Tyrant(75)

“Where the f*ck is she?” I roared. I took a step toward him and he cocked the gun, stopping me in my tracks. “Tell me where she is now and I promise that when I kill you, I’ll make it quick.”

“Sit f*cking down and cuff yourself to the chair, and maybe I’ll tell you where she is.” He gestured to the single wooden chair in the center of the room.

“Fuck you.”

“Let me rephrase. Sit in that f*cking chair and cuff yourself to it or I’ll shoot her just like I did her daddy. Only I think I’ll aim for her f*cking head, seeing as that’s where all the trouble seems to be coming from,” Tanner said, an evil glint in his eye.

I reluctantly did as he asked and sat on the chair. He tossed me a pair of cuffs. “To the chair. Behind your back.” I cuffed one hand and then the other, looping the chain through the back of the chair. Tanner circled around me and tightened the cuffs. “You know, I’m kind of glad the * I hired to kill you couldn’t do the f*cking job I paid him to do, because how does the saying go? You want something done right—you have to kill it yourself.”

“What’s your f*cking play here?” I asked.

“This isn’t a f*cking game, *. This is my life. A life that you are trying to take from me. You didn’t think I was just going to step aside and let that happen now did you? She’s supposed to be my wife.”

“No she f*cking isn’t,” I said, clicking the cuffs in place. It took all the self control I didn’t know I had not to destroy the kid with my bare hands.

“Yes, she f*cking is! We said vows goddamn it!” Tanner stomped his foot on the floor and his face turned bright red. “I have her father’s f*cking blessing!”

He looked around my chair to the senator who lay lifeless on the floor. “Or…should I say, had.” Tanner smiled his toothpaste ad manic smile. His eyes were blood shot and rimmed in red.

I pulled on the cuffs, itching to damage him in any way I could but they didn’t budge.

“Listen, you f*cking amateur, there ain’t no way you’re getting out of this without feeling blowback from someone. Even if you kill me and her you don’t get out of this clean.”

“Me? I’m not getting away with anything. I’m just the son-in-law. I was just as shocked as everyone else to hear about the senator’s murder.” He exaggerated his surprise with his hand over his mouth. “But I was also so glad to hear that the man who killed him, Brantley King, the criminal with a rap sheet longer than a football field, was also found dead.”

“Clever,” I said sarcastically.

“Shut your f*cking mouth!” he spat, shaking the gun at me.

“Where the f*ck is she?” I asked, again.

His smiled returned. Tanner walked over to the closet and opened the door. Out tumbled a mess of white-blonde hair streaked in red. She was tied to a small white patio chair. She crashed onto the floor with a hollow thud. My heart seized when I didn’t see her move, but started back up again when a few strands of her hair that had fallen into her face were pushed away when she exhaled.

She was alive.

And so was my resolve to kill this motherf*cker.

“If you somehow come out of this alive, I assure you, you won’t be that way for long. I may be alone now, but there are people out there. They know where I am,” I warned.

“Yes, but who do they think you are meeting?” Tanner laughed. “They think you’re meeting the senator, right? So, when I crawl out of here they’ll easily believe what I tell them to believe, because it’s what YOU had believed. You barged in here. Had a fight with the senator. Guns were fired. People died. That’s all she wrote.”

He leaned down and pushed the hair out of her face, kissing her on the lips. She stirred and my heart leapt. It was killing me that I couldn’t help her. I wanted to carry her out of there and put a bullet in this kid’s brain. “What’s going…?” She stared to ask. Her eyes opened and landed on Tanner. She jumped like she’d been doused with ice water, but bound to her own chair, both legs and wrists, she couldn’t get more than an inch or two as she tried desperately to scoot across the floor and away from Tanner. He picked up her overturned chair and set her a few feet in front of me so she was facing me. She was close enough to where if I reached out to her, I could put a hand on her leg. If I had use of my arms.

“Ssshhhhh darling,” Tanner said, running the barrel of his gun down her cheek. “I’m here. Your husband is here. Everything is going to be okay, now.”