked between mouthfuls.

“Nothing,
that’s what. A big, fat nothing. Kirnin hasn’t heard a word from
anyone at
Heller’s
since he sent the photos. Nothing even
from Heller himself.” He didn’t pay me much attention, flipping
through the channels on the small TV mounted to the wall. “Looks as
though they’ve forgotten about you,” he added, casually cruel.

“Oh.” If my
spirits hadn’t been down already, they would have plummeted on
hearing that. Surely
someone
there must be worried about
me?

“Yep, take it
from me. Guys like Heller are bad news.”

“Guys like
Kirnin are worse news,” I retorted, stung.

“True, true.
But the Hellers of the world are bad enough, trust me. Full of
themselves, not a care for anyone else.”

“Heller’s not
like that.”

Not deeming
that defence even worthy of a response, he stood from where he’d
been reclining on the bed and nodded towards my empty tray. “You
finished?”

“Please don’t
tie me up again. I want to lie down. I’m really in a lot of pain.
I’d like to try to get some sleep.” He hesitated, so I tried
another tack. “Rose and Marcus aren’t tied up.” I had no way of
knowing if that remained true, and in fact I strongly suspected
that if Clive had hunted them down to my flat, they’d now be
trussed like suckling pigs on a spit. But Joe didn’t need to know
that.

“Okay, I
suppose it would be all right for you to lie down. It seems kinda
cruel to keep you tied up all the time. I didn’t join security to
torture people, especially women.”

“Why don’t you
just let me go then? I’ve never done anything wrong to Kirnin.”

“Maybe not, but
Heller has wronged Kirnin, including his wife, if you know what I
mean.”

“I’m not sure I
do.”

“Heller and
Kirnin’s wife.” He lowered his voice. “I heard they had a fling
when Heller first came on to the security scene. She took it
seriously, fell hard for him. Even promised to leave Kirnin for
him. But Heller wasn’t interested. It was just a one-nighter for
him. He fucked her and moved on to the next woman.”

And the next
one, and the next one, rinse and repeat
. I wasn’t surprised at
hearing Joe’s gossip. It was entirely reminiscent of Heller’s
normal style of ‘relationship’.

“He’s a
one-woman man now,” I declared, not confident that was even
remotely true.

Joe raised an
eyebrow, as if sensing my slight doubt. “Are you sure about
that?”

No
, I
thought, but as I didn’t really feel like talking about private
matters with one of my kidnappers, I ignored him and turned down
the sheets on the bed, crawling in.

When Joe went
to fetch more painkillers I used the time to punch a hole through
the lid of the shampoo bottle with the tip of one of the pens I
found in the top drawer of the dresser. That would allow me to
force out a stream of shampoo, providing better aim for its use as
a weapon.