Rock Redemption #3: Rock Revenge Trilogy, page 8
“I’d never hurt you.” Celeste glanced over at him. The minute she looked away from Jerry, he started moving in on her. “You have to know that. I would never—will never.”
Simon gave Dolph’s body a wide berth and rose onto his knees. “Please.” He wanted to saw his tongue off, but he forced the word out of his mouth. “Mother, please.” Her face instantly softened.
“Did you call me Mother?” She blinked. Her eyes, so much like his, were unnaturally wide.
With madness? He couldn’t tell.
It didn’t matter if it meant there was some small hope.
There had to be.
“She’s dead. I had her killed myself. You stupid whore. This was supposed to be our ticket out of here.” Jerry made a grab for the gun and it went off again.
Simon jerked at the echoing bang. He collapsed onto his hands, the gravel digging deep into his skin. It didn’t matter. He watched the bloom of red on Jerry’s chest. Shock registered right before the anger. Jerry fell into his mother and the gun went off again and a third time.
This time, it was muffled, but it was no less horrifying.
His mother pushed Jerry off of her. A large hank of her inky hair dangled in front of her face. She pushed it back with a bloody hand and crawled toward Simon. “I would never hurt you. Ever.”
Simon’s throat was on fire. Bile rose and threatened to choke him. “Margo.”
Shouts and more cars screamed into the area. Aidan’s men. And the whirling blue and red lights.
God, no. Cops? There would be questions he couldn’t answer. They couldn’t answer.
Black-booted men swarmed around his mother.
Cops barely registered gunfire in this area. But today, they did? Why?
Simon sagged against the dirt. “Please.”
Celeste’s eyes darted around and she scrambled up. Still not saying a goddamn thing.
So, he used the only weapon he had left.
“Mother, please.”
“I’d never hurt you.”
Cops yelled for everyone to freeze. To stop what they were doing and to hit the dirt. His mother tried to run for it. She tripped over the bag of money, one heel falling drunkenly from her foot to the savaged dirt. Blood streaked over her leg and heel.
The tears finally tore down his cheeks.
That was the worst lie the woman had ever told.
She’d shattered him into dust. Here, of all places.
One more time.
“Simon? Are you all right?” Somehow Aidan’s voice dented his own personal hell.
“Where is she?” Simon shouted.
He didn’t even know who he was shouting to. His mother? The universe?
There had to be another answer, because he could never—would never— accept this one.
Aidan swore when the two uniformed cops went straight for Celeste. Questions came out like bullets, but Simon couldn’t reply to any of them.
He curled over his knees, barely capable of forcing air in and out of his lungs. His heart was as hollow as the husk of land beneath him.
Something vibrated against his leg. Again and again. Then it stopped, then resumed a second later.
He sat back on his feet, numbness creeping over his body. His pants were ripped, blood seeping from his knees.
His phone.
Who would he have to tell about this?
Was he supposed to actually speak?
He pulled out his cell, prepared to launch it across the field, but it said unknown number.
The number faded as the ringing stopped and then it flashed on the screen again.
He lifted the phone to his ear.
“Simon?”
He was hearing things. It couldn’t be. He wanted it so very badly that he’d imagined her back into life.
Still, hope fluttered in his chest, as strong as the heart that finally, finally could beat again after seemingly stuttering to a stop. “Violin Girl?”
Nine
“Oh, God, Simon. Simon, it’s me.”
“Where are you?” Simon spun around, looking for Aidan. He was trying to talk to the police officers. Celeste was being dragged away to one of the police cruisers.
Nicky, of all people, came rushing over to him and crouched down beside him.
Simon didn’t have the mental fortitude to ask why, only to be grateful.
Nick dug his bear paw of a hand into Simon’s shoulder. The pain brought him back to himself. He was going to shoot off into a million different points of light and that wasn’t going to help his wife.
Simon’s hand shook as he changed over to speakerphone. “Baby, where are you?”
“I don’t know. I…”
A sob came over the phone and Simon’s gaze fuzzed out of focus. “Are you hurt?”
“No. Not really. Just banged up. Just…I really need you here, okay?”
“Baby, I’ll be right there. We just gotta find you. Are you safe?”
“Yes. I’m in a hospital…no, clinic. Smaller and in a rough area.” Her voice went down to a whisper. “I’m in Vegas. I don’t know how.”
Vegas? What the fuck?
“Are you safe?”
“Um, yes. I think so.” Her voice was so low…and small. Not like his Margo at all.
Christ, he wanted to kill anyone who’d ever even thought of harming her.
Nick sprung up off the ground and grabbed Aidan, dragging him back over to them.
“We’re coming. I’ll be there as fast as humanly possible. Maybe I’ll even break the sound barrier, huh?”
Her laugh was weak, but it was there.
When Aidan heard Margo’s voice, his eyes widened. He waved over someone else and they started doing something technical on one of their many gadgets. Simon couldn’t keep up.
Didn’t want to. All he cared about was getting to Margo.
“Do you know the name of the place?”
“Vegas Quick Care.” Her voice got soft as if she was talking away from her phone, then she came back on the line. “Yes, that’s the name.” Then she rattled off an address and Aidan was off and running again, a phone to his ear.
“Did they hurt you?”
“No. Simon, she’s not right.”
“Shh. I know, baby. I know. But she won’t hurt us again.” He stared at the ravaged face of his mother in the back of one of the police cars. She pressed her hand flat against the car window as she stared at him. Her once beautiful face now was tracked with dark streaks from her sobs.
“What happened?” Margo’s voice broke in.
“It doesn’t matter.” He turned his back on the woman who had left him years ago. “I’m coming for you. That’s all that matters. I’m coming to bring you home.”
The shaky sob on the other end of the line nearly broke him. It also pushed him to his feet and over to Aidan. Nick was hot on his heels.
“Can you stay on the phone?”
“No. It’s the clinic phone and people are starting to ask questions. I don’t know what to do.”
Simon peered into the big black SUV where Aidan was speaking with the police officers. Based on how the one guy was trying to get into Aidan’s face, Simon was pretty sure the cop was about to bust a blood vessel. Aidan was demanding to speak with a supervisor.
Who the fuck was this guy to be able to pull rank here? He seemed to be a bit more than a security expert.
Nick dragged him over to the other large black SUV that had just arrived. “Hang in there with me, baby,” Simon said as he moved to the waiting vehicle.
The lanky guy who had wired him up for the dropoff was talking to someone on a screen. Jesus fuck, thank God. Donovan. From the sound of it, they were getting a freaking helicopter ready to go get his wife. Thank fuck. “Margo?”
“I’m here.” Her voice sounded small, but strong.
He swallowed hard. “It’s okay. Donovan is on it. You know him, he can move small countries if he wants to.” She laughed a little and his gut uncurled a bit. “We’re coming to get you.”
“Oh, thank God. Simon…” Her voice was muffled, then came out stronger. “Simon, I have to go.”
“No.”
“Simon, I swear I’m okay.”
“And…” He didn’t want to ask. Wasn’t sure he could face it, but for her, he would.
“We’re fine,” she whispered. “They need the phone.”
“No, Margo, wait.”
“I love you. Hurry.”
And then she was gone. Fucking gone again. “Tell me you can get me to her.” Simon raked his hands through his hair as he met the tall guy’s gaze. “Please.”
“We’re going to a private airstrip about five miles away. A chopper will be waiting.”
“Thank God.” He met Donovan’s gaze through the screen. “Thank you.”
“Just go get our girl back. I’m working with the police. I’ll have everything ready at the birthing center you two use.”
“How…” Simon just shook his head. He didn’t want to know how Donovan did half the shit he did. Especially if there were any laws to be broken in the middle of it all.
Aidan appeared at his side. “They’re taking your mother. She’s not freaking talking, but a bag of money and two dead bodies isn’t exactly easy to sweep under the damn rug.”
Simon laced his fingers behind his neck. “I don’t fucking care. She can rot in a prison cell for all I care.”
Aidan snapped out quiet orders to three of the men in the car. They got out and made their way to the van across the street. “Let’s get the fuck out of here before we end up with another three squad cars here. Even Donovan has a limit to his capabilities.”
Simon hopped into the SUV and Nick shoved him over. “What are you doing?”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Dude, you heard them. Chopper. As in helicopter.”
Nick swallowed audibly. “I know. It’s fine.”
“I love you, man, but I don’t have it in me to hold your hand while you’re puking.”
“I can hold my own hand if necessary. And I’ll be fine.” Nick turned to Aidan. “They have barf bags, right?”
Aidan’s eyebrow arched. “Yeah, the window.”
The ride to the airport was eternal. At least it wasn’t LAX. He needed to get to her sometime this century. The little strip was barely more than a dirt road with a freaking shack, but there was a big black beautiful helicopter waiting for them.
“Oh, Jesus.” Nick scrubbed his hands down his jeans.
“It’s okay. I don’t expect you to—”
“Just shut up. I’m coming. I’m much more used to flying now anyway. Just not in one of those tin cans. But I can be a little nervous. It’s healthy. How do those things stay in the air?”
“Sure you want a physics lesson?” Aidan asked dryly.
“Nope. Who’s driving it?”
“Me.”
“God, we’re gonna die.” Nick put his head between his knees.
“No, you could say that if your buddy was driving. Me? I’ve been in the air more than I’ve been on the ground, pal.” He got out of the front driver’s side and slammed the door.
Simon jumped out and followed him to the wicked looking chopper. It wasn’t a tiny personal type. Was it Donovan’s? Or just whatever money could buy for a few hours?
He didn’t fucking care as long as he got to Margo.
Before he could even climb in, Aidan was clicking buttons and doing some sort of check-in. Nick scrambled into the chopper behind him and went right for the harness seatbelt. Within a few minutes, they were all strapped in and lifting off.
His stomach went into his fucking throat as they pulled up off the dry as dust airfield to the sky. As many years as they’d been touring, as many stunts as they’d pulled over the years, a plane was about as exciting as they got in their travels. This wasn’t exactly the way he wanted to experience his first chopper ride.
Nor Margo’s.
He pulled the headphones over his ears when Aidan nodded to him. He handed a set to Nick, but he shook his head.
They banked over the crammed highways while Simon said a fervent prayer that the trip would be fast.
Nick white-knuckled the entire ride, with his eyes tightly shut.
Aidan’s voice through the headphones cut through the white noise of speed. “We’re landing fairly close to the clinic. At least as close as I could get us. There will be a truck waiting for us.”
Simon wasn’t sure how to talk back to him, so just gave him a thumbs up in response.
The ride was endless. At least it felt like it to him. The green of California turned to desert the closer they got to the Nevada border. Heat blasted into the dark cockpit and sweat soaked his back. The rushing view churned his stomach and he followed Nick’s lead by shutting his eyes.
He wasn’t sure which was worse. Watching the world rush by or closing in on himself to hear that fearful tone in his mind. His brave, strong Margo with a shaky voice had nearly killed him.
Add in his mother’s blank stare as she shot two men?
Sweet fuck.
He’d come from monsters. He hadn’t wanted to believe Ian when he’d explained just how obsessed their mother was with him. If she was so focused on him, then why did she leave him alone for most of his life?
That wasn’t obsession.
That was fixation without fact. She didn’t know a goddamn thing about him. Nor would she. She had the money and now she was gone. He had to live with watching her kill two men, but oddly, there wasn’t much remorse inside him for them.
They’d chosen their path.
Jerry with his greed and Dolph? Well, if he was a gun for hire, he knew what he was getting into. How many people had he killed for Jerry? Or for others?
No, Simon wouldn’t lose sleep on that.
Not when they hurt his woman. His baby?
God, he hoped Margo was right—that their baby was okay too.
Their lemon drop couldn’t be taken away by his mother.
Simon opened his eyes to Nick’s staring eyes. Instead of showing fear, he was leaning against the window to watch the desert whip by.
Simon’s eyebrow arched as he shook his head. His weird life.
Aidan’s voice boomed through his headphones. “Ten minutes.”
The longest ten minutes of his life.
There was chatter between Aidan and some sort of tower as he got permission to land and call signs were given. All the things he didn’t understand, but knew it meant he was one step closer to getting his girl.
Landing was a bit dicier than their takeoff. The headwinds were giving Aidan trouble or something. Nick was a nice shade of green by the time they set down. He tugged off the harness and crouched close to the door.
“Hold up,” Aidan barked.
Simon flipped back his belt and crowded Nick at the door. The blades above the damn helicopter didn’t seem to ever stop fucking beating. Finally, they slowed and Aidan gave the all clear. They both jumped down and Nick actually touched the ground.
“Gonna kiss it?”
“Maybe.” Nick glanced up at him and stood up. “Only for you, man.”
Simon gave him a half smile and slapped his arm. “Thanks, Nicky.”
“Yeah.” His voice was little more than a grunt.
A black SUV pulled up at the edge of the small airstrip. Did rich dudes have access to these things at all times? Maybe if they were as rich as Donovan fucking Lewis. He’d thought he was rich until today.
Until he saw just how much he could have lost if he didn’t have these connections. Hours? Days to get to her with the added red tape of the police?
He didn’t want to think about it. Couldn’t.
Margo was his only focus right now.
The drive into the shitty little town on the outskirts of the Vegas strip seemed to take longer than the damn chopper ride. Nick was unusually quiet through the entire drive, but Simon was glad. He didn’t have the mental fortitude to try to make small talk. Just knowing Nicky was there next to him was enough.
Aidan made a left hand turn and the downtrodden street could have been in Carson. They’d left her here? Alone?
Just left her?
Rage raced up his spine and he fisted his hands at his sides. Right outside the car window, the cracked and half buzzing sign for a motel with an actual drug deal going on beneath it chilled him to the bone.
She could have been killed. Attacked again—even more so than her previous kidnapping.
“Jesus Christ,” Nick muttered.
Simon swiveled away from his own view of the street hustle to see a man with a gun on the corner outside Nick’s window.
Aidan cleared his throat. “Guys, we’re parking around the back to get inside the clinic.”
“Could we maybe do that before this guy shoots the other in a bad deal?”
Aidan glanced toward Nick’s side of the car. “For fuck’s sake.”
“Yeah.” Nick crunched down in his seat. “Didn’t we get away from this shit?”
They had crawled out of Carson, hoping to never see it again. This entire situation reminded Simon just how far he’d come. And how much he’d never take it for granted again.
Before Aidan turned off the SUV, Simon had the door open.
“Simon, wait.”
He ignored Nick’s plea and rushed inside the squat building. His only focus was Margo.
The little clinic was surprisingly clean. The chairs were filled with patients, including one crying child, but the place seemed to be running relatively smoothly for such a shitty section of town. The woman running the front desk certainly had a lot to do with it. She smiled when Simon came through the doors, but quickly, her demeanor changed.
“Mr. Kagan?”
“Please.” Simon got to the desk and nearly sagged under the stress and worry. “Where is she?”
“Right this way. She’s resting. We’ve given her IV fluids and checked her over the best we can. We don’t have the facilities of a hospital. We’ve tried to move her—”
“No. No, we’ll be taking her home.”
Her wide dark eyes met Simon’s. “All right. The doctor is with her now.” She smoothed a hand over her curls, brushed ruthlessly into a bun. “Right this way.”
Nick was behind him, and Aidan was speaking on the phone in the waiting room. He was grateful for their presence even as he couldn’t take time to express it.
