Page 14 of His To Protect

Chapter Five

The building wasn’t in the best shape, with crumbling concrete stairs and cracked window frames in need of replacing. Alexis frowned, checking the address once more before folding her hand around the paper.

Alexis knew so little about the man who’d fathered her. She tried to guess what he looked like as she pulled open the building door and took the stairs, but she couldn’t. She knew her mother’s face but only as a young girl and teen. There were pictures of her still in the house, but none of her in adulthood.

Matching the numbers on the paper against the numbers on the door, Alexis raised her knuckles to knock. The paper shook in her trembling left hand and her heart pounded in her chest so fast she felt dizzy. If he’d really been taken hostage, he wouldn’t be here, but if he was lying and just after her inheritance… She gathered a deep breath and as she released it, knocked.

She needed to know him either way. He was her only family.

Relief flooded her when she heard no movement, but as the seconds ticked by, she decided to knock again. Jack was going to kill her for doing this, so she might as well be sure her father wasn’t here, wasn’t asleep or in the bathroom. Her knuckles rapped on the door once more.

Shifting from foot to foot, she waited and this time she heard movement.

“¿Que mierda quieres?” The door swung open and a disheveled, shirtless man stood there. His hair, threaded with grey, was in a messy ponytail. His eyes focused quickly on her and then a half smile curved on his face. Before he could say anything else Alexis spoke up.

“Hi.” Alexis swallowed hard at his leer which definitely spoke volumes about what he thought of her physique. “I’m looking for Samuel.” In her head she chanted ‘please don’t be my dad’ because while there was something hot about calling Jack Daddy it did not mean she wanted her actual dad to look at her lasciviously like this guy was. “He’s my father.”

“No shit,” the man said changing his lecherous look to one of interest. “Papi Sámuel, si?”

He yelled something in Spanish over her shoulder back into the main room—something Alexis couldn’t catch because she hadn’t learned much from the app she’d tried.

Her stomach rolled as she thought of Jack and what he’d say about her current situation. Suddenly it was very clear how stupid she’d been. Even more so when another shirtless man, with an equally shirtless woman under his arm, walked in the room. Alexis’s breath caught when she saw the gun sticking out of the waistband of his jeans.

The apartment had boxes everywhere. Packing boxes, bare walls, and minimal furniture—beer cans everywhere. They were moving—she just wasn’t sure if it was in or out. Maybe he’d long ago moved. But then how would the kidnapper have found her?

“Uh, never mind I think I have the wrong address,” she said taking three steps back. The second man squinted at her as cigarette smoke twirled up into his face. He was tall and lanky with bronze skin. The woman, with long messy light brown hair and big drug-dazed eyes blinked at her, took the man’s cigarette and sucked in a drag.

The first guy poked his head out into the hall and looked both ways and then grabbed Alexis and yanked her in. She squealed but he covered her mouth before she could belt out anything that might get someone’s attention.

“Shut the fuck up, chica!” The first man said in her ear. His left arm was around her middle, yanking her back tightly against his body while his right covered her mouth. She trembled against him, her eyes blurring on the smoking man who looked over her as if she were a prize. Tears started to overflow when she felt his hard dick poking in the small of her back.

“Please,” she begged when he released her mouth. “Don’t hurt me.” The man holding her grabbed her handbag.

“Hurt you?” He laughed cruelly. “My little girl?”

The woman shoved at him, glaring intensely at Alexis with furrowed brow and a slight frown to her thin, lined lips. The woman spoke to the smoking man. The only word Alexis understood was her name and then the woman’s eyes widened, her lips relaxed, and she swallowed hard.

“You’re Samuel?” Alexis asked in a shaking voice, moving her attention away from the woman—clearly the least threatening of the group. The man nodded his head at a filthy-looking sofa and the guy holding her shoved her to it. She fell, knees first on it but spun and stood to face them quickly, the couch pressing against the back of her legs keeping her in place. The woman came at her then, grabbing Alexis’s chin and turning her face side to side. She spoke rapidly in Spanish at the men and released Alexis. The woman blinked, looking almost frozen to the spot.

“I am Samuel,” the smoking man said taking a deep drag from his cigarette. His English perfect and his accent not nearly as strong as it should be. “This is my brother.” He motioned with his cigarette, tucked high between his two first fingers, to the man who had held Alexis tightly only moments before. “Nicolas.”

Alexis looked between the two men wishing more than anything she was back in the hotel room with Jack. Gruff, no-nonsense, Jack with the hand that blistered her bottom holding her safely.

“You’re my…” She couldn’t even say it. This disgusting man with an evil smile, and missing yellow teeth could not be her father. No. No. No!

“Papi?” He laughed again, this time coming straight at her, grabbing her hair and yanking her head back. She whimpered when he grabbed her breast roughly. “Would a father do this?”

His squeezing hand made her cry out and the woman came at him, pounding him with a fist. He shoved her back, saying something Alexis couldn’t understand but recognized as a threat. The woman stumbled back, tears in her eyes. Those wet eyes darted to Alexis quickly but Alexis closed hers to fight the bile that rose in her throat. The unit on self-defence she took in high school rushed through her mind, but she felt immobilised by the cold metal placed against her neck. The gun. Her eyes opened, searching for the woman—her only hope, but she was gone.

There were a million things she should be thinking right then, but it was Jack who had her mind’s focus. How she’d never get the chance to feel his hands on her—feel the heat of his stare or the dip of her gut when he threatened her. How she’d never know what it was like to kiss him, taste him, or make love with him. Even to feel his punishing palm against her ass again would be something. She barely knew him, and yet, she felt as if she’d known him forever and now she was going to miss out. She promised herself right then if she ever got the chance, she’d tell him how badly she wanted to be his.

“You were stupid to come here, chica.” Samuel’s breath was hot and rank with tobacco. “You only had to send the money, puta.” Samuel’s rough hand slid up her thigh and forced its way between her legs, cupping her pussy.

She jerked back, falling to sit on the sofa. “I… I have the… money,” Alexis said shakily. He narrowed his eyes on her. “I can transfer it from here.”

He reached forward, grabbing her throat and pulling her to her feet, he shoved the gun back in his waistband. Samuel released her and took a few steps, turning to Nicolas, speaking in rapid-fire Spanish.

Alexis eyed the door, which Nicolas had left open a crack in his haste, and then her eyes darted to the open window and balcony off to her left. Were either an option? She surveyed the distance between the men and the escape routes.

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