Mr. Romantic: A Mister Standalone (The Mister Series Book 2) Page 24

  I reach for the bedside lamp and swing it against his head. He goes reeling to the side, falling off the bed, and I’m already trying to untie the knots at my ankles. I mess up so many times as Richard comes to his senses on the floor next to the bed. My heart is racing so fast. My breathing is nothing but panic.

  I get one leg free just as he stands back up and lunges for me. I kick him in the chest with the heel of my foot and he goes down again, this time shaking his head like I stunned him. Blood is pouring down his temple as I scramble back to the other side of the bed. But I’m still prisoner. I’m held in place by the one length of rope. I scream when he gets to his feet again. “Nolan!” I scream. “Nolan!” I don’t know where I’m at, or if he’s even close by. But I know that there is no way I can get my foot untied before Richard gets to me.

  “He’s coming,” I say, still frantically trying to get the last knot out of the rope. “He’s coming. And… and… his friend is coming too. The bad one. You know that bad one. Mr. Mysterious,” I spit.

  “You’re gonna let them all fuck you, aren’t you, Ivy? You stupid little whore.” He slaps my face so hard, I almost black out. “This is what you’re been holding out for? A gang rape from the most infamous rapists in the country? Well”—he laughs—“I’m sorry to disappoint you with just little old me tonight. But I’m sure you’ll still love it.”

  From some far off place I hear Nolan’s voice. Richard stops everything. Goes completely still.

  “Ivy!” Nolan is yelling. “Ivy, Ivy, Ivy!”

  “Here!” I scream.

  And then Richard’s hand is over my mouth and the cold blade of a knife is pressed to my throat.

  “Scream nice and loud for your boyfriend, Ivy. Nice and loud now.”

  Chapter Forty-Five - Nolan

  “Nolan!”

  Ivy is screaming. It’s faint, like she’s far away. But she is here. Where? I’ve checked every room. Where?

  “Ivy!” I yell. “Pax,” I yell again. I start searching the basement again. Where the fuck can she be? All the doors to each room are open. She’s not in any of them. “Pax!” I yell again. And then I take out my phone and text him.

  Basement. Now.

  “Ivy!” I yell.

  I hear her respond. “Here!”

  But where? Why the fuck can’t I find her?

  “Think, Nolan. Think, think, think.”

  Boots crash down the stairs and Pax comes rushing into the basement, gun drawn, pointing it at every open door and every dark corner before he stops and looks at me. “Where? Who the hell is messing with us?”

  “I can hear her.” We stop and listen, but there’s no more calling from Ivy. “Fuck!” I grab my hair and shake my head. I know what that silence means. “I’ve checked every fucking room. It’s like she’s stuck inside the walls or—wait. I know where she is. The safe room.”

  “What safe room?”

  “The house was built with a panic room, Pax. It’s on the far side of the media room.”

  I take off running, Pax following me, and enter the media room. The movie is still playing without sound. Some slasher movie. A bigger-than-life girl is screaming her silent scream as we walk past and I open a door that appears to lead to a mechanical room. But when we step around the giant furnace, there’s another door.

  “What’s the code?” Pax demands. “We need the fucking code, Nolan.”

  I know the code. I know the code. I know the code.

  I know I know the code. It’s been the same since I was a little kid and we first bought this house.

  You are a target, Nolan.

  My father’s words in my head.

  I make you a target. So if anything ever happens, you run in here and you lock yourself inside.

  “What’s the fucking code?” Pax yells.

  A scream comes from inside. Clear as fucking day because it’s on the little speaker near the keypad used for two-way communication.

  A broken, crackling voice comes out of the speaker next. “The code was changed tonight, Mr. Romantic. You don’t know the code.”

  I take the butt of my gun and smash the cameras. One above the door, one behind me, one to the left.

  Pax catches on quickly and finds more, each one is smashed.

  I pull him close to me and whisper, “There’s a master code. And I do know it. No one else on this fucking planet knows it, because I was the one who set it. So whoever this is, they got a code from one of two people. Claudette or my father.”

  “Your bitch of a sister is behind this, I know it. I’m gonna fucking kill her when I get inside there.”

  “She’s not here, Pax. She sent someone else to do this. And we can make plans for that later. Right now we’ve only got one chance to save Ivy. We bust in and kill whoever it is on the other side of that door.”

  Chapter Forty-Six - Ivy

  The next thing I know an alarm is screaming. I cover my ears as Richard gets off me, throwing the knife down on the floor as he reaches for a gun.

  My fingers are instantly back on the rope around my ankle, but another blow to the head knocks me over, right off the bed, so most of me is on the floor, but my one ankle is still tied to the damn post.

  And then… shouting. Voices yelling. Nolan, and someone else, and Richard. Guns are going off, and a bullet hits the concrete wall just off to my left.

  I sit up as best as I can and reach for my ankle as the men yell threats and shoot at each other.

  There’s a loud thumping of feet above my head somewhere. People are here. Many, many people. A whole army of people from the sound of it.

  “Ivy!” Nolan yells. “Get down!”

  But I’m so close. I’m so close. Just one more knot and—I’m free!

  Richard is suddenly next to me, pulling me up by my hair again. I grab his balls and pull so hard, I get a sick, sick feeling in my stomach. His gun goes off and a sharp pain shoots through my body.

  I scream, but he falls, and I fall, and then I ignore the pain and scoot under the bed. I crawl for my life as a warm pool of blood puddles underneath me.

  Chapter Forty-Seven - Nolan

  The guy shoots straight. I’ll give him that. The bullets are flying. Pax has disappeared. Hit, or waiting, or hell, maybe he thinks my girlfriend isn’t worth dying for.

  I think she’s worth dying for.

  Ivy screams, and when I peek my head out from behind the corner, I see the man fall just as another shot goes off. This time Ivy’s scream is serious. It’s a scream of severe pain and I know she’s been shot. More bullets fly at me as I make a break for the bed. Ivy’s fingertips are reaching out from under the bed, and I pull her out, sliding her along the smooth concrete floor, and then jump up on the bed and I don’t even bother thinking twice.

  I shoot that motherfucker in the head.

  A second later there’s cops everywhere. Not just deputies, but men in tactical gear. Rifles longer than my arm pointing at me. Red laser dots dancing on everything in the room.

  You will always be a target, Nolan. Don’t ever let them get you.

  But I’m not their target tonight.

  So I drop my gun and slide down on the floor next to Ivy. She’s bleeding and she’s crying, but she’s still alive. And that’s the only thing that matters.

  Chapter Forty-Eight - Ivy

  Nolan’s bright green eyes are the first thing I see when I wake up. The hospital room is cold and the air smells funny. But he’s there and that’s all I care about.

  “Hey,” he says, brushing some hair away from my eyes. “How you feeling?” He looks tired. And he’s wearing dress pants and a t-shirt that says Property of Massachusetts State Police on the front.

  “What happened?” I ask, trying to sit up as Nolan urges me to lie back. “Where’s Richard?”

  “Richard? You knew him?”

  “He was my ex-boyfriend. The boring one.”

  Nolan’s smile lights up my whole life and when he laughs, I laugh with him. Just before I start to cr
y.

  “Hey,” he says, slipping into bed with me. His arm slides under my back, gently, so he doesn’t disturb my sling. “It’s OK. You’re OK. They removed the bullet and stitched your arm all up. You’re fine, Ivy. You’re gonna be fine.”

  “He was going to rape me, Nolan. He was—”

  “Shhh,” Nolan says. “Stop. It’s over. OK?” He looks me in the eyes and then kisses me softly on my lips. “All that stuff is over now.”

  And then he lies back with me, rests his head on my pillow and places his hand over my heart.

  “We’re gonna start fresh, Ivy Rockwell. So just relax. I’ve got this.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine - Nolan

  “So…” Match says. “Big doin’s, huh?”

  “You’re next, asshole.”

  “Nah, not me. I’m fine just the way I am. You and Perfect can keep your newly domesticated lives. I’m just fine with the way things are.”

  “Never mind that shit,” Perfect says. “We have a problem.”

  “A big problem,” Mysterious says as he cleans his gun on Perfect’s dining room table. “A very big fucking problem.”

  Ivy and Ellie are out shopping. We’re here on official Mister business, but the girls don’t know that. Ivy’s arm is healing nicely. She might need another surgery or two to remove bone shards if they become a problem, but she’s OK. She’s good. We’re both good.

  “Where the fuck is Corporate?” Match says. “He’s late. Why is he fucking late?”

  “I told you he wasn’t gonna show. He’s got some big deal going on. Said he’ll read the Cliff’s Notes when he gets back.”

  “Well, that’s fucked up,” Match says. “If you’re a target, then we’re all targets.”

  “Where the fuck is Claudette?” Mysterious asks, never taking his eyes off the gun.

  “I dunno,” I say, frustrated. “I’ve had people looking for her since she missed the funeral.”

  My father died. Just two days after all that shit went down at the Martha’s Vineyard house. We hadn’t been close for years and even though it would make a nice story to say we patched things up in the end, we didn’t. He was in a coma by the time I got to the hospital in San Diego. I’ve been to more hospitals in the last two weeks than I have in my whole life.

  But it didn’t matter that we didn’t get to talk. I know now. I know why my mother ended up divorcing him. I know why Claudette was never welcome at our house in Florida. I know why my father kept her with him.

  I don’t know why she was cut out of the will and I was put back in. That is still part of the mystery. But it makes sense that she attached herself to my hip these past six months. Why she offered up some of her own money to get that resort started. She was cut out of the will and wanted back in. She was playing the good big sister part to make that happen. But she was doing more than that. She was setting me up. How she came up with Ivy to make that happen though? That is also still a mystery. But I know—I feel it in my gut—I know she set me up with Ivy. I know it was her who forged Ivy’s résumé. Sent that invitation. How many people know about the silver envelopes we use? Not many. People connected with the old case. They know. And Claudette certainly qualifies as one of them. I fucking know it was Claudette who put all the events of the past few weeks into motion.

  But why?

  She’s a devious fucking cunt, that’s why. And I have no doubt that her mother was the same kind of woman. I know my father wasn’t perfect, but he was not a psychopath.

  Claudette is.

  I was waiting for her to show her face at the funeral, and when she didn’t come, I knew. She’s on some kind of revenge vendetta. She won’t get one penny of my father’s money. Not one penny. But hey, if she wants to fight that shit, I’m ready. I’m waiting. I’m gonna take her down from the inside out.

  She wasn’t at the MV house. In fact, there was not one shred of evidence that could link her back to Ivy’s ex-boring-boyfriend. But we all know it was her.

  There are very few people who have access to schedule the jet. Claudette is one of them. The only one connected to me.

  “I still don’t understand what Boring Richard had to do with this,” I say.

  “Did you ask Ivy?” Match says.

  “She had some kind of argument with him when she went home for dinner the Sunday before all this happened.”

  “About what?”

  “Me, I guess. He looked me up. Told Ivy I was a deviant or something. Told her to stay away from me.”

  “But why?” Match asks again.

  “How should I know, Oliver? I don’t see the connection.”

  “I do,” Perfect says. “Or at least I’m starting to. People are coming back. Allen came back into my life the same day Ellie popped into it. And somehow Allen and that Ellen Abraham woman were connected too. I don’t know how, but I know they were. Same thing with you, Romantic. You find a girl; your sister goes nuts. Now what we don’t know is what part Claudette played in those events ten years ago. Where does she fit in? Because I already know where Allen fits in. Too bad Boring Richard is dead. We could’ve put some pressure on him to give up the answers we still need. I should try and find Ellen Abraham. See if she might talk.”

  “Yeah,” Mysterious says, snapping his gun back together with satisfying clicks. “And Boring Richard left me a present on the bed up in Nolan’s house. So that’s another clue that he’s connected to all this somehow.” He looks up at me and I see it. I see just how dangerous Mysterious really is. He’s out for blood over that little gift. And I don’t know how he managed it, but Mysterious picked up every piece of damning evidence left out at the MV house. The cops never saw any evidence of what Ivy and I were doing that night. He got his own reminder of the past safely tucked out of sight too.

  Got to hand it to him. When Mysterious takes a job, he’s not fucking around.

  “Well,” Match says, “we’re just gonna have to take care of business. That’s what my old man always told me. He always said, ‘Oliver, my boy, when the shit hits the fan, you just turn that fucker around.’”

  “Your father’s a regular poet,” Mysterious says.

  “Maybe nothing’s happening?” I say. “Not the way we think it is. I mean, we don’t have anything to go on. We just have your old vendetta with Allen, Perfect. And my sister is a crazy cunt. Maybe that’s all there is to it?”

  “It’s not,” Mysterious says, stashing his gun in his pants. “You can’t overlook the fact that Mac had some weird woman fucking with Ellie at work at the same time Allen was fucking with him. And now we have two examples. Because Boring Richard was fucking with you at the same time as Claudette. Why was he looking you up?”

  “He told Ivy her roommate told him to. But she asked her roommate after, and she said that never happened.”

  “Yup,” Mysterious says as he looks inside a duffle bag. “What we have here is a classic tag-team operation happening, my friends. One operative distracts while the other takes care of business. And if anything else happens, I’m gonna do exactly what Old Man Match said. Turn that shit back on them. And they do not want to be my target. Whoever the fuck they are.”

  “Someone needs to get a hold of Corporate and make sure everything’s cool with him,” I say.

  “I’ll handle him,” Match says. “We have a business deal going, so he’s gonna show up for that in a few days for sure.”

  “All right,” Perfect says, peeking through the curtains of his front room. “The girls are back, so just…” He stops and looks at Mysterious. “Dude, get rid of the guns.” Mysterious has another one out, all ready to start cleaning it when Perfect says this.

  Mysterious grunts, but he stashes it back into the pack he brought with him, hikes it over his shoulder, and walks out the front door.

  “Jesus Christ,” Perfect says. “He’s gonna kill someone.”

  And then Match and Perfect both look at me. Because even though Mysterious has killer written all over him, I’m the one who pulled the trigg
er this time.

  “Maybe someone has it coming,” Match says, shrugging his shoulders and sliding his shades down his face. He turns and leaves it at that. Following Mysterious out the door.

  Perfect and I watch Ivy and Ellie talk to them for a few seconds before they both get into Match’s Hummer and drive off.

  Maybe someone does, I think as I watch them go.

  Maybe all that shit we’ve put up with for the past ten years is about to come back around. Only maybe this time, it’s not the Misters who have to stand in front of the fan while people throw shit.

  Maybe it’s someone else’s turn.

  Epilogue - Nolan

  “Just be nice,” Ivy says as she straightens my tie outside her parents’ house.

  “Hey,” I say, “they don’t call me Mr. Nice for nothing.”

  “They don’t call you Mr. Nice at all, Nolan. Now stop.” She shoots me a sideways grin as the word comes out. We haven’t had another rape fantasy. And I’m not saying we’ll never do it again, but I’m over it. It was fun, but it was a stressful fucking night. And every time I think about yellow rope, I see Ivy’s foot, tied to that bedpost as the guns went off and that sick fuck, Boring Richard, shot her.

  I don’t need to prove I’m innocent to Ivy. She knows.

  I don’t need to prove anything to anyone, I decide. Fuck them all.

  The front door opens and the Reverend William Rockwell stands there looking very much like a pastor’s daughter’s father.

  Well, except him, I guess.

  “Come in!” Sophia, Ivy’s mother, calls. Ivy slips past her father and leaves us there together. On the front stoop. He doesn’t invite me in, so I shift my feet a little, wondering why I’m letting this conservative dinosaur make me nervous.