Billionaire's Second Chance At Love

Chapter Sixty Eight

Carmen wasn't sure what to do.

If it were one or even two men wanting to shove her into a creepy-looking car, she would have fought tooth and nail and run as fast as she could. But there were three of them, and that one extra man changed the whole damn equation. The power of dominance not only shifted in their favor, it practically fell into their laps.

Three men against a woman? No, that was not the fight she wanted to know the consequences of. They could easily catch her one way or the other if she made one more attempt at running, and if she tried to be more difficult than they wanted to deal with, she knew they could physically hurt her without thinking twice.

With all the news about crimes against women all over the world, she knew her chances to survive this were better if she did her best to not lose her head.

"Come on, we don't have all day," the leader of the three, the guy with the ponytail, pushed Carmen towards the other man. "We're already behind schedule."

"Hey, it's not my fault the road was blocked, asshole," the man who now held both her hands behind her back grumbled. He used some kind of plastic to tie her hands before giving her another nudge towards a blue van waiting for them down the road.

Zack, the leader, simply rolled his eyes and started fiddling with his phone. "No text yet. Let's just take her to the storage."

The other man frowned. "Sure that's a good idea? The last time we took—"

Carmen shuddered when Zack slapped the other guy on the back of his head. "Say one more word, and I'll deal with you before we even get to the good part of this deal."

The other man muttered a curse under his breath but wisely decided not to argue further. Carmen could understand. Zack didn't look very kind from his appearance, and that clearly meant he was the one guy she needed to be most careful around.

The third member of the trio had already been holding the backseat door open for Carmen, scratching his forehead with the gun's barrel, and signaling with his eyes for her to quietly take her seat or face consequences.

Carmen swept one last desperate glance around the road, only to be met with an eerie silence and an absolute lack of other human beings other than the four of them. It was so strange—all of this. It was obvious that these men were following someone's orders. Would it be too soon to think that this "someone" could be the same person behind the attacks on Willow and Ronin?

However, her thoughts were disrupted when she felt a hand on her back before someone roughly shoved her inside.

"No time for daydreaming, princess. That can come later," Zack grumbled before he slammed the door shut.

"Hey, where the hell am I gonna sit?" Carmen heard one of the other two remaining guys whine.

"Shut the hell up, Trey," Zack snarled—his voice etched into her mind. "Go take care of that driver before he calls for help—"

But Zack's words were cut short by the sharp noise of a gunshot piercing the dead silence, and one of the van's glass windows shattered within seconds.

"What the hell?" Someone growled.

Chaos erupted inside the van. Carmen crouched low, her heart pounding in her chest, as the realization of what just happened sank in.

Zack barked orders, his voice sharp and furious. "Get in! Everyone, in!"

Carmen ducked her head down, her instincts guiding her to the floor.

The van's engine roared to life, and they sped away, tires screeching on the pavement. Carmen strained to catch any sound from outside, but all she could hear was the van's engine and her own rapid breathing.

The van took sharp turns, and Carmen felt her body being whipped this way and that. She could tell they were trying to get rid of someone. Whoever had fired that shot had thrown a wrench in their plans, and Carmen couldn't help but feel a flicker of hope.

Could it be the police? Perhaps Joy was able to call for help after all, and they were here to save her. God! How much she hoped for this to be true. She didn't know what these men had planned for her, but it was absolutely clear she had no desire to find out.

"You should let me go. Maybe they will leave you be." It felt like a chance to try, and Carmen found her voice a little less shaky as she spoke up.

"Yeah, sure, why not? And give that old man another reason to blow our brains? No, thank you," one of the men remarked.

Carmen clenched her jaw, frowning and clenching her fists. Another sharp turn sent her hurling to the other side of the van, and she groaned when her head hit something metallic. "Ah!"

But the men paid her no attention. They had more pressing matters to deal with.

It was only when the bright headlights of a car flooded through the shattered back window that Carmen pushed herself up with her hands on the seat and tried to take a peek.

But everything happened too fast.

One minute, the car was on the road, speeding away, and the next minute, someone shouted "fuck," and the tires screeched as the van slammed into something with full force. Carmen's body lurched forward, and her head struck the back of the front seat. Pain flared through her, and she fought to stay conscious.

The van had come to a sudden stop, but for a long moment, she couldn't move a limb. The pain and shock had rendered her motionless, and all she could do was blink and stare.

In the distance, she could hear the men cursing and groaning in pain. Her vision continued to blur with confusion and tears, and despite a voice inside her telling her to make a move and get the hell out, she could barely gather the strength.

However, as seconds turned into minutes, her brain flitted back into action—like the reality finally setting in—and she quickly realized that this might be her only chance. It took a lot, but through the haze of stabbing pain and the shock her body had endured, she gathered all her strength and grunted before reaching for the dented door to her right.

Somehow, she managed to push herself out of the van. Her body ached like hell, as if it weren't the car that had collided but her body against something hard and ruthless.

Carmen stumbled out onto the road, quickly ending up on the ground, her knees and shoulders burning with pain. Warm liquid oozed from the side of her head, a slow pulsing pain that made her suddenly light-headed.

Several cars screeched to a stop nearby, spitting more gravel and dust into the air. Carmen could make out a couple of people from the other vehicle approaching, their features blurred by the sharp headlights that tried to blind her. She had no idea if they were friends or foes, but she needed help, and she needed it now.

Another gunshot rang through the air. Joined by another. And another.

"Carmen," she heard someone say, while Carmen tried to shrink away and blink through the blurriness and the ache that rose from a gash on her head. She flinched—hard, but she couldn't for the life of her tell if the man was someone she knew. Or was it a woman?

"It's going to be okay, baby," the voice came again, and then came the gentle touch that caressed her hair, calming down the revolt of her heart. "I'm here now. Everything is going to be just fine."

A/N: Do you think it's a rescue or another trouble waiting to happen?