Tearing Down Walls (Love Under Construction Series Book 2) (21 page)

“Hmmm.” Steve stared at his phone. “What was that all about? She couldn’t wait to get off the . . .” His eyebrows shot up into his hairline.
I wonder . . . is there something going on between her and Cabrizzi? Surely not . . .

“So, what’s your pleasure?” Vic asked Laura when she answered the phone. He’d tried to call her three times, but she hadn’t answered. He was getting a little worried when she finally answered on the fourth try. “I told you I’d bring liquor, and I’m here at the store, so . . .”

“Uh, I don’t think I can do that today.” She had an odd feeling in the pit of her stomach just thinking about what Steve had said, and she didn’t think she could stand seeing Vic.

Vic didn’t know what had happened, but he was getting damned irritated at the way she yanked him around. “Oh, so, do you have a big party to go to? Or going jogging? Because I’d advise against both.”
What the hell?
, he thought.
She was nice last night, but now she’s brushing me off? Infuckingcredible.

“No, I’m just tired and I don’t feel like having company, that’s all.”

Vic hoped she couldn’t hear the disappointment in his voice. He’d thought he might be making some inroads with the pretty dark-haired ice princess, but maybe he was wrong. He was trying to come up with something to say when she said, “I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you another time,” and the phone went dead.

“Well, fuck me,” he muttered to himself, then put the two bottles of wine back on the shelf and picked up a bottle of Buffalo Trace on his way out. Why waste a perfectly good trip to the liquor store?

Laura lay back on the sofa and sighed. What the hell was wrong with her? He was just trying to be nice. Her mind went back to what Steve had said, and she could picture Vic’s strong, dark hands on some woman’s waist, on her ass, on her perfect breasts . . . Laura’s eyes closed and she swallowed hard.
Forget it, Butler. He wouldn’t want you anyway. No man will want you.

Since he was already in Louisville, Vic drove over to Clayton’s office. After saying hello to the secretary, Cheryl, he walked on through to find Tony sitting in the chair behind the big desk. “What the hell are you doing here?” Vic laughed.

“Working. What the hell are
you
doing
here
?”

Vic dropped onto the sofa with a sigh. “I called Laura last night, offered to come and see her today, bring her liquor, and she seemed glad. But when I called her from the liquor store she blew me off.” Vic tinkered with a couple of paperclips he picked up from the desk’s gleaming surface and didn’t look up.

“Huh. Well, she’s a hard one to read. Is she doing okay?” Tony asked.

“Says she is, that Kelly’s been nice to her, she feels safe.”

“Yeah, Kelly’s good people. And not hard on the eyes either,” Tony smiled, looking at Vic and raising his eyebrows.

“Oh, no, cousin. I’m having too much fun right now. This service Dom thing is working out pretty good.”

“What’s ‘working out’ consist of?” Tony noticed Vic’s eyes light up just mentioning it.

“Well, let’s just say José got a surprise when he checked through the monitor’s window in the private room where I was, uh, entertaining and being entertained by the sub I’d been scening with.” Vic grinned.

“Lots of screaming and moaning, I take it?” Tony chuckled.

“Yep. Lots and lots. Over and over,” Vic said, laughing.

Tony let loose with a belly laugh. “Well, okay then. Oversharing!”

“You deserve it, as many times as I’ve caught you and Nikki going at it!” Vic was laughing so hard that his chest hurt.

“Yeah, I guess that’s true!”

Before he could say anything else, Vic’s phone rang. When he looked at the screen, he said, “Huh. Laura.” He hit accept and growled, “Change your mind?”

There was a long, icy pause, and Laura whispered, “Vic! He’s here!”

It took a second before Vic realized what she was saying, and then it crashed down on him. “Laura, can you get out of the house, honey? Keep your wits about you and get out of the house. Take Tony’s truck. I’m on my way, hear me? I’m on my way!” He looked at Tony and his face went pale. Before Tony could say anything, Vic jumped up and ran out the door, and Tony was right on his tail.

“Go, Laura, go!” he yelled as he ran. He jumped in the Mustang, and Tony made it to the other side and into the car just as Vic tore out of the parking lot.

“Vic, I’m so scared!” He could tell she was panicking.

“Have you got your weapon?”

“I don’t even know. I can’t think. Oh my god, he’s inside. Vic!” The phone went dead.

Vic hit the contact for Steve’s tech, Wendy, while Tony called Steve. “Wendy! It’s Vic!”

“Hey, Vic, how’s it . . .”

“I need a position on Laura. NOW! Send it to my nav system – I know you have my info. And find Peyton and José and get them rolling. Wagner’s at Kelly’s and Laura’s on the move on my word. He’ll chase her, and I’ve got to find them.”

Wendy sounded shaky. “Uh, sending her location ASAP to you, Peyton, José, and Steve.”

Vic turned to Tony. “Tell him her location is coming to him now.”

“Hear that, Steve?” Tony asked.

“Yeah, man, it just hit me. I’m mobile. Peyton and José?” Steve asked.

“Heard him. En route per Wendy,” Vic answered.

“We’ve got a chance to get this bastard, but we have to get to him before he gets to her.” Tony tried to talk and grip the oh-shit handle – Vic was running lights and screaming down the downtown streets so fast that Tony was sure they wouldn’t live to see evening.

“Hang up and tell me where to turn, dammit!” Vic yelled.

“Right at the next corner, two blocks, left.”

Vic took the corner on two wheels, and the tires squealed as he pulled them back in line and gunned it. “Oh god,” Vic whispered to himself, “I want to keep my promise.”

Laura could see Wagner in the truck’s rearview. None of her evasive maneuvers had worked; he was hanging right on her. She kept driving, trying to think of somewhere, anywhere, that she could lose him, but she didn’t seem to be able to think of a single place, her brain in a slow sizzle of terror. By zig-zagging through the city in panic, she found herself in an area that wasn’t familiar. Nothing was recognizable. Then she felt it – he slammed into the back of the big Ram pickup truck, and she had trouble holding it on the road.

She turned another corner and saw the street narrow under an overpass. Wagner tried to get up beside her and she hit the accelerator, but not before he clipped the rear quarter panel of the truck and set it spinning. The front passenger corner slammed into the overpass piers, and the airbags deployed, forcing Laura back and knocking the breath out of her.

Before she could shake the stars out of her head, she felt a hand in her hair, and she was being dragged out of the truck and thrown on the street. Wagner leered over her. “Too easy, Billings! You’re going out just enough to let me kill you real, real slow, and I’m going to enjoy watching you die, whore!” He had a foot on each of her upper arms, pinning her to the ground, and he pulled out a Taser and pressed it to her chest just above her heart, turning all fifty thousand volts directly into her flesh.

Laura felt the jolt, and her bladder turned loose, her back arching and every muscle in her body convulsing. She tried to scream, but she couldn’t; she couldn’t do anything, and everything started to get dark. “That’s it, bitch, nitey-nite!” Wagner laughed. And then he stopped laughing.

Thundering down on them was one hell-wind of a badass Shelby GT500 but, before they could get close, he ran to his van and peeled out. Vic and Tony watched him as he darted away.

And then Vic saw Laura.

Her still form lay on the street.
God, I’m too late!
, he thought, and set the Mustang into a sideways slide, stopping ten feet short of where her body lay motionless. Tony watched Wagner jet away, trying to see the license plate number, but Vic had one singular mission. He ran straight to the woman lying on the asphalt.

When he touched her, he knew, just knew. He felt for a pulse – nothing. He looked for blood – none. What the hell had Wagner done to her? He did the only thing he could think of – he started chest compressions. Tony had always paid for the employees to take first aid, CPR, and AED-use classes, and for once Vic was glad. Tony fell to his knees on Laura’s other side and cried out, “What can I do?”

“Get the AED out of my trunk! Go!” Vic kept up the compressions, checking every so often for a pulse, but there wasn’t one. “God, baby, don’t do this!” he whispered to her still form. “Come back, please! Oh, god, I’m so sorry! I promised you I’d keep you safe, and I fucked up!” He was trying hard to keep the scream forming in his brain at bay when Tony got back with the AED.

“I’ve taken the classes, but I’ve never used one of these damn things.” Tony unpacked the leads. As he worked on it with shaking hands, there was the shrieking of sliding tires behind them, and in just a few seconds, Peyton was kneeling beside them too. He helped Tony untangle the leads while Vic kept up the pumping on her chest.

“Peyton, read the instructions to me while I put this damn thing on her,” Tony said. “I’ve got to cut her shirt off.” He took out a pocket knife and said, “Vic, watch out.” Putting the blade under the bottom edge of the shirt, he sliced it neatly up the middle.

All three men worked to keep the sight in front of them from bringing everything to an abrupt halt. Laura’s chest, ribs, diaphragm area, stomach, everywhere, were covered in a mass of crazy scars, some inverted, some plumped up almost like keloids. Some of them were three or four inches long; others, only a half inch to inch, crisscrossing and overlapping like wild. They were most concentrated in the middle of her chest, disappearing into the top and bottom of her bra and extending from her collarbone to about two inches above her waist. As Tony started to put the leads on her, Vic yelled, “Wait! She’s got on an underwire bra! That has to come off. Cut it in the middle and get rid of it,” he said, continuing the rhythmic compressions. Tony cut the center of her bra and pulled it aside.

Pain shot through Vic’s brain, and the tears that rose up in his eyes almost blinded him. Laura’s breasts were covered in thick, hard scars, the left worse than the right. Her left breast was a mass of scar tissue, and it had no nipple; there was a deep, puckered, horizontal scar that ran across the center of it. Here and there were odd-colored patches of skin, grafts from other parts of her body. Tony and Peyton froze in shock. “Shit, guys!” Vic yelled. “Get with it!” His command pulled them out of their stupor, and Tony got the leads on her. An electronic voice from the device spoke: “Analyzing. No pulse detected. Shock advised.” Tony pressed the START button, and when the green light popped on, he yelled “CLEAR!” Vic yanked his hands away, and Tony hit the DISCHARGE button.

Laura’s body jumped, and when Tony said “Okay!” Vic felt for a pulse. Nothing. He started pumping again.

“Hit her again!” he yelled at Tony.

The device cycled, and Tony hit the START button again, waited for the charge to show up, then yelled “CLEAR!” Vic drew his hands back and Tony hit the DISCHARGE button. When he nodded, Vic checked for a pulse.