Taste (Take It Off #9)(3)
Author: Cambria Hebert

“You didn’t answer me,” he said like he didn’t notice or care I was totally freaking out. “Do you work as the president’s personal chef or not?”

He didn’t ask me that before. Did he? How the hell did he know where I worked? A very bad feeling crawled over me.

“Yes,” I answered, still thinking of Jack.

“You cook his meals?”

“For the staff and the first family,” I answered, skirting the question.

He backhanded me again. “Yes or no?”

I swallowed, keeping my head down. “Yes.”

“Good.”

The silence upstairs was too much. I got up and sprinted past the intruder, skirting around his grabby hands and toward the stairs. “Jack!” I called, unable to keep the panic from my voice, but not caring. I didn’t want my son to be scared, but maybe if he heard my worry, he would cry out.

Movement at the top of the stairs grabbed my attention and my steps slowed just a fraction. It was my mistake. Black mask tackled me from behind. I went down at the bottom of the stairs, my body hitting the floor like it was an anchor falling to the base of the sea. He wasn’t gentle, and I think he enjoyed the sick sound my bones made when I hit.

He grabbed the back of my head, yanking the long strands of my hair and forcing my head back. His teeth purposely grazed the side of my ear when he said, “You keep this up and you’re going to regret it.”

I struggled beneath him, wanting desperately to get to Jack.

“Seems she wants the kid,” Black mask yelled upstairs. “Toss him down here.”

“No!” I screamed, struggling anew. “No.” I managed to get one hand free and reached behind me to claw at his face.

He grunted as my nails just grazed his skin.

“Do it,” he roared.

I looked up at the top of the stairs where the man in the blue mask was holding Jack in his arms. Jack was staring down at me with wide eyes as I screamed.

“It’s okay, baby,” I tried to tell him. I was a horrible liar, my words not convincing at all.

“I don’t hurt kids,” the man holding Jack said.

I whimpered in relief. “Thank you,” I cried.

“You fucking moron!” Black Mask yelled.

“You shouldn’t cuss in front of them either,” he said as he carried Jack down the stairs.

I struggled and was wrenched up off the floor. Next to me, Jack held out his little chubby arms for me to take him. I reached for him but was jerked away, bouncing into the wall.

“No,” was all my captor said.

Jack started to cry.

So did I.

The man with the blue mask frowned. “No need to be such an asshole, boss.”

He stepped between me and “the boss” and handed Jack out. I snatched him away, cradling him against my chest. Jack pushed his little face into the side of my neck and the scent of his shampoo wrapped around my senses. Another sob ripped from my throat.

“Come on,” Blue Mask said and led me into the kitchen.

I didn’t go back to the table. I wasn’t sitting down. It made me feel vulnerable. Instead, I put the island between us, my mind spinning with ways to get the hell out of here. Now that I had Jack, I could think more clearly.

“We know everything about you, Elle Bond,” the man in the blue mask said, drawing my attention.

“We know you get up every morning at five a.m. and spend an hour with your kid here before you take him over to your mother’s house so she can watch him for the day. We know where your mother lives. We know she lives alone, just like you and the kid. We know the route you drive to work, the route you take home. We know the coffee shop on the corner you go to every morning just after six. We know you leave work at eleven and go to your mother’s to see your kid before heading back to work to make dinner.”

The more he talked about my routine, the more terrified I became. He knew everything. Everything. They’d been watching me for weeks, and I hadn’t even realized. How could I just go about my normal routine—how could I just live my life and not realize people were watching me?

What kind of mother was I to not know that her son was in danger?

“I don’t understand,” I said, my voice shaky. Jack made a little sound and I tucked him closer to me.

“We have a job for you, Ms. Bond,” Blue Mask said.

“I have a job.”

“What he meant to say was you’re going to do something for us and you don’t have a choice,” Black Mask replied, his voice hard.

“What?” A fearful knot blocked my esophagus.

“We want you to kill the president.”

I blinked.

Then I blinked again.

Surely I heard them wrong. There was no way on God’s green earth that two men just broke into my apartment to order me to kill the president of the United States.

They stood there staring at me like they were deadly serious.

Overwhelmed, I started to laugh. This was ridiculous. “Who put you up to this?” I asked, thinking surely this was some kind of joke gone wrong.

Black Mask didn’t say a word, but he did reach into that ugly black jacket and pull out a dark vial with a dropper lid. He sat it on the counter. “This is very potent poison. Completely untraceable in the bloodstream.”

I stared at the vial.

“You have access to the president’s meals, his food. Just a couple drops will kill him.”

Oh. My. God. They were serious.

“I’m not going to the kill the president!” I burst out.

“You will, Ms. Bond,” Blue Mask said gravely.

“No.” I shook my head. This was unbelievable. “Who are you?” I demanded.

“It doesn’t matter who we are. Do what we say or you’ll regret it.”

“What?” I said. “You’ll kill me if I don’t poison the president?” I snorted. This was stupid.

“No,” said Black Mask. “We won’t kill you. We’ll kill him.”

His eyes went to Jack. I sucked in a breath. They were threatening my son.

“You would kill an innocent baby?” I whispered.

“Oh, yes. And then we’ll come for your mother. We will destroy everything in your life until it’s just you, all alone.”

“I’ll call the police,” I replied bravely.

They laughed. They actually chuckled like it was funny. “We own the police force.”

“You can’t possibly…”

“You have no idea who we work for. The police can’t help you. Go ahead. Call them. We’ll make sure you’re the one who goes down for plotting to kill the commander in chief. What will happen to your son then?”