Design For Life

Chapter 26

A/N: Holy cow! We're almost at the end.  One more regular chapter after this and then the epilogue and some outtakes.  The beginning of this chapter recaps a bit of last chapter, but from BPOV.

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"Your necklace may break, the fau tree may burst, but my tattooing is indestructible. It is an everlasting gem that you will take into your grave". ~Verse from a traditional tattoo artist's song, as quoted on , Skin Stories: The Art and Culture of Polynesian Tattoo

BPOV

Holy fucking hell, my head hurt. I attempted to reach up and touch my throbbing temple, but found that my hands wouldn't move. The first thought that went through my head was that I was paralyzed. Then I realized that I could wiggle my fingers. I quickly realized that my hands were bound by something. Rope, maybe?

"Ah, I see you're finally awake, Ms. Swan," a voice said.

Everything came flooding back to me after he spoke. Alec Caius had me. Well, fuck. That was no good. Struggling, I finally managed to sit up and found that I was in the backseat of a car with darkly tinted windows. I quickly surveyed my surroundings, but found nothing that would be useful in cutting the rope off my hands.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked, hoping that my voice didn't betray the terror that I felt.

"To find what's mine, of course. I know that Laurent gave them to you for safe keeping."

I snorted. "No, he didn't. I would never have held drugs for Laurent. Hell, I didn't even realize that he was into drugs."

"Lies will get you nowhere," Caius told me in a thick New York accent.

I watched out the window as the trees flew by and before I knew it we were pulling up in my neighborhood. He got out and came around to open the back door. He had a deadly looking knife in his hand.

"You're going to show me where Laurent hid the drugs. Do anything stupid, and I won't hesitate to use this on you," he warned me.

I nodded as he dragged me out of the car and across the yard. I couldn't believe that none of our neighbors noticed me being dragged by a man with a knife, but apparently they didn't. There was police tape across the door to the house, but Caius cut it with the knife before ramming the door open. Jesus! Our living room was a disaster. The couch and chairs were overturned, desk drawers were on the ground, books were laying haphazardly on their shelves. It looked as though someone had destroyed the place looking for something. I narrowed my eyes. Mark was going to have a lot to answer for, and you could bet I would be making him clean up the mess he and his men had made.

"What the fuck?" Caius exclaimed, looking at the mess.

"Who the fuck did this?" he growled, his hand on my arm tightening causing me to wince in pain.

"Probably the police. Obviously, they had the same idea you did and searched the place"

Caius let loose with a bunch of swearing. Still gripping my arm, he pulled out his phone and called someone. The conversation was spoken in what I thought was Italian. A few moments later, he hung up the phone and turned to glare at me.

"What?"

"Where is First Beach?"

"La Push," I told him.

He gave me an evil smile. "Seemed Laurent was spending a lot of time down there. Let's go," he said, roughly shoving me out the door.

We headed to his car, where I was once again, locked in the back. Could be worse. I could've ended up in the trunk and that would've really sucked. I gave him directions to La Push, and unfortunately we didn't pass many vehicles along the way. Not like anyone could've seen me anyway. Once we entered La Push, I directed Caius toward First Beach. I had a feeling that I would meet my demise there. He threw the car into park, and once again, dragged me out of the car.