“Oh yeah, and how was it supposed to go?” I asked, trying to pry as much information out of her as I could, and if this where the dumb bitch wanted to start, so be it.
Sucking in a deep breath, she explained, “I was to get the money and give you to Babs. Then she was gonna give Cooper back to me, and I’d give him to Cruz, cause I didn’t want him. I was gonna disappear.”
“Too fucking bad that didn’t work out for ya, huh?” I barked. “Who was with you at the shop? Who shot me?”
She sobbed. “Babs’s girlfriend.”
I felt as if I got sucker-punched, and Cruz must have, too. “Girlfriend?” he asked her as we looked at each other with the same puzzled look.
“Yeah. She was helping Babs get Princess.”
“And who is this girlfriend?” Cruz’s voice turned utterly menacing, and Mel heard it too as her eyes widened to him. He popped his knuckles back and forth.
“Liv.”
My world stopped for a moment as fireballs seemed to have fallen from the sky, pounding the ground around me, but I couldn’t move. Cruz stepped in speaking the words I so badly wanted to leave my mouth. “Liv from Studio X?”
Mel shook her head yes. “Is that who has Cooper?” He asked as she shook her head again.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! I looked at Cruz, pleading with him with my eyes. My mind tried to revert to the helplessness I felt just a few hours ago before the call, but I tried to fight it. I needed to stay strong, but there’s only so much a person could take.
Cruz saw the pain in my eyes as his eyes softened to mine. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I clutched the gun in my hand, wondering what the hell we were gonna do next. I didn’t need to think; Cruz was able to do it for me.
“Here’s what you’re gonna do, Mel, and if you give any part of it away at any time, I will blow your fucking brains away.” She didn’t move as I listened with her. “When Babs or Liv calls, you play it off as if you have Princess tied up and ready for them. You get the drop off location and time. Then you’re gonna drive with a gun pointed at the back of your fucking head to the location with Princess in the backseat.” I stared at Cruz wondering how the hell this was all gonna play out. It always sounded good in theory, but in reality—not so much.
“I don’t like it,” G.T. clipped in.
“I don’t give a fuck what you like,” Cruz said, turning to him.
“You’re gonna put my sister in the line of fire? Not gonna happen.”
“G.T.,” I said finally finding my voice. “We need to get to Babs so we can get to Cooper. It is what it is. I can take care of myself.”
“Since when does an ol’ lady get involved with club business?”
Cruz didn’t hesitate, “When that business involves her and her family.”
“Shit,” G.T. leaned against the door. “You sure about this Princess?”
“If it means getting my boy back, I’m ready.” My voice sounded steadier than I really felt.
“I’m gonna need to rough you up a bit. There’s no way that Babs is gonna think this bitch overtook you. She already looks like she was in a fight, gotta give you some marks, Babe.”
I nodded.
As far as we knew, Babs bought the bait. We even added me yelling some choice words through the phone muffled by a small towel to emulate being gagged. I gave Mel my leather gloves after padding her hand up with a towel, she bitched and complained that it hurt, but I didn’t give a shit. It was stupid of me to cut her fucking shirt, but luckily she had a bag of clothes in her trunk to change into.
Laying in the backseat of Mel’s car, I held on tight to my gun. If anything went wrong, I’d shoot to kill in a heartbeat. Babs wanted Mel to bring me to an old warehouse about ten miles off the beaten path. Already giving the location to the brothers, Cruz said he’d have all the guys in place. I had a towel to tie around my mouth, and when we got closer I was to put the gun at my back and slip my hands in the loose knot that Cruz made for me.
We just needed to see Cooper, and then the guys could come in. I just needed to buy a little bit of time. “Don’t do anything stupid, Mel, or the guys will find you and kill you in a heartbeat. You follow what we tell you; you’ll walk away alive.” I was full of shit, but she didn’t know that. For some reason, she trusted me; maybe thinking she was smart was a dumb idea.
“Will I get the money?” I rolled my eyes. What the fuck?
“Yeah, Mel. You can take the money and start off somewhere new, but don’t contact Cooper again.” I threw in the last part to edge the knife home, but it didn’t faze her.
“Got it.”
“You’d better not set her off, Mel. I mean it.”
“I won’t. I swear.”
As the car came to a stop, I placed the towel back inside my mouth, put the gun away, and laced my hands behind my back slipping it into the knots. I even squeezed out a few fake tears to add to the blood from my cut cheek, courtesy of Cruz.
The door flung open as Babs stood their laughing. “I didn’t think you’d pull it off, Mel. I thought she would have killed you by now.”
“Nah, I kept the gun on her and made her get rid of hers.” Mel’s cocky attitude was working well.
“Looks like you two got into it,” Babs said skeptically more than likely knowing I could take Mel in a fight hands down.
“She tried to get the gun away, but I hit her in the back where Liv shot her. She went down for the count.” Well played Mel, well played.
Babs seemed to have bought her replay of events as she began to look around. “Brothers around?”
“Nope. She wanted the boy so damn bad; she came alone.”
Babs laughed hard. “For an ol’ lady, you sure are a moron.” Babs pulled my arm having me climb out of the car. My mind wandered to how she knew I was already an ol’ lady. She must have better Intel on me than I thought, but just as that thought came into play, Liv popped into my head. Liv must have been feeding her information. I wondered for how long.
As we entered the big building, the smell of mold and musk invaded my nose. With my head snapping alert, I searched around as far as I could see to find Cooper, but when I didn’t see him anywhere, my stomach dropped.
Babs threw me into an old chair in the middle of the room as I continued to search every dark corner around.
“Can I have my boy so I can go?” Mel asked like she was pissed off having to wait.
“Sure. Go through those doors. He’s right there.” Mel walked to the doors opening them wide. Two shots rang out through a silencer, as Mel fell to the ground, dead. “She really is a few bricks shy of a full load.” Babs walked over to Mel and began pulling her by the arms, dragging her to the end of the room. My eyes stayed focused on the door where Mel was supposed to go through. “Clear!” Babs yelled as Liv walked through the door holding Cooper.
“Mommy!” he yelled, my eyes softening to him. But when my eyes landed on Liv, her once beautiful face was void of emotion. It was as if the person looking at me was someone I’d never met, let alone let run my studio or trust.
Babs started laughing. “That will be the last time he calls you that. See Liv, and I are gonna take him as our own. You’ll never see him again. Well that and you’ll be dead. But I don’t want to scare the poor boy.”
“Surprise,” Liv said with a deadpan. “You think I was gonna let you come back and take everything that I worked so hard for these past two years. Bitch. If you’d have just stayed the fuck away, none of this would have happened.”
This bitch was fucking crazy. I didn’t take jack shit from her. It wasn’t hers to begin with.
With my mouth still loosely gagged, I stared Babs down. She must have seen the questions rising from my eyes. Babs began talking, as she walked around the chair I was sitting in, gun pointed at me. I kept my eyes trained on my boy, but I was aware of where she was at all times.