Page 15 of Syndicate of Sin Bundle

roxie

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” I whispered to myself, hugging my arms around my body and rocking back and forth in the car. “We shouldn’t be doing this. We shouldn’t be doing this.”

Ben slammed his foot on the brakes, sending me flying forward, my seat belt digging into my chest. “Do you want to get out or not?”

My lips parted, fear running through every one of my veins. “We’re too far deep, Ben. We could run for years, and he’d still find us.” I glanced in the rearview mirror. “There’s no running away from this.”

“I’ll take care of us,” he said foolishly.

Didn’t he know who his boss was? Didn’t he know that Cristian Ricci didn’t take any shit from anyone? How many times had that asshole tortured him? How many times had he continued to follow in his footsteps, and now, he wanted out?

“And how are you going to do that, Ben? Working odd jobs for the rest of our lives?”

He reached in the backseat and grabbed one of the few duffel bags that I thought had his clothes and unzipped it. Cocaine … the bag was filled with at least $300,000 worth of drugs.

“You fucking stole from the Mafia boss?!” My eyes widened, and I shook my head, staring back at the road in front of us.

This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t fucking be happening. We were going to die. He was going to kill us.

“It’ll be enough to hold us over until we can get out of the country.” He took my hand and began driving once more. “We can start a new life.”

I yanked my hand away from him. I didn’t want to start a new life with him. He had gotten me deep into this one … and we couldn’t just leave. The debt, Cristian’s power, Cristian … were enough to make me want to stay. But Ben was going to screw this all up.

After I gazed into the backseat, my heart pounded in my chest. “How many fucking bags did you steal?”

Earlier, when he had told me to get into the car, it was dark. I could barely see into the backseat, but now that I was actually looking … there was at least over a million dollars’ worth of bills.

“Relax.”

“Stop the car,” I said, my knee bouncing.

“I’m not stopping the car, Roxie. He’ll find us.” Ben pulled off of the main street, heading onto the back roads and into the darkness of the woods.

A black SUV picked up speed behind us, on our fucking tail.

I leaned my head against the headrest, threw my hands over my face, and said, “He already has, you fucking idiot.”

Ben hit the gas, speeding deeper into the forest. I stared straight ahead while he looked back at the SUV behind us.

“Ben!” I screamed.

Another SUV pulled right out from another street and stalled in the middle of the road. Ben hit the brakes, just enough to stop the car before we collided.

Four guards with guns hopped out of the SUV in front of us, and three hopped out of the one behind us. All their weapons trained on us. I felt like I was about to have a heart attack, my heart racing faster than it ever had before. I put my hands up in the air, tears streaming down my face.

Someone threw my door open and yanked me out. I fell onto my knees on the harsh concrete, feeling the skin break. Their guns were focused on me as one picked me up by the arm, wrapped a blindfold around my eyes, and tied my hands behind my back.

“I fucking hate Ben,” I whispered to myself. “I fucking hate him.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Someone pushed me into the backseat of one of the SUVs, and then the SUV did a U-turn and sped through the dark roads. The whole time, my knees were bouncing, my heart was racing, and I wished that they had just killed me there.

I had never been punished by Cristian, but Ben must’ve been. I had seen the scars on his back and chest. And I’d rather be dead than be waterboarded, than to have my nails pulled off, than to have a knife slide into my flesh.

Yet I sat in that backseat of the SUV, thinking about one thing and one thing only: Cristian fulfilling my terms and conditions that I had apparently offered him yesterday. He’d kill Ben tonight, and then that angry, wrathful devil would take me hard.

I pressed my knees together and shifted in the seat, nipples hardening.

---