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“Get in already!”
He can hear his cronies down the hall shouting at someone.
So they found her and brought her in. Good.
He’s about to make bank.
Soon enough, they march into his office, dragging a woman clad in blue into the room with him. A thick hemp bag is tied over her head so as to prevent her from learning where she was.
He’s no fool. He knows that this woman is connected to very powerful people.
The less she knew about her surroundings or who had orchestrated this abduction, the better.
“Nice job, boys. Hold her down.”
His men do as they’re told and force the woman onto her knees. The manacles are thick and heavy around her ankles and wrists. If her combat prowess is as good as he’d been told, all the better for her to be locked down completely.
“So… this is the woman who’s been giving my employers grief? Hmph, she doesn’t look so tough.”
He walks forward, his confidence bolstered by how helpless the mark is. No way is he getting his ass kicked today.
“Apologies for the rough treatment my boys gave you, but considering who you are, I didn’t want to take any fucking chances.”
The woman is silent. This puzzles him. He’d been told that this woman would have a mouth that would make even the most rugged of sailors blush. That, and she’d actually spent time at sea as an amateur mariner. But she has yet to utter a peep.
“Got nothing to say? Are you actually afraid? Huh. And here I thought you weren’t afraid of anything…”
He takes hold of her chin and lifts her head up. Even with the bag hiding her features, he can only imagine how scared she must be. All alone, cut off from her powerful allies and friends.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
“I gotta say, I’m disappointed. I thought you’d have more fight in you… Ms. Lionett.”
The woman jerks her head away. “Please don’t touch me.”
She finally speaks. And her tone is rather tired and meek. Good. She should be.
After all, she’s about to experience a whole lot of hell.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do, missy. In fact, we’re just getting started.” He looks to his number two. “Take the bag off. I want to look this so-called ‘lioness’ in the eye before I make her beg for her life.”
His second nods and proceeds to untie the bag. And then in one quick motion, the bag is lifted.
The moment he sees her face, the room is silent.
The dark skin, brown hair, and eyes as blue as her garb.
She certainly matches the physical description of Beauregard Lionett.
And yet…
“Who the fuck is this?”
His second looks confused. “But Boss, you told us to nab the woman matching the description you gave us!”
He glares at his henchman. “You fucking idiot! This isn’t her at all!”
He then grabs this supposed Lionett woman by the hair and forces her to look him in the eye. “You’re not Beauregard Lionett. Who the fuck are you?!”
The woman glares at him. Oh, so now this woman shows no fear?
But then her eyes drift away and look past him.
At the same time, he notices his second suddenly falling backward, out cold. And then the rest of his men collapsed in the open hallway.
Wha—
All of a sudden, he feels a heavy slam to the back of his skull. His grip on the woman’s hair goes slack as he crumples to the ground.
As he struggles to get his bearings, he looks up to see who the fuck had just hit him…
…and suddenly he feels as if he’s had the fear of the gods put in him.
For right above him stands another woman with dark skin, brown hair, and eyes as blue as her garb. Only… she’s got a lot more scars, a much more defined build, and a very, VERY angry expression on her face.
The real Beauregard Lionett.
“My mother, you son of a bitch.”
That’s all she says before she strikes him again, and consciousness leaves him completely.
Note to self: Don’t get kidnapped.
It’s a lesson that Clara Lionett will take to heart for the rest of her days.
Especially since she was only saved because her captors had caught the wrong mark.
…Then again, it was all part of the plan as Beauregard undoes the shackles on her limbs. It was Clara’s idea to be a decoy for this occasion, if only to prove herself useful to her daughter.
Thankfully, she passed with flying colors, and with minimal injury. And the would-be kidnappers would soon be reported to the authorities. And gods willing, they can figure out who exactly wanted Beauregard so badly that they would risk staging a kidnapping.
Obviously she wouldn’t let that stand, given her past history. And Clara was in agreement, so she had volunteered to actually be there for her this time around. She wasn’t going to fail her again.
As she is given a once-over by her daughter, she looks at the man who had made such a huge blunder and mutters, “I told you, ‘please don’t touch me’. You really should’ve listened.”
She breathes a sigh of relief as Beau escorts her out of the kidnappers’ hideout and back to the outside world.
Hopefully they will be back home in time for dinner. Clara really missed Yasha’s cooking, and TJ must be so worried.
She holds her daughter’s warm, strong hand as they walk home together.