Love Beyond Words (City Lights, #1)(89)
“The cops are here!” Cliff hissed. “They’re outside my goddamn club. Get her out of here. Now!”
“What do you think I’m trying to do?” David whined. His eyes were so bloodshot from the bleach there were no whites left. Tears coursed down his cheeks, and his nose leaked. “But I…I need your car. Gimme your keys.”
“My what?”
“I can’t do it here! She has to vanish. I’ll take her to Land’s End.”
Natalie quailed. This isn’t happening. This is some sort of nightmare I just have to wake up…
David stomped his foot. “I came here in a goddamn cab!”
Cliff jumped. “Dammit all, give him your keys, Garrett.”
“My Escalade? No way!”
“This is bad,” Jesse said mournfully from the floor. Blood stained his chin and the front of his shirt. His face was ghastly ashen color. “All of it. So bad.”
“You shut up,” Cliff bellowed. To Garrett, “You can buy another goddamn Cadillac! A whole fleet! But we gotta get him out of here now!”
Garrett spat a curse and handed David the keys. He sneered at Natalie. “Too bad, baby. We coulda had some fun.”
Then David was dragging her out, into the night, into that hated white SUV. He forced her into the front seat and kept the gun on her as he made his way to the driver side, limping hard on his right leg.
“Put on your seatbelt and keep your hands in your lap,” he ordered. “If you try anything, I’ll kill you.”
“Like you did Marshall?” A moan escaped her and she clapped her hands to her mouth as the horror of it hit her in the chest like a lead weight. Then the words poured out of her in a hysterical stream. “Did you kill Julian too? Why don’t you just kill me now? Kill us all. And kill yourself, you rotten bastard—”
“You shut up!” He started the car and drove it out of the parking lot slowly so as not to draw attention, and avoided streets that would take him to the front of the club where sirens blared. “I would kill you. Right now. Then dump you where no one would find you. But the way my luck runs, I’d get pulled over with your stupid body bleeding and dead in the front seat, and then where would I be?” He tried to maneuver a turn with only his right hand while his left held the gun close to his body, trained on her. “No, no, I did not come all this way to lose my chance with Julian now. You’ll get what’s coming to you soon enough,” he said, “And when it happens, no one’s going to know about it but me and the Pacific.”
Natalie turned away, watching the city she loved go by in the dark. David turned frequently; white street signs loomed and then passed. Hyde, Turk, Arguello. It was a quiet Sunday. Light traffic ahead and no blare of sirens behind. She leaned her head against the window as the truth sunk in: no one was coming to get her.
Chapter FortyTwo
The first police cars were pulling up to the front of Orbit as Julian strode into the club, head down, fists clenched at his sides. The bouncer wasn’t at his post at the door; probably with the rest of the crowd, gawking at Marshall. Julian went in.
House music blared and a few oblivious club-goers still undulated on the dance floor. Julian went past the pool tables. Without breaking his stride, he snatched a cue from the hands of the nearest guy and kept going, ignoring the obscene shouts that chased him. On the other side of the dance floor was a door was marked Private. Julian went straight for it, clutching the pool cue in one hand, shoving aside dancers with the other.
He didn’t see any security cameras but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. He pressed the cue against his leg and rapped on the door, keeping his head turned away from the little peephole.
From inside, “Yeah? That you, Kyle?”
Julian pitched his voice low. “We gotta situation out here, boss.”
“No shit. Get in here.”
The lock turned and the door started to open. Julian slammed his shoulder against it, sending a portly man staggering back. They locked eyes for a split-second and Julian saw the guilty fear dance in and out of the man’s eyes. A red haze of rage descended over Julian until he felt saturated.
“Where is she?” he growled and then slammed the cue into the man’s knee without waiting for an answer.
The man cried out and went down, clutching his leg and writhing.
Julian raised the cue, like golfer teeing off, and whacked the man’s shoulder. “Where is she?”
“Ah! Christ, Garrett, help! This lunatic is going to kill me!”
“I got this, Cliff.”
Julian looked up to see the man who harassed Natalie at the café all those months ago inexplicably striding down the hallway toward him. Julian pointed the cue at him. “You,” he seethed.
He met Garrett in the middle of the hallway. The big man swung a meaty fist. Julian ducked easily and answered by swinging the cue at Garrett’s head like a baseball bat. It connected square; Julian felt the blow up reverberate up to his elbow. Garrett’s head whiplashed to the side and he stumbled back. A slow, ugly smile on his lips.
“Well, if it isn’t the Milkman,” he said, and spat a wad of bloodied saliva onto the floor. “Let’s go.”
His huge fist came like a wrecking ball. Julian dodged and swung the cue but Garrett caught it and spun like a shot-putter. Julian struck the wall hard, ricocheted off, and the two men grappled as the cue rolled on the floor at their feet.