THE SILENCE SURROUNDING SHANE DIDN’T last long because he quickly started coming to after he heard a pair of faint, rough voices coaching each other to be quick, to be thorough with one voice eventually telling the other to, “Check his pulse.”

“He’s good,” the other voice related seconds later while Shane remained in a semi-comatose state struggling to get his eyes to open as he wanted to catch a glimpse of the voice now shuffling away from him – he assumed – via the passenger’s seat.

Goddamn it!? Shane’s inner rage screamed.  Open your motherfucking eyes!?

Shane gasped.  And his eyes shot open.  Only they were in a heavy daze.  As for is ears. . .the high pitch ringing had subsided and allowed him to seize the sound of back-to-back slamming car doors which suddenly sent him thinking of Blair’s panic-stricken state regarding DiamonD.

“B-l-a-i-r?” Shane then staggered.  His breath felt labored.  His throat parched.

He glanced at the passenger’s seat after he remembered that she had been sitting there before the accident.

But it was empty.

“Fuck!” Shane cursed.  His heart skipped a beat.  Then another.  And another until his chest began to heave and riotously after his gaze swept across the passenger’s seat and settled on a late model, faded green stock Suburban speeding away from the accident.

“FUCK!?” he then cursed a second time, after the Suburban disappeared from his sight.

Shane quickly opened the driver’s side door and stumbled out of the driver’s seat and onto his feet.  He caught his breath, at the same time, tried to get his head together and figure out what the fuck had just happened and why he couldn’t find Blair anywhere.

“You alright, son?” Shane heard the voice of an elderly man ask.

“Umm. . .what happened?” Shane instead asked, touching a hand to his head.  He could feel it throb.  Where the fuck is she?! his pain instead stressed.

“Don’t know,” the man said scanning his surroundings, ‘just got here.”  He then scratched his head, looking twice as confused as Shane had looked.

Shane’s head began to throb even harder once it occurred to him that there had been no witnesses to the accident as it occurred in a partially secluded neighborhood off Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills.

“Fuck!” Shane spat a third time.  He ignored the gentleman and stepped away from the partially mangled Coupe and studied it for a moment.  Aside from both airbags having deployed, he noticed that the trunk’s hood was popped open.

Shane stepped to the trunk and noticed that Blair’s luggage was missing.  Then he stepped to the passenger’s door and noticed it had been caved in.  Shane peered in and found that Blair’s handbag was also missing.

Shane turned around and looked at the box truck and noticed it had been tampered with; meaning, the truck had been moved back just enough to clear a body through the window.

“Shit!” he then stressed once it occurred to him that Blair had been taken.  “That’s how they took her. . .through the fuckin’ window!” he bitched; almost insulted by it.

Meanwhile, the man continued to look at Shane confused.

“Come again, son?” he pressed, stealing a glance at the passenger’s side where he only saw a heavily dented door, a shattered window and nothing more – the elderly man pegged Shane as delusional from the accident.

Again, Shane ignored the man and crossed to the truck’s driver side door and quickly opened it and saw that the cab was empty except for the keys; they were still dangling from the ignition.

“What’d ya find, son?” the man asked, coming up behind Shane.

Shane turned around.  “Do me a favor, Pops, huh” – he reached into the left breast pocket of his suit coat and pulled his gold money clip and counted out a few Benjamins – “you didn’t see anything.  You just pulled up,” he bartered, handing the man the money.

“You sure, son?  I mean” – he stole a questionable glance at the money – “you don’t have to pay me to lie.”

“You’re not lying, Pops,” Shane countered hopping into the truck and firing it up.  “It’s like you stated earlier:  you just got here.  Thanks for the help.”

Shane steered the truck around the wrecked Coupe and headed back east, toward Hollywood.  He reached into his right breast suit pocket and pulled his cell.

“Shit!” Shane gripped at the cracks sprawled across the screen’s glass protector.  He pulled up his recent calls list and dialed up the Villa with Alec answering on the second ring.

Yo, bro, what up? Alec retorted, sifting cigarette ashes over the balcony.

“Is DiamonD back?” Shane asked just as a couple of Beverly Hill’s finest sped past him on the opposite lane.  He stole a glance at the vehicles through the driver’s side mirror.

No.  Not yet.  Why?  Want me to get a message to her or something? Alec volunteered, dragging on his cigarette.

“No.  Let me call again,” Shane instead volunteered.  He ended the call and tossed his cell onto the dash with a sharp pain grazing his left jawbone coercing him to flinch.

Shane touched a hand to his jaw and felt a coarse graze embedded on his flesh.  “Fucking airbag!” he bitched, dropping his hand and pressing the pedal to the metal – Shane was pissed!

He was coming for DiamonD.

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