Designer Desires (12 page)

Korrine woke with a start. Her head was pounding and the room was dark. She couldn’t move her arms or her legs; her whole body felt stiff.
Where the hell am I?

Korrine moaned. She couldn’t open her mouth all the way.
What the hell? Am I gagged?
Korrine started thrashing violently, but quickly stopped when the pounding in her head made her almost pass out. She tried moving her hands and legs, but she couldn’t. She was tied to a chair. Korrine started to panic. She didn’t know where she was and what was going on, and the throbbing in her head made tears fall down her cheeks. She was alone in what seemed like a warehouse of some kind.
Why was this happening?
Korrine tried to calm her breathing, but she couldn’t manage to relax. The longer she sat there, the more frantic she became. Her breathing started to become erratic, the blackness started to creep in, and she passed out again.

Misty

Misty was waiting in the penthouse suite of the fancy hotel, putting the rest of her plan in motion. She was done trying to save her stupid father and his no good associate. They could all kiss her ass. She was going to hold Korrine for ransom and get on the first thing smokin’. There was no way in hell Tony was going to marry her or get her pregnant. That was wishful thinking and stupid on her part. However, she was done living in la-la land. She knew that Tony was in love with this girl when she followed them. Steve was stupid to think that he could ever pull any sane woman away from Antonio Cameron. If she had been thinking with her head and not her heart, she would have gotten as far away from this mess as she could. Now, that was exactly what she was going to do.

First things first, she made sure her alibi was tight for the disappearance of Korrine. Jeff Langston was an old friend of the family, and he hated Tony as much as she hated Korrine. He was all too happy to be her “get away” driver. He couldn’t wait to get back at Tony by knocking the stuck up little bitch that he dealt with down a peg or two. Misty had just as much dirt on Jeff anyway. He had a penchant for young girls, especially a young under-aged Misty. She had pictures, text messages, and emails proving they had a relationship way before she was of age. It would ruin his family, but she didn’t even have to blackmail him. All she had to do was cozy up to him, get him a drink or two, and tell him the plan. She should’ve just used him from the beginning, but he was a loose cannon who likes to brag about his revenge. So she had to still keep a close eye on him. Plus Steve had disappeared since their last heated conversation, so she had to make sure he was still under whatever rock he had himself under for a couple more days until she could get the hell out of Texas to somewhere tropical with no extradition laws.

“Hey, is the package still in the holding position?” Misty asked Jeff using a burner phone and code. She had dealt with many a corrupt politician and not so reputable men saving her father, and she knew exactly what to do in order to get the ransom drop. It was sad, really, but a skill nonetheless.

“I’m still holding. The package is in the location specified,” Jeff replied. At least he was smart enough to speak in code like she told him to. He must really hate Tony to be following her instructions without any argument.

“Great, you have the other burner and the PC with the program. Use those and send the ransom message. Make sure you give him ten hours and wait the entire ten hours. Otherwise they may get suspicious.  They should know the little bitch is missing now, so we need to make them sweat a little. So we just wait, make the call, give the instructions, and lay low until we can get the hell out of dodge.”

“Right, I’ll make the call, and I will text you when I get a response.”

“Good, make sure that black bitch is uncomfortable, and I will wait for your text,” Misty said hanging up.

This is going to be easier than I thought it would. Who knew Jeff could be so easily controlled? Maybe they could leave together…Nah, then she wouldn’t have anyone to pin all this shit on. Oh well. Jeff would just have to be sacrificed for the greater good.

Misty was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she almost missed her phone ringing.

“Hello...”

“Misty, where the hell are you? Have you spoken to Tony?  Apparently, Tony’s little whore has disappeared.  One of my people from the law enforcement there told me about it.  What the hell is going on!?” Anderson all but yelled in the phone.

“I told you,
Anderson
, I haven’t spoken to your son, and he refuses to take my calls. So why would I keep calling him?” Misty responded playing it cool.

“First of all, don’t you ever talk to me in that manner.  I will not be disrespected by trash like you. Now answer my fucking questions. Do you know what’s going on?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about; I told you when we spoke last that your little plan wasn’t working. My father and you will have to get yourselves out of this mess. I can’t be involved anymore. My guy got spooked and called the whole thing off. So, I took his lead and decided it would probably be best if I did the same. But, you wouldn’t know any of that because you hung up in my face and you, like your son, also refused my calls.” Misty was goading Anderson into losing his composure. If she could get him talking, maybe she could pin something on him too.

“Listen, you little bitch!! We had a deal. You are going to help me get my son’s shares, and you are going to do it quickly! Or I will do my best to ruin your entire life, and let’s not forget about your family’s name. You don’t have a pot to piss in, and I will make sure everyone from Georgia to Texas knows all your dirty little secrets,” Anderson yelled, seething.

Gotcha asshole,
Misty thought with a smirk. Her plan was working; she made him believe that she had nothing to do with Korrine’s unfortunate disappearance, got him talking and made him believe that she was no longer helping with his idiotic plan.

“I don’t care who you tell or what you tell them. I. AM. DONE! Tell my father to clean up his own mess.” Misty hung up in Anderson’s face.

Tony

Tony was speeding trying to get to Korrine’s house; he missed his sweetness, even though it had only been a couple of days. He was tired of fighting his feelings for her; hell, he was tired of fighting with her. He needed to be lost in his woman, letting her know that she was his. Then they could deal with this shitstorm coming down on them together. Yeah, it may have been partly his fault that she was being stalked, but he would protect her with his life if he had to. Nothing was going to come between them again. That he was sure of.

Some of Jake’s guys were running out of Korrine’s apartment, frantically looking around. Tony became anxious when he saw the expressions on the faces of these well-trained men.

When Tony got to Korrine’s, he knew something wasn’t right. “What the hell is going on?” he said to no one in particular.

He knew that whatever was said to him was not going to be good news. His heart began to pound even harder and, when he saw Jake running up the stairs, his heart that was beating so frantically instantly dropped to his stomach.

“Jake?! Where’s Korri?!” Tony was rambling with fear growing inside of him at a rapid pace. “Why are you here? I just left you at the house!”

“Buddy, Korri is gone-”

“WHAT?!” he shouted. “How do you know she didn’t just leave?!”

“Somebody got to her. They knew about my guys, Tony,” Jake stated trying to remain calm for his cousin.

“Seems one of her neighbors saw Korrine being pushed down the back stairwell by a woman that she didn’t recognize. The lady also said she thinks she may have seen a gun but can’t be sure.”

“Why can’t she be sure?” Tony asked.

“She’s an older lady, probably early seventies. Her eyes aren’t what they used to be, but she knows Korri. She said Korri didn’t even realize she was there, and neither did the other lady.”

“Did the lady get a good look at who Korri was with?”

“Yep, blond with a tight dress.”

“Fuckin’ hell!!” Tony yelled.

“I thought the same thing…Misty,” Jake replied.

“Why is she doing this? She had to have a gun, Jake. There is no way in hell Korri would have gone with her just willingly. Damn it!” Tony roared with frustration.

“It’s okay, cousin. We will find her. I promise you that!” Jake assured him.

Jake

It hadn’t been but a few hours since Korrine had been forced out of her apartment. Jake and his guys were looking at the security footage in Korri’s building, but Misty was smarter than she looked. The cameras had been disabled at the time she led Korrine out of the building. She had to have had help. There was no way she was smart enough to know how to work a security system. Although the system wasn’t that high tech, you would still have to know how to hack into the system. Who in the hell was helping this silly bitch? Both Tony and Jake were beyond frustrated with the lack of information they were finding. Misty had done one hell of a job covering her tracks. She also must have been watching Korrine and Tony for some time in order to pull off taking her right under Jake’s guys’ noses. They were professionals who never should’ve been caught off guard the way they were. It was unacceptable, and Jake was livid. They knew that Korrine was a high priority. Even though she hadn’t had any direct contact with her stalker, they were still supposed to keep a watch on her apartment and studio. They had to wait for this psycho to slip up in the act; instead, they slipped right in under their nose and took her. Misty had to have been watching her apartment to know the exact moment to slip in unnoticed. Korrine was a creature of habit, after all; she rarely did anything but work and go home, so that’s what made it easy to keep an eye on her. Unfortunately, it also made it easy to stalk her. Jake constantly told her to switch up her routine, but she was one of the most stubborn people he had ever met. He and Tony agreed that she didn’t take her stalking as seriously as she should have, and now they were stuck going over three months’ worth of information from the PI, as well as taps and security cameras around Korri’s studio and apartment. They knew the person responsible was Misty. But who in the hell could she be working with, and where the hell was she? Nobody could pinpoint her location, and that was more than worrying to both Tony and Jake.

“Tell me what you got,” Jake stated into the phone.

“A lot, boss. First, your uncle has been a very busy man; he and Misty have been in contact for the past eight months. I also looked into the financials of Cameron Corp, and you were right,” Mike, Jake’s head of IT, stated. “Whoever cooked the books did a bang up job, but I found the discrepancies.  It seems like Tony is actually the majority owner of shares in the company. His dad, although very discreetly, has sold his shares little by little, and he even sold Mrs. Cameron’s shares as well.”

“Shit, this is way more complicated than I thought,” Jake sighed. “How long has my dear uncle been selling off his company shares?”

“A little over a year,” Mike replied.

“Did you find any connection to Misty?” Jake asked.

“Yep, I was just getting to that. Seems like Mr. Cameron started selling his shares after making a major bad investment. He did fly under the radar with the investment, which is why nobody really knows about it, except Mr. Gregory Austin. He was on the board of directors for the investment that was supposed to garner millions. But to me it looks to be some elaborate pyramid scheme. They were getting money from Peter to pay Paul…just on a larger scale. The investment was supposed to be for some building complex in Florida. The scheme seemed to be going just fine until Austin got greedy and got involved with some unsavory characters. He got in over his head, and now he and your uncle owe some very bad people a lot of money.”

“So who was he selling off the shares to?” Jake asked.

“He was selling them off in bits and pieces, but not to any one individual or company. So nobody could actually take over Cameron Corp, but he just doesn’t have controlling shares anymore; Tony does. With the shares your grandfather left him, and those his mother also gave him out of hers, he now has the majority of the shares…even more than your father and uncle,” Mike stated.

“So let me get this straight…Tony has controlling shares of the family corporation and his dad is trying to get those shares by using Misty?”

“Yeah, in so many words. However, Misty seems to have gone rogue. Since we knew she took Korrine, we tapped her phone. Misty received one phone call from your uncle. She’s pretending not to know anything about Korrine’s disappearance; she also said that she was done with him and her father. She’s downtown in the penthouse suite. She doesn’t know we’re on to her yet, so we have an advantage.”

“Thanks, Mike. You have connected a lot of dots for me. I appreciate it greatly. You know how I feel about family, and Korrine is family,” Jake said.

“No thanks needed, boss. That’s what you pay me for. The guys are sitting on Misty’s location, but we haven’t seen any sign of Korri and Misty hasn’t made a move yet. What do you want us to do?”

“Sit tight. Make sure the guys don’t let her get the slip on them this time, or there will be hell to pay.”

“Got it, boss!”