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SEVEN DEGREES FROM DRAMA

Emma

W ho knew a drive-by shooting wouldn’t be the worst thing I’d endure in life?

Don’t get me wrong, that hellish moment might’ve been over a decade ago, but it was bad. I can still close my eyes and hear bullets hitting metal.

But something as innocent as a fender-bender turning into a carjacking is pretty damn bad too.

When I got out to see the damage to my bumper, I was greeted with a gun in my side. I was still on the phone with Crew at the time. He heard everything.

Before he forced me back into my car and slammed the door shut, my cell met its untimely death in a million pieces on the pavement.

He’s not that much taller than me, but wide and strong. I couldn’t see his face. He had on a ski mask and didn’t even look like a criminal. Damn the cold weather.

I fought and screamed. Trust me, I did my best. I thrashed and punched and kicked, but I was no match. It wasn’t much of a scuffle for him. When he fought to restrain my arms, the bracelet my father gave me was ripped off.

The tracker and my phone.

They’re gone.

After the last week, I’ve decided that if running onto a football field and fighting off carjackers are career hazards, I either need a new job or a gym membership that comes with a personal trainer.

I am not cut out for the lifestyle I have fallen victim to.

I have the bruised ribs, cut on my chin, and zip tie around my wrists to prove it.

And even through it all, I wasn’t completely freaked out, because my dad is Asa Hollingsworth. My adoptive uncles are badasses. Hell, one of them is even a CIA officer.

Dad might not be a helicopter parent as much as Mom, but I know for a fact he has a tracker on my car. He has since he handed me the keys to my first one in high school and didn’t try to hide that fact.

So as long as I was in my car, I knew I’d be okay.

That lasted less than ten minutes.

It didn’t matter how much I screamed, kicked, or thrashed—the guy managed to park my car in the lot of a deserted building. I was yanked out and thrown into the back of an old conversion van.

That is when my freak out hit an all-time high.

There was a driver waiting in the van.

Two against one.

The man who took me slapped duct tape over my mouth and wrapped it around my ankles.

I had no chance against one. There’s no way I’ll survive against two without a way for my dad to track me.

And Jack.

If he knows yet, he’s got to be beside himself.

We’ve been driving for almost an hour—or at least that’s how it feels. The road turned bumpy and rough a while ago.

One more mark against me getting out of this mess on my own.

I’ve barely heard what they’re saying. They turned the music up to decibels that would rival any throwback hair band concert.

My body aches more and more with every bump and turn. But never as much as when I’m thrown into the wall of the van as they come to a quick turn before an abrupt stop.

Shit, that hurts.

The silence feels deafening when the car shuts off. I can finally hear them talking.

“Let’s dump her. I want to get out of here.”

“No shit. From now on, no more jobs that touch high profile targets. This is bullshit.”

I tense when the back doors of the van open. Frigid air floods the space, and I’m forced to blink away the bright sun.

Both men are wearing masks. When the same one who carjacked me reaches for my bound feet, panic fills me from the bottom up.

My screams are muffled and desperate. Tears streaking my face feel like ice in the wind when they yank me from the van.

We’re on a dirt road in the middle of bare trees. Dead leaves crunch under their feet as they drag me around the vehicle to a small cabin. Under any other circumstances, I’d think it was quaint and cute. There are cobble steps leading to a covered porch and empty flowerpots on either side of the door. Hell, there’s even a welcome mat.

Hypocrisy at its finest.

My feet drag behind me like lead as they pull me through brush and twigs, up the stairs, and to the door.

When one of the guys pushes it open, I gasp at what I see. Or who I see.

Rylan Crawford.

He’s tied to a chair in the middle of the family room. It looks like it takes all his energy to lift his head and open one good eye since the other is swollen shut.

It flares wide when he sees me. He thrashes in his chair and almost topples over.

“Why her?” he screams. “Your beef is with me. Let her go!”

“Trust me. Not our choice, man.”

They pull another wooden chair from the kitchen table and force me to sit.

They weren’t kidding when they said they wanted to get out of here. They make quick work of the duct tape. My chest is wrapped to the spine and my bound legs are taped to a chair leg.

But they show some mercy, if you can call it that. I cry out when they rip the tape from my mouth, feeling the blood trickle from my raw lips.

I heave deep breaths through my mouth and turn to look at Rylan but say nothing. His face and body say it all.

He fared worse than me. Dried blood covers his swollen eye. There’s a gaping cut on his forehead.

He had more of a fight in him than I did, or they did this to him after the fact.

The guys take one last look at us before turning for the door.

“Good luck,” one offers.

The other finishes his thought. “You’re going to need it.”

And with that, they’re gone.

Rylan winces through his pain. “Why the fuck would they drag you into this? You okay?”

I nod and force myself to get it under control. My words are hoarse. “How long have you been here?”

Rylan heaves a deep breath. “Since last night sometime. They got me coming home from the bar after meeting you.”

“Who are they?”

He winces when he tries to wet his dry, busted lip. “I don’t know, and that’s fucking unheard of. I know everyone in this town who’d be willing to do shit like this. Not nab me—they could find a million people to do that. But you?” He shakes his head. “No way. No one wants that kind of attention. These people are no joke and have a shit ton of money to dump to make their problems go away. We’ve got to get out of here.”

I pull at my hands and feel the tension in my shoulders. “There’s no way I’m getting out of these binds.”

“I can, but I need help. I need you to tighten my zip tie.”

“Tighten it?”

It’s like he’s gotten a second wind since he’s not here by himself. He rocks his chair the four feet that separate us until we’re back-to-back. “Tighten it as much as you can. If it’s loose, I can’t break it.”

“If you say so. This seems counterproductive, but I’ve never been zip tied before. I’ve also never been carjacked or kidnapped.”

“These motherfuckers do not mess around. Hurry up,” Rylan demands.

I have to use all my strength at this angle, but I pull on the plastic as hard as I can. “Did that do any good?”

I can’t see him, but I can hear him. He rustles as the chair rocks on the hardwood.

“Fuck,” he grits.

“I can try again.”

And then…

Snap .

He groans with relief.

I crane my neck back and see him wiggling his arms within his own duct tape. “Can you get out?”

That’s when I hear the rip of tape and his chair crash to the floor. Rylan comes my way and rips at the tape around my legs and chest. “If that fucker touches my family, I’ll kill him myself.”

“Pike?” I ask.

When he finally rips the tape away from my body, he rushes to the small kitchen on the other side of the room and bangs through kitchen drawers until he produces a knife. “Turn around.”

The moment he cuts the plastic tie from my wrists, the blood rushes back to my hands and fingers. I shake my hands out and rub the welts on my wrists as he frees my legs and ankles. “Are you talking about Pike?”

“That’s who I thought was the mastermind, but I heard those guys talking. Pike only coordinated this shit.” He shakes his head as he rips his hoodie off over his head. “Here, put this on. It’s cold, and you don’t have a coat.”

I take the hoodie thrust into my hands. “But now you’re in just a T-shirt.”

He rushes to the kitchen to dig through more drawers. “I’m fine. Put it on. We need to get out of here.”

The last thing I’m going to do is stand here and argue over a hoodie, so I pull it over my head. “If Pike isn’t behind this, who is?”

He slides a switchblade into his pocket and digs through another drawer before dumping a few things on the counter. “I can’t fucking believe it. There’s only one person who wants Sullivan out of the picture more than anyone.”

I stuff my hands into the front pockets of the hoodie. “Wait, I thought this all started because Fred Pike wanted Jack’s clients. That’s what they said on the wiretap.”

Rylan goes to the back door of the cabin and peeks out the curtain before looking back at me. “Look, before I found out it was Sullivan, I didn’t give a shit who wanted who out of the picture. Hell, I’ve never given a shit about anyone but my family—look where it got me. On my way home last night, I got a call from the guy on the streets who hooked me up with this job. Turns out, Pike coordinated the whole thing for his client who wants to stay seven degrees away from the illegal shit. But they followed me and saw me meeting with you and your old man. When I got home last night, those assholes were in my house and jumped me.”

“Wait.” I pause to put it all together. “Are you saying it was the quarterback who Brett replaced? Mark Morse?”

Rylan tucks a meat tenderizer into the pocket of his baggy jeans and stalks across the room to me, forcing a hammer into my hands. “I was just as surprised as you, lady. They want Sullivan and your man out of the picture. And the fact that we’re standing in a cabin in the middle of BFE proves they’re willing to do anything to make it happen.”

My mind is blown.

Rylan grabs my arm and pulls me to the back door. “I hope you like to run.”

Well, shit.