Seducing the Cold Bodyguard Gangster

Chapter Three

I heard a low, I almost define as dark, voice on the other end of the line. His accent is mature, perhaps in his mid to late-thirties. Mr. Whitaker, is that even a real name? 

“May I ask who is calling please?” his polite refined accent from an upstate school is recognizable, probably an education like Harvard or Yale. 

His tone is not only dark, it is slow and articulate. The last thing I need right now is some pansy i***t. No, right now I need a Schwarzenegger. Man, you had better be right Tyler.

“My name is Dr. Vanessa Ericson.” I finally manage to say trying to calm my nerves while still regaining my breath from my run by the lake. 

I heard a car rush by outside this small building, but it did not stop. They were searching for me. I don’t have long at all to explain this situation, and how the heck is this man, I have no idea where is, going to get me out of it? This is my only chance I strictly tell myself. 

“I am afraid I do not know a Dr. Venessa Ericson.” The other voice on the line spoke with a quant bored expression. 

Don’t hang up! I nearly shout but don’t have the time. 

“My friend, I mean a mutual acquaintance gave me your number; Sergeant Tyler Dodson.”

There was a moment of silence.

“I am listening.”

I took a breath of reprieve and my entire head shook back with a jolt up my neck. Thank you, Tyler! 

“I have heard that you might be able to help people out of difficult situations.”

“Well, Miss Ericson, I believe the correct term is called extraction. But yes, it is something that I am qualified in. May I enquire, is that your current situation?” he asked. 

I am pinned back by his use of polite jargon given the clear desperation and urgency with the fear laden throughout my voice in every word I spoke. How is this man going to help me? I think again, the men chasing me are mere seconds away. 

“I am currently hiding in a park in a town outside of Houston Texas. My boyfriend is trying to hunt me down because I just overheard him ordering someone to kill another person.”

My voice was breaking with the draws of sharp breaths, but I could not help it. I am in sheer terror and panic. I feel like I should be running somewhere and hiding, not standing talking on the phone clear as day in the middle of a building I just broke into. I know that I am doing the right thing. There is no point in running and there is nowhere to run to. I need a plan better than just taking off to the police. 

I could not put my situation more plainly. Is Mr. Whitaker about to hang up on me? 

There was a second of silence and then I heard a constricted breath. 

“Sounds like you are in a tricky situation.” 

Tricky friend? I say in my head but don’t dare repeat it out loud. 

“I hope that Sergeant Dodson was informative enough to tell you that my services are not inexpensive. I will require a payment of seven million U.S. dollars for this contract as well as any expenses incurred. Can you afford that Miss Ericson?”

I do not like the way that he is calling me Miss Ericson. It reminds me of the way that my mother, Mrs. Ericson, was called and makes me feel old. I am used to be calling Dr. Ericson or Vanessa, nothing between. And his cordial tone is actually starting to anger me. I need the immediate aid of a brute soldier, not a city-slick professor like he sounds right now. 

“Man, if you get me out of this, I will give you a bonus. Does that sound affordable?”

I almost think I heard him smile on the other end of the line at my rhetoric. 

“Can I have the name of your boyfriend please?” he asked still in that genteel air. 

“Damien Cole.” I spoke into the phone. “And I think ex-boyfriend is a more appropriate term at this point.”

I never thought saying Damien’s full name would send a shiver of dread up my legs. But that is exactly what I felt now. I can feel my veins pumping adrenaline into every inch of me trying to qualm the fear, but it is still there, ever present and menacing terror to every inch of me. 

“And you say he is chasing you now outside of Houston? Do you know exactly where you are?” he repeated. 

“Umm. We flew for a few hours in a helicopter over land from the city. I know that I am on a ranch, and by a mining quarry. Now, how do I get out of here?”

“This is the hard part Miss Ericson.” I heard a sigh on the other end of the phone like this man was moving around a house as a door just shut. 

How is he about to ‘extract’ me? 

“You see the people chasing you are actually going to find you. It is not like I am around the corner, I’m afraid. You are going to be captured by them and probably taken to a place where they will execute you. If my assumptions are correct about your boyfriend, a Mr. Cole, then he will probably have you brought to him in order to carry that execution out himself to ensure you are very dead because of what you overheard him order.” 

“Ex-boyfriend.” I repeated growing nervously afraid. 

“Do not put up a fight Miss Ericson. It would not turn out well for you. I have his name.” 

That was all. The line went dead. I heard a jeep pull up outside on the road to this building. I think of running again as a team of four men stormed into the single room of this building and spotted me immediately. Mr. Whitaker said don’t fight them but that is not going to happen. I am definitely not going to just let them take me back to Damien. Not a chance.  

Without a second thought, I grab a heavy book covered in dust off the table that phone is on and throw it directly at the first man I see enter the room. It hits him straight in the head leaving a massive gash with an open wound at least four inches long. He has blood dripping down his face as I run to the window on the other end of the small building and jump through it crashing glass all around me. I felt the slit in my dress tare higher up my thigh. 

Two more jeeps circle around me screeching into the dirt forming an instant fog of dust, sand, and small rocks from the banks of the lake. I have to cover my mouth to stop from coughing and squint through to make out the formation of the two vehicles. I know that the situation is hopeless. I am now completely surrounded and there is no one in this park to scream to for help that I can see. I am dangerously encircled by shards of glass from the window and cannot move because of it. 

The same gargantuan man that I saw in the tent with Damien steps slowly from one of the vehicles with a rigid stance. He is calm, confident, and he was party to that phone call I just overheard. I remembered what he said to Damien about me: it was you that wanted to get laid. He distinctly defined me as some s*x toy for Damien to play with at his whim. Was that all I was to Damien, his girl for a good lay when he wanted it?

“Miss Ericson.” He said walking towards me. “If you wouldn’t mind. Damien is worried about you.” His accent is not thick but it is still recognizably Russian. 

Yeah right, I bet he is. I think to myself as he takes hold of my arm. As I look up to his intimidating approach, I can see how big and strong this man actually is. His red bushy beard is unkept, but his straight blond hair is recently combed back. His arms are beyond muscular and visible in his tight black shirt beneath his white suit jacket. He is at least six-foot six. I think that he could rip out my spine if he wanted to. I surmise that he is not just part of a normal contact that works for Damien’s company. No, this man is a killer, you can tell by his soulless black eyes.  

“Don’t touch me.” I scold trying to pull myself free of his tight grip on my arm sending a bruising sensation all the way up to my neck. 

Red, I decide to call him, doesn’t like my antics and I hear a metal click at his side as he removes a pair of handcuffs dragging me through the glass towards his empty jeep. I feel a sharp end from one of the shards of glass cut my right and look down to see a strike of blood along the inner arch of my right heel. He throws me in the jeep. I lose one of my heels trying to fight him to get back out of the jeep. He slams the door shut against me which makes me whimper with a quick jolt of pain from the hit of the car door into my side. He takes no notice of the noise, and easily handcuffs my wrists uncomfortably to the handlebar above, which pretty much ended my attempt at fighting.  

As this muscle-bound jerk starts the engine, I look around and realize that Damien is not in sight. Mr. Whitaker was right. Damien had sent Red and these soldiers after me to bring me back to him. That had better mean Mr. Whitaker was on the way here right now, especially if he wants his seven million not to be from a dead woman. 

Red starts the jeep up and as we head down the park road every single bump that the car hits jerks my wrists against the metal of the handcuffs in a painful strike. I try not to make a noise each time I feel the pain and have to bite my lip hard enough to hide it as I look at a red line of blood form a bracelet around each of my hands from each cut. 

The stone next to me simply does not seem to care as he continues at a fast speed back towards the barn beyond the park. I know that it is probably pointless but I ask anyway. 

“You could just let me go.” I say across to him. 

Red looks back at me studying my eyes like he didn’t just hear the question that I asked. His eyes are like obsidian rocks; glossed over and devoid of emotion. 

“Damien is worried about you Miss. Ericson. I am taking you back to see him.” He repeated that lie. 

His accent is most definitely Russian. The dialect is unmistakable. I bet he is hired by Damien to do the most despicable things. 

Damien is anything other than worried about my safety. He is worried about what I just heard him order and justifiably so. The second I get out of this I am heading straight to the first police station I can get to and I am going to tell them everything I overheard. One thing was absolutely certain: Damien Cole belonged in prison. How many more criminal acts was he involved in?

“I can pay you. I am very wealthy.” I said trying to appear like a strong negotiator. 

Red smiled, which I found like a slice against my neckline. 

“Not as much as what he is paying me.”

“Don’t be so sure about that. I’ll double whatever it is if you just let me go.” I argued but his smile only widened. 

“It’s not just about the money I am afraid.” He said definitively as the top of the red roof of the barn became visible in the later part of the afternoon.

Not just about the money, he said. He actually enjoyed this, which has me even more terrified if that was at all possible. Did Damien enjoy this as much as well? Whatever they are into, I am pretty sure it is not going to be on the legal side of things. 

How could my world have flipped so violently around from this morning? Yesterday I was a doctor at the prestigious Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco. I was respected and liked by my colleagues. I viewed myself as a strong, ambitious and intelligent woman who was in a stable relationship with the very successful and wealthy Damien Cole. How had my world changed to this afternoon? I am handcuffed to a jeep in Texas, and my ex-partner, who I thought actually cared about me, is about to kill me because I was heard to him ordering another man’s death. Things could not be more pathetically altered in the absolutely worst way imaginable. 

I am hoping that whoever that Mr. Briggs is, he is still alive. I want to get to him and warn him about what they are planning for him. He is in very real danger. The Texan sun was starting to set in the distance over the mountain range. The sky was ablaze with dark crimson reds, canary yellow, and strikes of fading black and grey. That sight was incredibly beautiful and rich but it gives me no peace in the current danger I am in as we enter the ranch’s outer barrier.