Waiting and hoping.
I opened my eyes and looked at the crowd.
The minute I did, they roared with applause.
But it didn’t hit me the way it normal y did.
Because Mace wasn’t there.
He didn’t charge up to the stage, taking me in his arms and tel ing me beautiful things.
and tel ing me beautiful things.
“Stel a, girl –” Floyd whispered but that was it. I was done. I’d done it to myself this time, I had no one else to blame.
For some insane reason, I got up and ran across the smal stage, jumped down and started pushing through the crowd. I felt nothing, I knew nothing, I just knew I had to go, where, I had no idea, I just had to go.
I could feel hands on me, tugging at me. I heard my name cal ed in familiar voices. I knew one was Hector’s, the other was Duke’s.
But I was gone. Through the crowd to the doors. I felt freedom but it was far from sweet right before I was caught, my momentum meaning I was lifted up, swung around and put down. I looked behind me and up to see I’d been caught and was now held by Bobby, one of Lee’s men.
“Shit, woman, what’re you thinkin’?” Bobby’s voice was annoyed.
I didn’t answer.
I struggled to get away, kicking and grunting and then something happened.
Bobby was no longer struggling with me. He let me go and he was struggling with someone else, a big bulky man, bigger and bulkier even than Bobby and Bobby was enormous.
Then Luke was there and he barreled into another man.
With a shoulder to the other man’s bel y, Luke lifted him clean off his feet and slammed him against the wooden railing outside The Little Bear. The man flipped, feet-overhead, over the railing, landing on his back and cracking his skul with a sickening thud against the pavement. Luke turned toward me but there were more men, one came at him then more people were there, including Hector, Lee and more suited men and al of them were engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
Before I could get my wits about me, I felt hard, firm fingers attach on my upper arm. I gave a surprised cry right before I was yanked down the wooden plank steps and before I knew what was happening, I was thrown into the backseat of a waiting, long, sleek, black limousine.
The door closed behind me and the limousine shot away.
I realized I was holding my breath and I turned to see there was someone in the backseat with me.
He was very tal , lean, wel -built, on the other side of middle-aged, black hair peppered with silver and wearing in an expensive suit, expensive cufflinks and an expensive watch.
Oh, and last but not least, he had clear, sharp, achingly familiar jade green eyes.
I stared at him with my mouth open while he spoke.
“Hel o Stel a. I’m Preston Mason, Kai’s father.” Oh dear.
Chapter Fifteen
I’m Not Good Enough for Him
Stella
“I’m supposed to be in a meeting,” I told Preston Mason because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
I had, actual y, been half-assedly planning to get out of the meeting with Dixon Jones by feigning a migraine or a heart attack or something but now I kind of wish I’d made the meeting with Jones. I figured he’d be a lot easier to deal with than a surprise kidnapping by Mace’s apparently super wealthy Dad.
“You’l need to reschedule,” he replied.