Breaking Bedrock (Book Two) (20 page)

Addie remained silent. “I asked where the others are.” He hissed,
placing a Glock to her temple. “And I’d better start getting some goddamned
answers before someone dies here. Now, look. No one’s calling out thanks to
this here cell-phone jammer.” He called out, waving the device in the air. He
laughed and continued. “And no one’s going out the gate—at least not in a
vehicle anyway—BECAUSE I’VE DISMANTLED THEM ALL. Oh, and those pathetic jokers
you call your security team? Well, they’re indisposed. SO! Hopefully no one’s
been silly enough to go outside because with the temperatures as they are they’ll
freeze to death by morning.”

“Scott.” William winced as he spoke. “Let’s handle this like men.
Leave everyone else out of it.”

Scott grabbed William by the hair and sucker-punched him. “You
mean like that?” He laughed, releasing William’s hair, watching his head fall
and hang.

He sat down between William and Addison on the love seat and placed
his arms around their shoulders. She moved away as much as she could before
Scott hugged her back in. “This is going to be so great. We’re all going to
become so fond of one another. Sure, some of you are going to have to die, but
the more you’re willing to cooperate, the fewer of you that will be.” He paused
and turned towards Addison. “So . . . tell me where those beautiful children of
yours are.”

What kind of a person would just leave her children
and grandchildren in the hands of crazy man,
Penny wondered.
Scared
out of her mind and out of breath, she forced herself forward, stumbling in the
dark
.
She’d run out the back door so fast that she hadn’t even stopped
to grab her coat. Unfortunately for her, that’s also where her cell phone was,
in her jacket pocket. It was damp and frigid out, and Penny could barely see in
front of her as she continued to put one foot in front of the other. Once she’d
gotten as far away from the house as she could, she perched down beside a bush
several hundred yards from the house and tried to catch her breath. Shivering,
she rubbed her hands together and then breathed into them, trying to warm
herself. Realizing that she needed to figure something out quickly, she weighed
her options. Penny gathered that she either needed to try and get to the road
in order to try and flag someone down or find a way to get to the nearest
neighbor in order to call for help. Or she could go back to the house, which
she really wanted to do. She really did, but at the same time, she was well
aware that her family was trapped there and that she was their only ticket out.
Panting, Penny sank all the way down to the damp ground and considered what it
was she should do. Most of the homes in the area were summer homes, and their
occupants weren’t usually around much this time of year, so she’d likely have
to break into one of them in order to call for help. But the chances of someone
being out on the old farm-to-market road this time of night were probably even
slimmer. When Penny began shivering harder, she decided it was time to move. First,
she’d head towards the gate and see what happened to the security guys Addison
had mentioned and then figure out which way to turn once she got there.

The drive up to the main house was long, nearly a half a mile,
and although Penny couldn’t see much, she tried to follow the length of the
road while staying far enough off the path that she wouldn’t be seen. Every
step of the way was a struggle. One minute she willed herself to keep going,
and the next she played mind tricks to keep herself from turning and going
back. Everyone she loved in this world was back there in that house. Everyone
she had worked so hard to protect was now in danger. All she’d ever wanted was
to keep her family from the unnecessary evils in life. Yet, look where it had
gotten her this time.

Scott couldn’t believe his luck when he stumbled upon
that shiny car on the side of the road. Back in the day, the pre-William
Hartman days, he had been quite the car collector, so of course he would have noticed
that kind of car anywhere. Upon further inspection, he’d noticed not only
William but also Addison sitting inside. All of a sudden, it was clear that this
was a sign from the angels; they’d placed them there on that road for him to
see.
What were the odds of that happening?

He’d worked so hard to evade the men who’d been camped out down
the street. Of course, he had to wait until the dead of night and then hightail
it out the back door. He’d had to scale three fences and haul butt to the
rental car place and then wait six hours for them to open. But he’d done it.
Everything had gone according to plan until now. He had no idea that he could
possibly get them so effortlessly, that the angels would hand deliver his
targets to him. Scott passed them up then turned around, headed back in the
opposite direction, and parked the far enough down the road so that he was out
of sight. From there, he traveled on foot along the edge of the woods, just far
enough back off the road so as not to be seen. As he sat and watched the two of
them there in the car, he considered how he might get close enough to throw off
the two members of Hartman’s security detail. He just had to move fast enough
to get to them before they took off.

As he watched the two of them together, he finally understood
just why he had to carry out his plan. Sure, to the casual observer he hated
William Hartman for taking his business, but to someone who paid closer
attention, well, that kind of person could see that his hatred ran deeper than
that. When that bastard Hartman stole his business, that wasn’t all he’d taken.
He’d taken everything: his livelihood, his family, and his home. He could’ve
replaced the business, he could’ve built another one, and, hell, he could have
even built another house. But what most people didn’t understand was that the
son of a bitch had stripped him of every last shred of respect in his family’s
eyes when he’d taken his ability to make a living. Scott Hammons was a pillar
of success before all of this happened. He’d worked so hard to build the life he
was able to give his family. His children went to private schools, while his
wife went to the country club. They went on exotic vacations, while he stayed
behind to tend to the business. Sure he missed out on a lot, but everything he
did and all of the hours he put in were for them. It had always been for them.
When the business started going downhill, as the profits decreased slowly, the
amount of alcohol he consumed steadily increased. They said he burned too many
bridges when he was drinking. They said he had a problem, and before long, he
found himself voted out of his own company. HIS OWN COMPANY! The company he’d
spent years of his life building. And they’d ruined it. They had fucking ruined
it—his life’s work. They staged an intervention and sent him off to rehab, even
talked his family into being a part of it; otherwise, he never would have gone.
Everything
really
was for them. But he did agree? He did! And what did it
cost him? EVERYTHING! They said he was incapable of making sound decisions
because he was a drunk, and then they stole his company right out from under
him.

As the money dried up, his wife left and his children stopped
calling. But why wouldn’t they? He hadn’t really known them. He didn’t even
know his own wife anymore. He’d spent most of his life working, working for
them. But his children, now grown, no longer needed him, especially now that
the money was gone. He’d missed everything. Everything that was and wasn’t
important, he’d missed it all. AND FOR WHAT? For a man like William Hartman to
come in and take what little he had left? Now, seeing the way he and his little
whore looked at each other made him ill. He wanted his wife to look at him like
that again. Yeah, he might have worked a lot, but he had always, always been
faithful, not like these two pathetic excuses for human beings. He would do
anything just to have his woman look at him like that again. He longed to be
respected in the public eye the way he had been once. Now, he was nothing more
than a joke. A FUCKING JOKE.

If William fucking Hartman hadn’t come into buy up the last of
what he had, and in such a public manner—practically proving that his wife was
right, that he was a failure—then he would’ve still had a chance. He was
so
close
to making it right when that asshole ripped everything right out from under
him. Now it was time for him to understand what it was like to have everything
he loved taken away. Now he would know what it felt like to be powerless as he
watched it happen.

Scott sat for nearly an hour until he finally saw movement. A
member of Hartman’s security, one Scott recognized well, went to the driver’s
side and, after having a brief conversation for a few minutes, led Addison back
to the SUV, and the two of them took off. The remaining bodyguard got into the
car with William. They sat, seemingly discussing something for a moment until
William exited the car. The huge bodyguard trailed not far behind but stopped
at the top of the ditch as Hartman made his way down towards him. He stayed
back and watched for a minute, not believing his luck. This was his chance. He
heard the angels speak, and he knew exactly what it was he had to do. He
reached for his gun and took that fucker by surprise, mid-piss. He forced
Hartman on his knees and pressed the Taser to his neck, zapping him as the
bodyguard closed in. Both Scott and the bodyguard had their guns drawn. They
stood there for a second in an apparent standoff until the bodyguard slowly
started moving in. Once the prick got close enough, Scott took him out with a clear
shot to the chest. When the asshole only stumbled, Scott fired another shot,
this time aiming for his head.
Bingo.

Once he cleared the body further into the ditch, stopping a few
times to wait for passersby, he shot the sedative into William’s arm just to
make sure he wouldn’t be doing very much moving. Once Hartman was taken care
of, he then continued dragging the heavy, dead son of a bitch until he’d made
it just far enough into the woods not to be visible. He then pulled the car
down a little closer and wrestled to get Hartman’s limp body into the trunk,
which by the way should be noted was no easy task. And yet, it was only the
beginning.

Seventeen

William came to at the sound of Addison’s voice. He
wasn’t sure if it was the beatings, the Taser, or the drugs, but he couldn’t
keep himself from going in and out.

“Leave my children out of this, Scott. You want to kill me. Fine.
Let’s go. Let’s get this over with. That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? So
tell me, then, what are you waiting for?”

“Ha. Ha. Ha. You think I’m going to make all of this easy for
you? The way this bastard made things easy for me? The way YOU made things easy?
There’s not a chance in hell. Now I think you’d better figure out where that
hubby of yours ran off to with those children of yours, because I’m guessing as
soon as he hears I’m about to kill his papa he’ll happily crawl out from that
little hiding spot they’re in. Oh what fun we’re going to have!”

“Fuck you. If you want to kill someone, kill me. What in the hell
is wrong with you, anyway? What’s your intention here? I mean why stall? You
know what I think? I think you’re a coward. You like to mind fuck people, but
we both know you’re all talk, don’t we? You’re nothing more than a dried up ol’
has-been.”

William struggled to remain present, to stop Addison from
antagonizing a mad man.
He would kill her. He would!
William knew what
she was doing. She was trying to protect him. She was trying to save her family
and, most importantly, her children by sacrificing herself. Goddamn him for
putting them in the position in the first place. This was his mess to fix, and
that’s exactly what he had to do, he told himself, as he started going under
again, until the sound of the slap jolted him back into his present reality.
William snapped to, rose to his feet, and lunged at Hartman only to meet the
steel toe of his boot headfirst. The next thing he recalled was being hoisted
up and thrown back against something hard and then dragged down a flight of
stairs. He remembered hearing Addison’s pleas, her begging, screaming for him
to wake up. But he just couldn’t. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t will
himself back to her. And he knew it was probably going to cost him both their
lives.