Only to be betrayed, captured and nearly murdered.
Law school never prepared me for any of this, I grimly thought.
Larroca’s shouts seemed to be getting closer. I squeezed myself even further under the desk and felt something uncomfortable under my leg.
Reaching down, I realized it was a phone cord, plugged into the wall behind me.
I wonder…
Blindly, I reached up and started feeling around the desktop. My fingers brushed against the phone sitting there. I yanked it down.
For a moment, I paused, listening. In my mind, the sound of my grabbing the phone had sounded as loud as an airplane taking off. I was sure Larroca had heard it.
I listened, but couldn’t hear him. He was not screaming. There was no sound of footsteps.
So I brought the phone to my ear. To my utter surprise, there was a dial tone.
My fingers quickly pressed 9-1… Then I paused.
Was it the police who betrayed me to Larroca? Fixer had mentioned some cops were probably on his payroll. Could Captain Mallory have been a double-agent for Larroca? Was he the reason I was in this situation? And, if so, could calling the cops just put me in more danger?
Seriously, Theresa, how much more danger could you possibly end up in?
I shook the doubts away and dialed the last 1.
Immediately, there was a ring.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
“I’ve been kidnapped,” I hissed into the phone. Even my whisper sounded too loud, to me. I was sure Larroca could hear me.
“Please, you’ve got to tell them to hurry. I’m in terrible danger.”
“All right, ma’am. Can you tell me where you are?”
“A warehouse. Somewhere. I’m not—”
Suddenly, I was yanked from under the desk and hurled across the room. The phone came with me, the cord tearing out of the wall. I slammed against a wall and my head lolled a moment as I nearly lost consciousness. I managed to stay awake, however, and found myself staring up at the bloody face of Larroca.
The gash where I got him with the two-by-four was dark and deep. Blood flowed freely from it, soaking his shirt and the front of his pants.
“You goddamn bitch,” he said through grit teeth. He lifted an arm and that’s when I realized he was holding the two-by-four I’d hit him with. There was still a little of his flesh on it. “I’m going to beat you to fucking death with this thing.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less from you, you scumbag,” I spat at him. I had no idea where my sudden fury came from. I guess because I knew I was about to die. So why give a fuck?
“What’s your deal, anyway?” Larroca asked, apparently as surprised by my behavior as I was. “Why’re your panties so bunched over me? I never hurt you or your family.”
“You’re a criminal, Larroca. A disgusting, low-life, degenerate. The kind of person that makes decent human beings wonder if the world isn’t permanently fucked if it allows people like you to exist in it.”
“Careful, sweetheart. I don’t like flattery.”
“Dying while trying to put you away if fucking worth it to me, you shitbag. And you know what, if it’s not going to be me, it’s going to be someone else.”
“No one else will be stupid enough to try and come after me again. Not after the example I set with you.”
“By what? Killing me? Not everyone’s a fucking coward.”
“Oh. But when I start mailing you bit-by-bit to the DA’s office, they’ll cower pretty quick, I bet. When they get a finger. Then a toe. Then a tit. Then your snatch, turned inside out. I bet they’ll be pretty fucking scared then, don’t you?”
I had a sudden image in my mind of him following through on that threat. Of my whole body being carved up and sliced off. It caused my throat to tighten and any further words of defiance I had to disappear from my mind.
“Hm. Not so cocky now,” Larroca said. “Too bad you came to your senses to fucking late.”
This is it, I thought. There was nowhere for me to go. I was going to die right there. And Larroca would go free once again. I’d failed.
Larroca lifted the two-by-four high above me.
“You’re about to die, bitch,” he told me.
Which was when two arms suddenly threw themselves around his neck and started strangling him. The wood plank dropped to Larroca’s side as his eyes widened in shock and fear.
Fixer’s face appeared over Larroca’s shoulder as he continued choking Larroca. “Not today, asshole,” he hissed.
Then he started dragging the murderous bastard out of the office and back into the warehouse. I tried to follow, but my legs gave out beneath me.
I’m alive. I’m alive. I had to keep repeating it to myself as I used the wall as leverage to get back to standing.
Fixer saved me.
22
The Fixer
When I’d heard Theresa scream, I’d taken off without thinking. I hadn’t checked my guns until I was getting ready to slip into the office and take out Larroca.
Both were empty.
So, I’d gone in and started strangling him.
Larroca’s face was bleeding profusely. The blood was slickening up my forearms and making it harder and harder to hold onto him as we struggled back onto the warehouse floor, littered with the bodies of his cronies.
I tried to tighten my squeeze, but Larroca managed to hurl an elbow into my stomach. I bent over as the wind rushed out of me. Larroca spun and whacked the two-by-four against my wounded shoulder.
I went sprawling. He swung the plank down at me and I rolled to the side. The plank hits the floor and shatters.
I quickly hopped to my feet and faced off against him. He dropped the toothpicks he was holding. Raised his fists.
Just me and him, one on one.
Neither of us was exactly what you’d call a ‘fighter’. Fighters have plans when they get into fisticuffs. They’ve got a strategy.
Larroca and me were brawlers. We charged one another and started wailing on each other. Neither of us pulled his punches. My head was quickly ringing, but I suspected his was ringing more. My fist was quickly slick with his blood, the wound on his cheek deepening and widening.
Finally sick of that blow-trading, I let out a cry and ducked. I tackled Larroca, driving my shoulder into his stomach. We both toppled to the ground. Unfortunately, my momentum sent me somersaulting onto my back.
Before I could get up, Larroca had gotten his foot on my neck. I tried to push it off me, but he was strong, mad with rage and bloodlust. I looked up at his nasty face, snarling down at me.
“Fixer,” he said, spitting the word at me. “I can’t believe I’m the one who gets to kill you.”
There were a few quips that came to mind. But I couldn’t get any of them out because the dude was crushing my windpipe. I was exhausted from all the previous exertion. I didn’t have the strength to shove him off of me.
I started looking around for something, anything else that I could use.
A sharp shaft of the wood that exploded when he’d missed me with the two-by-four was just at the edge of my view.
While keeping one hand on his foot, I reached out and grabbed the shaft. Then, hard as I could, I drove it into his calf. The sharp wood—basically a thin stake—went right through the muscle.