Page 16 of Rescuing Our Bride

I follow Mark and Anna out of the house to the van, open the driver’s door, and flip down the visor, catching the keys that fall free. Her eyes widen, and she shakes her head as if in disbelief that her means of escape would have been that easy. Of course, it wouldn’t have been. Mark and I may have lost sight of our goals and made some pretty big mistakes with this whole revenge thing, but we’re not complete fucking idiots. I reach under the dash and pull the lever to pop the hood.

“The battery’s disconnected,” I inform her before walking around to the front of the van to reconnect the wires.

The old six-cylinder revs to life, and I put every bit of the big block’s horsepower to use, punching the gas and peeling out of the gravel driveway. The rubber hits the road with a screech of the tires, and I’m racing through the back roads to get our girl to the hospital so she can see her mom.

“Hey babe,” Mark breaks the intense silence. He shifts in his seat and turns to look at Anna, sitting in the middle of the rear passenger sixty-forty split bench. “We need to go over a few things before we get to the hospital, okay? People are going to ask questions. We need to come up with a story.”

Shit. Fuck. Shit. He’s right. The longer we let our game of revenge go on, the more complicated and out-of-control things get. We should have just taken Patrick out of the equation altogether. Killing him would have been easier. Anna’s supposed to be a captive, held for ransom. She can’t just waltz in the hospital like she was on vacation or something. People are going to want to know how she escaped.

“We kept you locked in a room in the basement. There was a small pet door we used to pass you food and water and one window. A small one in a window well? Do you know what I mean? The little details are going to be important. We want details, but nothing too elaborate. That’s what’s going to sell it, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Anna replies with a nod. She’s listening, but it’s obvious her mind is on her mom. I’m not sure how much of Mark’s cover story she’s taking in.

The one thing working in our favor is that men like Patrick Calhoun don’t go to the police. They take care of business themselves. And I doubt her dad is going to care too much about how she escaped her kidnappers. Not after he sold her to a fucking kingpin to cover his ass. Okay, that was a little harsh. He wasn’t doing it for himself, not really. He was trying to save his wife, but he’s still a piece of shit for using his daughter to do it.

Mark and Anna are still running through her cover story as I pull into a public lot across the street from the hospital.

“We’ll be right here waiting for you, okay?” I turn the key, killing the engine.

Anna nods, wipes fresh tears from her cheeks, and presses her mouth to mine. Her lips are soft, sweet and so is the kiss. I can still feel the press of those full pouty lips against mine when she pulls back.

It feels an awful lot like goodbye.

With a sad smile, she turns and kisses Mark the same way, sweet and tender. From the look on his face, I know he feels the same way I do, that Anna thinks this is the last time she’ll see us.

Yeah, fuck that. Not happening.

She’ll have to come out of that hospital eventually, and we’ll be waiting for her when she does. We took her once, and we can do it again.

“She’s going to run.” Mark stares out the windshield, watching Anna disappear through the automatic glass doors. When she’s out of our line of sight, he turns to me. “She’s going to marry Patrick. Or try to anyway. We’re going to have to kidnap her again.”

He says it like it’s a given, like he doesn’t even have to ask whether or not I would be on board with stealing Anna again—because he doesn’t. She’s not marrying Patrick Calhoun. If anyone puts a ring on her finger, it’ll be me and Mark.

“I think a small part of her is counting on it, bro. It’s not like she loves Patrick. She can’t stand the bastard. The only reason she’s going through with this is because of her mom. A problem we can solve with one phone call to the billing department.” I jerk my head toward the hospital. “We don’t even need to make a phone call. We could walk in there right now and end this whole thing.”

We hash out a few plans on how we can keep Anna and take care of Patrick. The money looks like our best bet, but if it was that easy, we would have hacked his accounts and drained him dry with donations to our favorite charities like the Susan G. Komen Foundation, Alex’s Lemonade, and St. Jude’s, in the first place.

No, Patrick Calhoun’s not only washed his money, he’s stashed it too. What he has on paper is nothing compared to what we suspect he has off the books.

“That only solves part of the problem. Patrick may not love Anna, but he wants her. He wouldn’t be paying hundreds and thousands of dollars for her if he didn’t want her. Clearing the debt won’t stop him from coming after her.”

As if saying his name conjured the devil himself, Patrick Calhoun cuts into traffic, jaywalking across the street like he owns the fucking world. Horns blast. Asshole probably thinks it’s trumpets blaring to welcome the king. He gives one driver laying hard on their horn the finger and strolls into the hospital.

Fuck.

11

ANNA

“Mom. Oh, Mom.”

I rush into the room, occupying the chair at her bedside that my father just vacated with barely a pat on the shoulder for me. Not that I care. The anger and hurt over what my father did are eating me alive. I want to scream and rant, spit in his face, then cut him out of my life for good, but I can’t. This is not the time or the place. Besides, I don’t have the energy or the mental capacity to waste on him now. I’m here for my mom. That’s it. That’s all that matters.

“Mom. It’s me, Anna.” I lower the side rail on her bed, take her hand in mine, and rest my head on the mattress beside her. “I’m here, Mom. I need you to wake up, okay? I know you can hear me. It’s time to wake up now, Mom.”

I’m not even sure how much time passes while I’m sitting with my mom. I just keep talking to her, talking to her about everything and anything, and I never let go of her hand. The only subject that’s off-limits is my supposed kidnapping. I’m not sure how much she’ll understand, or how much is getting through, and I don’t want her to be upset. Difficult and painful topics are not up for discussion right now. Happy thoughts and happy memories only.

Still, it’s weird my dad hasn’t asked about it.

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