Unbreakable (8 page)

Alex

Gunshots.

Screams.

I jerked awake, certain I had heard both. But the tiny meeting room was dark, quiet. But for the distant whir of a helicopter circling above the bank, one would be hard-pressed to believe we were in the midst of a robbery. The other hostages slept fitfully.

I lay back down and heard a
thump-thump, thump-thump
in my ear. I had fallen sleep with my head against Cory’s shoulder and had woken to find myself huddled against his chest. His arm was slung around me, holding me.

I nearly extricated myself but changed my mind.
I’m marrying Drew,
but I have to survive this first.

A snide voice spoke up in my mind.
Good one, counselor
.
No jury in the world would convict you.

I squeezed my eyes shut, as if that could silence a voice in my mind—one that sounded suspiciously like Lilah. It was true anyway. I felt safe with Cory and the fact that I was engaged to someone else didn’t do a thing to change that. Not in here.

Even so, guilt tried to creep under my skin to ruin my rest. Drew was not here. Not in the bank and not even in my thoughts.
When Cory had asked why I’d been about to cry, the answer was too painful, too embarrassing, too confusing.
Because I wasn’t thinking about Drew at all. And shouldn’t I be? Shouldn’t he be occupying my every thought? Shouldn’t I be yearning to get back to him? To be held and loved by him?

I felt wrung out, tired of the extreme highs of terror followed by extreme lows of boredom, interspersed with conversations with Cory that left me thrilled and guilty at the same time. It was a tedious roller coaster and I wanted to get off.

And never see Cory again?

I didn’t want to think about that just then and I definitely didn’t want to acknowledge the faint pang of loss that echoed in my heart for it.

I snuggled closer to Cory and felt an answering tightening of his arm around my shoulders. The top of my head fit perfectly under his chin and the steady pulse of his heart was reassuring.

I started to drift off again, but Cory shifted.

“Sorry,” I whispered. “Am I keeping you awake?”

“No. Well, yes,” he whispered back. “But it’s a good thing.”

“What do you mean?”

His chest expanded under my cheek as he heaved a sigh. “This isn’t the time and it sure as hell isn’t the place, but…it’s kind of nice to hold you like this. It’s been awhile, is all.”

“I know what you mean.”
I know
exactly
what you mean.

“Georgia…she isn’t one for physical affection. Doesn’t like to be touched or held.”

“But you do.” I shifted so I could see his face better as we talked, and my view was of his profile, his jaw and cheek, which had a two-day growth of stubble. I realized it had been ages since I’d been this close to a man, to smell his scents, to feel the warmth of his skin. All of Cory’s aura or presence enveloped me in something so foreign from Drew. A different kind of masculinity that brought to mind salty ocean air and warm sand instead of sterile offices and air conditioning.

“Yeah, I do.” Cory laughed, a low, sexy grumble that started deep in his chest. “Yeah, I’m a sap, I guess. I like the whole bit: handholding, cuddling—”

“Cuddling?” I teased.

“Yep. Don’t get me wrong, I like the other stuff too…The stuff that comes before cuddling. I like that a lot,” he laughed sheepishly. “I don’t know, it goes back to the marriage stuff. The partnership. I ran around a lot when I was younger and I guess I got it out of my system. Or maybe Callie settled me down. Either way…” He shrugged. “Like I said, I’m a sap. For all of it.”

“Me too,” I began then stopped. “Or at least, I think I would be. Drew and I are so busy. We hardly ever go anywhere that’s not work-related, and…”

He didn’t push me, but waited silently for me to continue or not. I chose not.

“Anyway,” I said, “nothing wrong with being a sap. It’s sweet.”

The laughter faded out of Cory’s whispered words. “Yeah, well being ‘sweet’ has its downsides and Georgia knows them all. She texts me all the time, mostly stuff about Callie, of course. But now and then, she’ll get in this kick where she’s overly friendly. She’ll start adding ‘I love you’ to every text for no reason. Like, ‘You need to pick up C at one o’clock. Love you.’” He shook his head.

“And I fall for it every damn time. I think, okay she wants to get back together, and she knows that’s what I think. So I’ll go over to her place and we’ll all hang out—her, Callie, and me, and it’s great. It feels like we’re…whole. But as soon as Callie goes to bed, I realize what a mistake it all is. Georgia and I…we have nothing to talk about and we just end up having sex and it’s not good. At least not from my standpoint. No kissing. Just me scratching an itch for her, I guess. Because the next morning she starts talking about us not making the same mistakes over and over, and how I’m not willing to do the right thing—which is get a degree—and she’s not willing to ‘risk too much for something that probably won’t pan out’ and I get mad and ask her why the hell she wanted me over, and she asks why I came, and it just…falls apart. The same cycle of bullshit, over and over.”

“Do you still love her?” I asked slowly, marveling in the back of my mind that I was asking this highly personal question of the guy I’d been standing behind in a bank line not thirty hours ago.

“Yes and no,” Cory answered. “She’s Callie’s mom. I’ll always love her for that, in some way. And God knows I’d try to make it work for Callie’s sake, because if there’s love there, even a little bit, then there’s a chance, right? That’s what I keep telling myself anyway.”

“Sounds like Georgia—” …
is a manipulative bitch,
“—doesn’t quite know what she wants either.”

“I think she knows exactly what she wants, and the way I am is not it.” He sighed. “Sorry for dumping all that on you. It’s the first time I’ve talked about it, actually. Pretty messed up, I know.”

“You’re trying to do the right thing.”

“Yeah, well, that’s pretty much all I can do, right?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I murmured. “I feel like it’s been a long time since I’ve done the right thing.”

He craned his neck to look at me directly, and I could feel the intense warmth of his gaze. “Hey, I’m sorry I gave you shit about your money, and not having kids. I was way out of line. I just feel like…”

“Like what?” I asked in a small voice.

“Like I’ve known you a long time. Kind of weird, right? But that’s why I talked for about a hundred hours about my shit with Georgia just now. I don’t normally blast off like that. You’re very easy to talk to, Alexandra.”

He smiled that ridiculously charming smile of his again, though the emotion behind his eyes went much deeper than a silly grin. I felt it pull me in until all I could see was myself reflected in the brown velvety depths, and the me I saw there was very different than the me I contended with in the mirror every morning. I looked softer, warmer, but he didn’t know the truth. He couldn’t possibly know. I could hardly acknowledge it myself.

I sat up, reluctantly extricated myself from his embrace, from the false reflection. My hands twisted in my lap as the words welled up in me, bursting to get out.

“I’m having doubts.”

“Doubts about what?”

“Getting married.”

A pause. “Okay.”

“It’s probably just cold feet. Probably nothing. It just feels, sometimes, like Drew and I got engaged because it was the logical thing to do and not because we…”

I heaved a breath. The guilt was fast turning to relief, to get it all out.

“We’ve been together since college,” I said, calmer now. “UCLA. I had just broken off a serious relationship and Drew was there, not pushing anything, just being my friend.”

I shook my head. “I can see it so clearly now, even then…Even then he was slow and not…passionate. I thought he was giving me time to get over my break-up, and after we became a couple, I thought the infrequency of our intimacy was because we were busy. I didn’t really question it. Drew and I just made sense to everyone, including us. We had the same goals…we both went onto get our law degrees from UCLA too. Becoming engaged was inevitable. A decision or business transaction.

“And it’s not his fault. I’m just as culpable. The night we became engaged, we discussed our life goals, we made agreements—like about not having kids—and then he slipped this ring on my finger the way other people might take up a pen and sign a contract. And I smiled and said yes. We kissed—briefly—and then he said he had some work to finish up before bed. So I…” I stopped and looked at Cory who was listening intently. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

The crooked smile returned, faintly. “I can’t either.”

“There’s not a lot to say, anyway. I went to bed to wait for him. And waited. And waited, and waited, until I fell asleep. I think he came up from the home office around two. The next morning, we got up, and went about our day as if nothing had changed. And I guess it didn’t, except now there’s an engagement party and a wedding to plan. Distractions from my work and not much else.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Cory said. “Are you telling me you and he don’t…I mean, he didn’t…even after you became
engaged
? Is that typical?” My silence was answer enough and he whistled low between his teeth. “Is he crazy?”

“No—”

“He has to be. To have you and not…” He gestured helplessly. “Jesus, Alex, you’re gorgeous. Smart. And so incredibly sexy…”

“You think I’m sexy?” I asked. I couldn’t help it. Call me pathetic, but it had been years since Drew had even come close to saying something like that. I felt a thrill race down my spine just to hear the words.

“Are you kidding? You’re stunning. If you and I…I mean, if we were…” Cory shifted against the wall and laughed. “You can tell me to shut up and put me out of my misery. Any time now.”

I didn’t laugh. I didn’t even smile. The pain—a strange, hollow pain I’d refused to acknowledge existed—swelled in me, like an old wound.

“I don’t want you to shut up,” I told him. “It’s nice to hear. I’ve gone for so long not hearing things like that, not being touched or being intimate with someone else for months on end. I do yoga constantly, and I tell myself it’s to help relieve the stress of my job. And that’s mostly true. But I also think I do it because I’m trying to remain in touch with my body. To breathe life into it, to move blood through it, because I feel like I inhabit only my brain, and my body feels so cold and empty. If that makes any sense.”

“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “I get it.”

I blinked, his low, gravelly voice pulling me from that strange reverie. What I’d said…I didn’t realize I’d spoken the truth—a deep, buried truth—until just this moment. I didn’t have words to put to the aching feeling of loss I felt every single night when I went to bed beside my fiancé, untouched but for an affectionate peck on the cheek, until now. I’d said it all out loud, but not to Lilah or another close friend, but to Cory Bishop, a man I’d just met, and shame twisted a knot in my stomach.

“I shouldn’t be talking like this. Drew is a wonderful man. There’s not an unkind bone in his body. Any woman would be lucky to have him.
I’m
lucky to have him. Maybe I’m just selfish or spoiled, but I want…”

“What?” Cory’s eyes bored into mine. “What do you want, Alex?”

In fractions of a second, my imagination took off and ran wild. The strong, workman’s body I admired in Cory was now naked and strong in my mind’s eye. The lines of his muscles were sharp and deep, his smooth skin darkened here and there with tattoos—I was positive he had a few—and those large hands of his…I saw them—
felt
them—on my body, touching, grabbing, taking. And I was there, with him, my head thrown back, my hair messy and spilling down for him to tangle in his fists. I was his, captured and used by him in any way he wanted. And there was nothing sexier, nothing that felt so good than to submit to him, to let him do whatever he pleased, because letting him do as he pleased was precisely what
I
wanted…

I snapped to, and nearly gasped aloud.
Dear God, what the hell is wrong with me?

I scrambled to remember what I had been saying. “Nothing. No, I don’t want anything. To get back to sleep, maybe. I’m starting to get a little punchy.”

He nodded once, a strange, inscrutable expression on his face, and for one terrifying moment I imagined he’d seen himself in my daydream. Then he smiled gently and tapped his shoulder. “Be my guest.”

I wondered if I could trust myself, but a cold, rational thought told me that my erotic daydream about Cory was the product of fear and exhaustion, and nothing more.

I inclined my head toward his shoulder, but he enveloped me back in his arms instead, and I knew at once that the sense of pure contentment I felt being there had nothing to do with being scared or tired. Nothing at all.

Cory

For the first time since the ordeal began, I actually slept. I slept holding Alex, and woke with her safe in my arms. It was the best sleep a man could hope for, locked in a bank with armed madmen under unforgiving fluorescent lighting and a concrete slab for a bed. Damn this woman and damn my stupid heart for glomming on to every negative word she’d spoken about her fiancé the night before.

Her fiancé. Speaking of madmen. He’d have to be certifiable to sleep next to this woman every night and just…what? Do nothing? Insanity.

My arm tightened around her and a thoroughly base thought crept into my brain.
She’s mine. In here, at least, she’s mine.

Of course, that wasn’t true. Alex didn’t
belong
to anyone but herself. I almost laughed out loud to think what she’d say to such a declaration of ownership. I could see her brow wrinkle in a scowl and a wry smile would turn up one corner of her mouth, and then she’d let me have it, unspooling some big lecture on the pigheadedness of men, and I would just listen to her talk and talk…

I gave myself a shake and then swore under my breath. I was too far gone if I was fantasizing about her
lecturing
me.

This has to stop. You’re deluding yourself and when this is all over, it’s going to wreck you if you don’t get a grip now.

I nodded, vowing to keep my distance more. To talk less about personal shit—Christ, had I really told her how I liked to
hold hands
?—and focus more on getting out. Starting now.

Slowly, I tried to extricate myself from Alex, who lay across my chest, but she stirred and woke up. A sleepy little smile touched her lips as she sat up, and goddamn, my heart soared at the sight.

“Morning,” she whispered.

“Morning,” I replied and before I knew what was happening, the small space between us vanished and my lips were on hers. She didn’t move or shy away, but I heard a breathy little gasp as my lips brushed hers, so softly…

…and then the sound of a door slamming open came from down the hall. Adrenaline surged through my bones, making me jump.

There was a commotion outside, like a storm rolling our way. My heart leapt to my throat and I disentangled myself from Alex’s clutching hands as she tried to stop me from getting up. I crept to the window and peeked out and to the left. Dracula, Frankie, and Wolfman were outside the door to the office beside ours. They barged inside but right before they did, I caught sight of a cell phone in Drac’s hands.

I heard screams, cries, muffled cursing, and then I knew. My heart dropped from my throat to somewhere near my groin and I hurried to where Amita lay curled in a ball, still asleep.

“Amita!” I hissed. “Wake up!”

“What…?”
“Your Bluetooth. Give it to me.” I glanced over my shoulder. Any second now… She tore the dead earpiece off and handed it to me.

“Don’t say a word,” I told her.

“I don’t—”

“None of you,” I hissed at the group. “
Not one word!”
I shoved the earpiece into my back pocket and sat down. Hard. I felt it break—and bruise my ass in the process—just as the door slammed open.

Frankie, Wolfman, and Dracula himself stormed in. All wore their masks pushed up on their heads. Remaining anonymous was clearly no longer a priority. The other hostages woke, some stifling cries or gasps.

Dracula scanned the room with his empty eyes. “Lost and found calling,” he said in his dead voice. He flipped the cell phone in his hand over and over like a deck of cards. “Anyone lose a phone?”

I eased a breath. Either Drac was fucking with us, or he really didn’t know who owned that cell phone. Thankfully, my group kept their mouths shut. Especially Amita. I didn’t dare look at her but I mentally willed her not to say a word. No matter what.

Drac crouched down on his heels in the middle of the small office, eyeing each one of us in turn, while Frankie hopped excitedly from one foot to the next. Obviously, he’d had another fix of whatever he was hooked on. Wolfman stood sentry in the doorway. His mask was off too and he watched the scene with a tight expression on his face. His dark eyes glinted nervously.

Dracula held up the iPhone between two fingers. It was slim and new—the latest model, with a plain, glossy black cover. “You’re my last room. And I have to tell you, my patience has just about run the fuck out.”

Frankie snickered behind him, his pocked face stupid with glee, his tongue lolling like a dumb dog.

“The other night,” Drac said, “my monsters were digging through our treasure and noticed something peculiar about this phone. It seemed a ghost was talking on it. Imagine that?”

To my far left, Sylvie moaned. I didn’t blame her. Drac’s casual, conversational words combined with his toneless voice were absolutely chilling. To my immediate left, Alex found my hand and squeezed.

“Curious, my guy picked it up and listened, and lo and behold, turns out the ghost was speaking to the LAPD. Like the dumb, witless fuck he is, my guy didn’t keep his mouth shut but alerted the authorities to his presence. They tried to engage with him, but he had the brains enough to at least hang up. He brought it to me but—keep in mind he’s a dumbfuck—a little bit too late. The cock-sucking battery died. Ain’t that a steaming pile?

“So here’s my dilemma, kiddies,” Drac mused, his jaw twitching with sudden rage.

I watched his dead eyes become flatter, more empty.
Here
was the shark whose eyes were rolling back in his head ahead of the kill.

“I need to know who’s been spilling their guts to the cops
AND I NEED TO KNOW RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!”

Drac was facing Tanya when he shot forward, his bellowed words still ringing in our ears, and snaked his arm around her in a headlock with the same uncanny speed as his sudden outburst. Tanya let out a choked cry and then made no sound at all as Drac’s forearm tightened under her chin. Her face turned red, her mouth worked soundlessly, and she clawed helplessly at his iron grip.

Frankie danced behind. “Yeah! Yeah! Do it, bro! Kill the bitch!”

“I just might, Frankie,” Drac said, his voice returning to its flat-dead tone. He glanced at each of us and laid his free hand on Tanya’s cheek. “One little twist…”

In the movies, the action hero always leaps forward boldly, his voice deep and strong, as he tells the villain—against whom he is completely out-numbered and out-gunned—to unhand the girl.

I was no action hero.

My hands trembled and I was about ready to piss myself. I wasn’t ready to die but I couldn’t live with myself if my cowardice got someone else killed either.

“It’s mine,” I said, my voice neither bold nor strong. Alex’s fingernails were digging the back of my hand now. I knew she was trying to shut me up, but the pain actually helped focus me. “It’s mine,” I said again, stronger this time. “I was on the phone to the cops.”

“Bullshit!” Frankie stomped his foot. “He’s lying. To protect one of the bitches, I’ll bet. The red-haired one. Or the Mata Hari.”

Tanya’s face was verging on purple now, her eyes bulging, her legs scrabbling weakly at the floor.

“I swear, it’s mine, and I can prove it,” I said. “Now let her go.
Let her go.
”

Drac dropped his arms and Tanya slithered to the ground, coughing and gasping, clutching her neck. Sylvie, showing some real bravery, crawled toward her and helped her move away from Drac, who had his dead-fish gaze fixed on me.

“Well?”

I inhaled but my breath got lost somewhere between my mouth and lungs, and my heart was jack-rabbiting around in my chest. I fished around in my back pocket and came up with the broken pieces of the Bluetooth.

“That don’t prove shit!” Frankie snarled. “Bro, why don’t you just kill the fucker? Or let me! I’ll do it. I’m all over that!”

“It’s a delicate dance we do with the cops,” Drac mused, rising to his feet. “Killing hostages for no gain isn’t going to get us out of here any faster. On the other hand…” He knelt in front of me and pulled a Colt .45 from the waistband of his pants and took aim between my eyes. “Business before pleasure,” he muttered. “Amita Patel.”

I managed not to flinch. Confusion warred with fear, as I found my gaze caught and held by the little black mouth of that gun.

“Y-yes?” Amita breathed.

“Get up.”

I licked my lips. “Now, wait…”

Drac clicked back the safety and my words died. Still trained on me, Drac spoke to Amita as if she were a small child. “Do you know what I hate more than anything? Repeating myself. There’s a dumb bitch in another room with fingers the size of Polish sausages who could vouch for that. Remember her? Get. Up.”

I couldn’t see anything but that little black hole of nothingness but I suppose Amita looked to me because Dracula pressed the muzzle to the center of my head. “Look at him one more time and you’ll take a shower in his brains.”

The blood in my veins froze up. My heart was a ball of ice radiating cold fear from my chest. Alex’s hand in mine was the only warmth left in the world.

“Okay,” Amita whispered, getting to her feet. “Okay. Please…Don’t hurt—”

“Shut the fuck up. You’re getting out of here.”

Amita gasped. “I…I am?”

Dracula removed the gun from my head—it felt like the weight of the universe had been lifted—and he sat on his heels, studying me, head cocked to the side.

“You are,” he told her. “All part of the dance. Seems as you mean something to someone important, and giving you up means we get something important in return. Aren’t you lucky.”

I didn’t dare look at her directly, but I saw Amita give me a final, parting glance before she was ushered out of the room by one monster just as another came in.

“Found one, boss.” A white cord dangled from Mummy’s hand. “I think it’s compatible.”

“Let’s find out, shall we?”

Drac got to his feet and took the white cord from his henchman. He fit one end into the bottom of the cell phone and my heart lurched to hear it
snick
into place.

What did you expect?
I thought bitterly.
That you’d outsmart the bad guys with your genius plan?
At least Amita was safe. There was that. Pops would approve, I thought.

Drac plugged the cell phone into the wall in a socket under the window, and then faced the group again.

“So, here’s what happens next. The delicate dance betwixt myself and the cops has taken a nasty turn. They betrayed me by talking behind my back. Perhaps with you,” he said to me, “perhaps someone else. Perhaps with Ms. Patel who we just let waltz out the front door. In fact, I’d bet ten grand of the money we’re going to steal, that this is Ms. Patel’s cell phone and that you, Mr…?”

“Bishop,” I said dully “Cory Bishop.”

“I’m willing to bet that Mr. Bishop foolishly chose to play the hero in the hopes of saving her. Congratulations. Mission accomplished.”

A flicker of hope came to life…and then was snuffed with Drac’s next words.

“To get what we wanted we needed to set her free. But
someone
has to be punished for the transgression. Oh, yes they do.”

Frankie snickered and wiped spittle off his chin.

“This phone is going to juice up and we’ll learn who its owner truly is. If it’s you, Mr. Bishop, I’ll reward you for telling the truth by only cutting out your eye. If you’re lying…”

He turned to the door, stopping to put his hand on Frankie’s shoulder.

“Kill him.”