Page 14 of Queen's Move

“I’ll get them on it right away, she won’t be able to go anywhere without us knowing her every move. What do you want me to do?” Now that Elvira was leaving, and he was assured she would be tracked, his presence at the warehouse was unnecessary.

“I have an extremely important and delicate task for you. I need you to find Vee’s daughter and bring her to me.”

Chapter Twelve

Raina Duncan studied the fake ID with critical appreciation. She’d just updated it to say she was 22 years old and added a new, more mature picture. The picture was the most important part. It had to match the person holding the ID, but it needed to be just right so as not to draw attention. Hers was perfect. Not too attention-grabbing, nothing suspicious. She’d worn a pink collared blouse and her gold chain. Her blond hair was left to flow in loose waves around her face, spilling across one shoulder. Piercing blue eyes looked back at her from behind a pair of trendy glasses with thick, light pink plastic rims. She’d wanted to look young in the picture, but not too young. She needed to look as though she could be younger than 22 but only thanks to great genetics.

Her eyes moved to the two ID’s next to hers, for her friends, Noah and Cass. They looked just as good as hers, she thought, tooting her own horn. She was damn good at making ID’s, including, driver’s licenses, state identifications and passports. She needed something to supplement her University tuition. Pennsylvania State University wasn’t cheap and her parents couldn’t afford to help her out much. They were farm folk; good, honest and hardworking. And though Raina was willing to put a certain amount of hard work in, she wanted to see big payoffs. Which is why she wasn’t nearly as good or honest as mom and dad.

Raina assumed she got a good portion of her personality and all of her looks from her birth parents. Both of her parents had dark hair and eyes, ruddy complexions and stocky builds. Raina was the exact opposite, small, slim, blond, blue-eyed. Her temperament was much different too. She was headstrong, stubborn, sneaky and smart.

Too often her parents hadn’t known what to do with her. But she loved them and they loved her, unreservedly and unconditionally. They had stood by her side since she was a baby, protecting her through illness and major surgery. Raina had been born with poorly functioning kidneys. The problem had started to make itself known when she was only five years old. She’d had a kidney transplant at thirteen and been relatively healthy ever since, though she had to watch her diet carefully to make sure her one functioning kidney remained that way.

It was Raina’s 19thbirthday and she was going to celebrate. Well, it wasn’t actually her birthday. It’d been her birthday five days ago, but she and her friends wanted to wait until the weekend to celebrate. Take their hot new ID’s and hit up a bar, dance and drink until they either got kicked out or moved on to the next party.

A tall, curvy brunette breezed through Raina’s door without knocking and tossed herself onto the bed. She bounced, dropped her purse and then sat up with a grin.

“Hey loser, you ready to go yet?” Cass asked happily. Then her eyes crawled over her best friend. “No, you are not. What the F, Raina? You can’t go bar hopping in your Uni sweater and sweat pants. Those are really ugly pants, by the way.”

Raina giggled at Cass’s refusal to say ‘fuck.’ Like Raina, Cass had grown up in a small farming community. Unlike Raina, Cass took right after her God-fearing parents. She was fun, energetic and generally a good upstanding citizen. It had taken some convincing on Raina’s and Noah’s parts to convince the third in their Three Musketeers group to come out and party. But once she got on board with the idea, there was no stopping Cass. She loved to dress up, wear makeup and have a good time. Raina was convinced once they got a few drinks in her she would be dancing on tabletops and saying ‘fuck’ with the best of them.

Cass dug around in Raina’s closet while Raina checked her emails and Facebook. “What about this one?” Cass twirled around with a dress in her hands. Raina glanced up briefly, saw it was her short skirted, peek-a-boo sleeved blue dress with a pattern of tiny white flowers scattered across.

“Sure,” she replied quickly. She didn’t care much about clothes and fashion, though she had some nice outfits thanks to her ill-gotten money and Cass’s shopping addiction.

She dressed quickly, ran a brush through her hair and turned to Cass. “I’m ready.”

Cass rolled her eyes. “Not even some mascara? I mean you’re gorgeous, girl, but it wouldn’t hurt to give those pale eyelashes a little zing.”

Raina shrugged, grabbed her purse and the ID’s and said, “No one can tell if I’m wearing mascara or not under my glasses. Besides as soon as I take my glasses off I can’t see what I’m doing and end up smearing it everywhere.”

Cass sighed and dug around in her own purse until she came up with some lip gloss. “Put some of this on. It’s got that plumping stuff in it. I love it.”

Raina accepted the lip gloss and put it on, mostly so Cass would stop bugging her. “It tingles,” she said with a frown handing it back.

“It’s working!” Cass explained, grabbing Raina’s arm and dragging her out the door. “Makes your lips plumper.”

“I like my lips the way they are,” Raina complained.

* * *

Raina had a good night. She was still grinning as she got out of the Uber, hugged Cass and Noah good-bye and headed to her dorm. She’d done exactly as she wanted for her birthday. She ate hot wings in a pub, drank a beer, shot some pool. Then the three of them moved onto a nearby nightclub where they did sour whiskey shots, drank rum and coke and danced until 2am. Raina had a good head on her. She knew when to stop, knew she couldn’t push her fragile body past its limits. She stopped at four drinks, but encouraged her friends to imbibe, have a few shots for her. They toasted to her one good kidney.

Raina skipped toward her dormitory, singing the new Cardi B song and two-stepping her way down the walk. She glanced around for security but didn’t see anyone. They were probably around the corner checking on the other building. She frowned, weird though, usually there was always a security guard somewhere in the big square leading to the dorms.

She was rounding the corner of Hastings Hall, stepping through the shadows, when someone grabbed her from behind. She opened her mouth to scream but a hand covered her face and yanked her back against a hard chest. She didn’t think twice; she started fighting for all she was worth. She slammed an elbow backwards as hard as she could. She wasn’t sure what she hit, but her elbow met something solid. The guy ‘oomphed’ and stumbled back a step. He still had a good grip on her though and she wasn’t able to cry out, get someone’s attention.

Raina frantically dug in her purse while her assailant struggled to get a better grip on her wiggling body. She finally found what she was looking for, a can of bear spray. Gripping it hard in one hand she twisted to the side and swung her closed fist down, aiming for his crotch. She missed but got a solid hit on his thigh. He grunted something that sounded like “motherfucker!” and loosened his grip for a second. Just long enough that she was able to slam another elbow into his stomach.

He swung her around to face him, which is exactly what she wanted. But when she was face-to-face with her attacker she froze. He wasn’t some college kid out to get his rocks off, he didn’t look like some peeping Tom pervert either. No, this man was big and mean-looking, completely outside of anyone she’d ever met. He looked Latino with darkly tanned skin, black hair and blazing dark brown eyes. Before she’d had a good look at him she had been only pissed off that someone would try to grab her, now she was utterly terrified. What did a man like this want with someone like her?

“You need to calm the fuck down, chica,” he snarled, his hands hard on her arms. “You’re coming with me. Up to you if you do it dignified and nice or knocked out and tied up.”

“You expect me to go along with my own assault? Not fucking likely!” Raina raised the can of bear spray and took aim.

Before she could deploy the painful mist into his face, he moved, so fast she couldn’t understand what he was doing until her feet were swept out from under her and she was falling backward onto the pavement. She let out a yelp and cringed, knowing she was about to hit the ground hard. But she didn’t. Her attacker controlled her fall, coming down on top of her, making sure she had a soft landing. His grip on her wrist was not as soft though. He had her in a crushing hold, her arm over her head.

He landed on top of her, straddling her waist, his legs pinning hers, his hand over her mouth. He lifted her arm and slammed it into the pavement until her hand opened and she lost the bear spray. She was stunned that he bested her. She thought her karate skills should protect her from would-be attackers. She was fit, strong-ish and thought she was pretty fucking good in hand to hand combat. But this guy made her feel like a baby kitten going up against a tiger.

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