An: Hope you like this chapter! Multiple points of view, so hold onto your socks! :)
The loud hip-hop music pounded through the club and the disco lights were bright and erratic enough to make anyone dizzy. Ames was head banging in the middle of the crowd with the guy she met at the coffee shop, just a little tipsy. When the lights went out, she didn't exactly know they had; she just kept dancing because the music was still playing. When someone bumped into her she didn't think much of it, because people did that to her all the time. But she noticed when she was grabbed and a hand was shoved over her mouth.
"Hey! What the –" she managed to yell before a gag was thrust into her mouth and she was carried off the dark dance floor. Her flailing punches didn't do much good, and her muffled protestations were weak. But it was doubtful that anyone even heard her well over the music. Once out of the throng of people, a rag with strong smelling stuff –chloroform, she thought dimly –interposed itself under her nose, and she went limp.
Ilsa Pucci was having a glass of wine on the balcony of her penthouse, thinking about her husband and the new man, Christopher Chance. While she didn't want to live in the past, she still loved her husband very much, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to pursue this aggravating man (if there was anything to pursue. He might not even be attracted to her.) She swirled the red wine in her glass pensively, not hearing the door of her penthouse opened by an expert, nor the footsteps on her thick white carpet. However, the door to the balcony had hinges in need of oil.
The door creaked, and she jerked, startled. She rose up out of her chair and turned, only to yelp and try to dodge the arms that reached for her. Her glass flew out of her hands and broke on impact with the floor, shattering and spilling red liquid everywhere. She knew rudimentary fighting skills, and Ilsa managed to put her knee into someone's crotch before they grabbed her. She screamed the shrill scream of a woman in dire distress, but a gag was soon forced down over her mouth and her hands were pulled behind her back. Ilsa scraped her high heel painfully down the leg of the man in black behind her, and felt slightly satisfied that he cursed. But then some rag soaked in something was stuck under her nose, and her knees collapsed.
When the black clad intruders entered the apartment, Cindy was asleep.
However, Amanda was not. In her room, she was listening to music and trying to decide if she really did want to seriously think about going back to college to finish her degree. She had been a punk kid who goofed off during her first year of college and then fell into the escort business, later walking away from college. That's where she had met Rahab –then Sandra. She chewed her fingernails, wavering. Subjecting her brain to schooling after ten years didn't sound terribly appealing, but…she wanted to do things for herself now. Maybe she'd have a chance to go somewhere with her life.
The decision got shoved to the back of her head, though, because she heard the distinctive sound of a lock being broken. Instantly, she pulled her earphones out of her ears and reached for the baseball bat beside her bed. Don't even think about it, buddy, she thought to herself, slipping out of the room.
She swung at the black clad figure she saw, sending him to the floor. She thumped him a couple more times for good measure. "What do you think you're doing, breaking in here?" she demanded. "I'm calling the police, you poser!"
Then she saw the next one. And then came two or three. They don't look like housebreakers. "Get out!" she shrieked, swinging the bat. She connected with a stomach and a shin, but then one of the men wrenched it out of her grip and threw it aside. She yelped as she hit the table and fell to the ground. One of the intruders stepped on her wrist and she screamed as she heard it crack.
Cindy woke up to the sound of yelling. Her first fuzzy thought was, Jerry's back. Uh oh. She rolled out of bed and tiptoed into the hall, intent on the sound, but then came face to face with a man in black with a bulletproof vest on and a ski mask, to boot. She just stared for half a second, and then screamed and tried to bold back into her room. Phone dad, phone dad, phone dad, her brain demanded. She didn't reach her door before a hand grabbed her shoulder and spun her around, throwing her into the doorframe. "Help!" she yelled before being completely overpowered.
Daddy, her mind whispered before being consumed by darkness.
Amanda coughed wetly as the boot pulled back for another kick to her abdomen. She had several cuts on her face, her middle felt like pudding, and her wrist was broken. She braced for another blow, but then the command came. "Alright, that's enough!"
The room spun around her, and she felt nauseous. A man's face came into her field of vision. He was black, with a shaved head and beard stubble. "Sorry about this, luv," he said with a British accent. At least she thought it was British. Right now she was having a hard time remembering her own name. He went on, "Tell Guerrero that it's nothin' personal. Just business."
She stared at him. What? Tell Guerrero…breaking into my apartment is nothing personal to Guerrero? Huh?
But when she looked behind him and saw the child-sized lump over one of the men's shoulders, she knew. "No! Cindy, no! Who are you? Why're you doing this?" she shrieked.
"Nothing personal," the man repeated before the boot slammed into her stomach again, and she fainted.
Amanda wasn't really sure how long she was out swimming in the darkness, only that she knew she had been, and she needed some water, and she needed a phone. Cindy… She clambered unsteadily to her feet and stuck her head under the cold faucet, wincing at the temperature and cuts on her face. After drinking some of the water, she grabbed the phone and hit speed dial one. Pick up! She thought urgently. As the phone rang, she began to cough, and couldn't stop when the man on the other end picked up.
"Hello?" Guerrero said.
Amanda tried to catch her breath, but only managed to cough more.
"Amanda?" he asked. He has caller ID, she thought distantly.
Finally getting control of her voice back, she immediately said, "I'm sorry, I couldn't –" she was over taken by another coughing fit. At least this one was shorter.
Alarm carried through his tone as he asked, "What? What's happened?"
"Men came –broke in. They took Cindy," Amanda managed to say. "I couldn't… I couldn't stop them." Her throat was so dry.
There was dead silence on the other end of the line. But finally, in a strained, deadly tone, Guerrero asked, "Who? When?"
"I don't know. Maybe…" she looked at the clock. "An hour or two?" She coughed again.
"Are you all right?" he demanded.
Amanda categorized all the pain in her body, and couldn't muster up a lie. "No," she answered.
"I'll be there as fast as I can," he said, and then hung up.
She willed him to hurry.
Guerrero drove with his left hand and dialed with his right. Anger was being replaced with steel resolve and determination. The worst had happened, and now he had to do what he did best. Find things out.
"Do you know what time it is?" Chance mumbled into the phone.
"Wake up, dude," Guerrero said. "Cindy's been taken."
"What?" Chance snapped, sounding more alert. "Who? When?"
"Not that long ago. Get the team together and come over to Amanda's to check things out. She sounded like she was hurt on the phone."
"We'll get her back," Chance said.
"Yeah," Guerrero said, and ended the call, tossing the phone on to the passenger's seat of the Eldo. He had just driven Cindy home that afternoon. His little girl was gone. Taken. Because of him.
She is my world, he thought.
He'd like to see a cop pull him over for speeding tonight.