Page 55 of The Trouble With Spells
Blood streamed down the side of his face, and glass sprinkled his hair and shoulders.
“I’m okay,” I whispered, reaching for him.
Gunshots rang out around us, and we both jerked. Pounding feet rushed the car, yelling, and more shots were fired but none sounded like they hit our car. My door was yanked open, and I was dragged out. I felt Michael’s hand on my shirt, grabbing for me, and then it was gone.
Whoever had grabbed me half dragged, half carried me further from Michael. Until I was too far, and his anguished screams reached my ears just before I saw the butt of a handgun racing towards my face, and everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-One
Michael
My head was jerked up painfully by my hair, and I groaned, consciousness slamming into me.
Callum!
Where was he? Was he all right?
The pain in my head wasn’t the agonizing pain from being separated by Callum, so he had to be close.
Blinking my eyes open, I flinched at the single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. I was sitting on a metal hard back chair, my ankles bound together. My hands were also bound behind my back, but when I tried wiggling my fingers, I felt warm flesh. Callum. He must be tied behind me, but there was no movement when I touchedhis hand again.
There were two strangers standing on either side of me, both armed with handguns pointed at me. What I could see of the room we were being held in was concrete, empty except for the chairs we were bound to. There was a gray metal door directly in front of my line of vision, closed to the outside.
“Boss isn’t gonna be happy about the extra baggage we brought,” one said to the other.
“Yeah, well, he’d be less happy about witnesses. He was with the lawyer, so he might be involved. Either way, he’s here now. Nothing to be done about it.”
“Who are you?” My voice cracked, and I swallowed against the dryness of my throat. There was something dried on my face. I could feel it when I spoke. It tugged at my skin uncomfortably and I remembered my head had been bleeding.
We’d been hit, from two sides. The car had spun, but we’d been alive. I remembered Callum had been alive. Then he had been pulled from the car, my head had exploded, and that was the last thing I remembered.
“Doesn’t matter who we are,” Goon Two snarled. “You’ll find out when the boss gets here.”
“Marcone?” I groaned, subtly pulling on the bindings on my wrist. There was no give in them, but there was the tiniest bit of movement from Callum’s hand.
The door opened and as if summoned by my saying his name, Francesco Marcone stepped through the door, closingit with a bang behind him. There was no movement from Callum at the noise. Not even a twitch.
Marcone smiled at me, smoothing a hand down his tailored, three-piece suit, then over his impeccably styled hair. “Mr. Endicott, you’re becoming a problem for me.”
“Sorry.” My tone dripped with sarcasm.
“I thought you’d gotten my messages when I was told you had stepped back from working on the case against me,” Marcone informed me, looking at his fingernails and then polishing them against his suit jacket.
“Messages?” I croaked.
He gave me a cold smile, “Yes. The little accident you had on the sidewalk. The fire in your building. Oh, and let’s not forget the jurors that were more than happy to be paid off. Along with a couple of judges. People are so easily swayed by money. You had a very bad day that day, didn’t you?”
Mind racing, I glared at him. “That was you! Not…” I’d been about to saynot the spell, and caught myself before I let the words slip out.
He shrugged, “Imagine my…disappointment when I learned you had just taken a couple of weeks’ leave. I decided to just put a hit out on you and get you out of my business, once and for all. When no one could locate you, we had to settle for getting rid of your colleague that stepped in while you were gone. Shame too, pretty girl thatone. It was just a stroke of luck that one of my men spotted you tonight at that club.”
Noticing there was another body tied to me for the first time since he stepped in the room, Marcone turned angry eyes on his lackeys. “Who the fuck is that?”
Goon One shrugged, “Don’t know. Was with the lawyer so we brought him along.”
“You said no witnesses.” Goon Two reminded, and was met with Marcone’s piercing gaze.
“Yet you kidnapped a prosecuting attorney and his what? Boyfriend? In plain sight of street cams and tons of witnesses in passing traffic? You shot at those witnesses, who had probably already dialed 9-1-1. What you left was another mess for me to clean up.”
