Chapter 6
Location Unknown
Ten million dollars.
That’s what the woman demanded. Ten million dollars for Sabrina’s life.
A burble of laughter threatened at the back of her throat. But it wasn’t humor. It was incredulity.
Incredulity and a heavy, sinking feeling of dismay.
Black Knights Inc. might look rich on paper. Some of those custom bikes sold for six figures. But there wasn't a lot left over between the factory upkeep, property taxes, and the employees’ salaries.
None of the Knights had ten million dollars lying around. And even if everyone pooled their funds, cashed in their IRAs, sold their vehicles, and liquidated their assets, Sabrina still thought they’d come up short.
Especially with a deadline of midnight.
Not that the Knights wouldn’t try. Of course they would. They’d bleed themselves dry to bring her home.
But there was no way. She didn’t want there to be a way. She didn’t want to be more of a burden than she’d already been.
She shook her head to imply as much. But the blonde ignored her as she continued to outline demands into a device that changed the sound of her voice before transmitting it through the phone’s microphone.
Sabrina leaned forward until the zip tie bit deep into her wrists. She desperately wanted to hear who was on the other end of that call.
If she could catch a snippet of Hew’s voice, if she could just for a second hear that deep baritone and that rough Mainer drawl, she’d have the courage to keep from losing her shit. To keep from melting into a puddle of terror and self-recrimination.
But the Banshee—that’s what Sabrina had come to call the woman—was too far away for Sabrina to hear the other side of the conversation. And a hard hand grabbed Sabrina’s shoulder to slam her back in her seat.
She winced when the move made the pain pounding in her head radiate down her neck and across her shoulders.
Whatever they’d dosed her with had left behind one heck of an aftereffect.
It was like the flu of the century and the world’s worst hangover had gotten together and birthed a baby in the bowels of hell.
But she would not whine. She would not whimper. She would not give these assholes the satisfaction.
Instead, she lifted her chin and glared daggers up at the man.
Or, rather, she glared daggers a little way up at him. He was short, with a stubby little nose and beady little eyes. He reminded her of the trolls from fairy tales, ugly, disproportionate, and stupid-looking.
To make matters worse, when he leaned close and hissed, “Sit still, bitch,” his breath smelled like something had crawled down his throat and died.
She wanted to pull her face away from the foul-smelling hole in his, but she gritted her teeth and held her place. Then, her attention was diverted when the Banshee headed in her direction across the dirty, cracked concrete floor.
The woman was incredibly fit. With each efficient step, her muscles rounded her shoulders and bunched her thighs. But she managed to be extremely feminine, too—curves in all the right places.
“Tell your friends you’re alive.” The Banshee shoved the phone near Sabrina’s face as the four men gathered around Sabrina’s chair in a semicircle.
She’d noticed they instinctively moved closer to the blonde whenever she came near any of them. It was like she was a magnet and the men were metal. And Sabrina hadn’t missed the various looks of lust and longing in their eyes when they stared at the blonde.
Whoever the Banshee was, she was in charge. And it was clear she used sex—or the promise of sex—to stay in that position.
“Do it!” she snarled, her blood-red lips pulling back to reveal teeth that were too white, too perfect.
Veneers, Sabrina decided, even as she shook her head in refusal.
She would not be a part of this ransom demand. She absolutely would not put the Black Knights in the position of having to sell everything to race to her rescue.
It wasn’t the short man who gripped her breast in a cruel fist. It was the biggest of the lot. The guy who had a face like a tank, all solid and square and mean-looking.
“Do it,” he snarled. “Do what she says.”
When Sabrina only shook her head again, he twisted her tender flesh until tears sprang unbidden to her eyes.
“One sore titty will be child’s play compared to what I’ll do to you next if you don’t fucking open your mouth and do as you’re told.”
Shame, hot and cloying, flooded into Sabrina’s system. It wasn’t just from the pain, but from her own weakness.
Reminded of all the ways Eddy Torres had tortured her, knowing she couldn’t survive another assault like that, she couldn’t hold on to her bravado. She broke.
“I’m here!” she yelled, hating the catch in her voice. Hating the smell of her own fear. Hating the hot tracks her tears left on her cheeks. “I’m alive! But don’t give her anything! They won’t—”
Pain, white-hot and inescapable, slammed into her cheek, snapping her head back on the stem of her neck with enough force to rock the chair beneath her.
It was so sudden that, at first, she didn’t know what had hit her. Didn’t have time to cry out or wince. She could only blink stupidly as agony bloomed, as she felt her heartbeat in the teeth on the left side of her jaw.
When the stars stopped exploding in her vision, she saw Tank Face flexing his thick fingers and grinning in satisfaction.
He had been the one to slap her. And she was lucky he hadn’t broken her cheekbone. He had fists like ham hocks.
Fuck you! She wanted to scream as she tasted blood, felt the split in her skin directly over her cheekbone and the warm trickle that leaked from it. But that would only give the bastard more of what he wanted.
More of her fear.
More of her indignity and shame.
Instead, she smiled. Wide. Knowing it looked macabre because her teeth were coated in blood.
He blinked in surprise, then revulsion, before turning away to watch the Banshee with hot, covetous eyes.
The woman played with the zipper on her form-fitting top as she continued pacing and spouting instructions to the Black Knights. The move looked inadvertent, but Sabrina knew it was intentional.
Maybe I should start calling her the Succubus instead, she mused. She’s a demon sent to lead these wicked men straight back to the sulfurous pit they clawed out of.
She used Tank Face’s distraction to spit out the blood in her mouth. She hadn’t aimed at his big combat boots. But she hadn’t necessarily not aimed at them either.
He grimaced at the wad of saliva and congealing plasma that splattered on the black leather toe of his boot.
When he lifted his leg, she thought he might kick her and clamped down her jaw against the scream that threatened.
But he simply shook off his shoe as he glared at her with enough fury to mottle his skin red.
“You want another?” He balled up his fist, knuckles gleaming white.
“Cut it out!” the Banshee shouted, having finished the call.
The woman’s phone glinted like a weapon as she shoved it into the front pocket of her skintight tactical pants.
The smile that crept over her face was sleek and cruel—a raptor’s grin—when she announced to the group, “It’s done. Now, we get ready.”
Get ready for what? Sabrina wanted to demand.
None of her abductors wore masks. They weren’t worried about her IDing them. And if they weren’t worried about her IDing them, they had had no plans to let her leave, even if the Black Knights made good with the money.
So what was the play? Why had they taken her? And what did they plan to do to the Black Knights when they came for her?
The woman’s voice was serpentine, her S’s overpronounced. “So, my sweet, soft thing. I see you’ve gone and made Diesel mishandle you.” She tsked. “If you value that pretty face, you’ll make sure you behave from here on out.”
Diesel. A nickname? A last name?
“Why should I?” Sabrina snarled, her heart slamming like it was trying to break free from the cage of her ribs. “You’re not letting me leave this building.”
The words hung in the air. A verbal punch of defiance. A nanner-nanner-boo-boo, I know more than you think I do. But also, there was a part of her that hoped maybe…maybe…the Banshee would contradict her.
The woman only smiled again. And there was nothing in her eyes. No malice. No humanity. Just a swirling gray abyss.
Sabrina’s stomach churned, nausea rising like a high tide through the marshlands. Despite the heat and humidity gathering inside the abandoned building as the rain let up and the sun rose steadily into the sky outside, goosebumps peppered the flesh over her arms.
She could hear the rushing blood in her ears—a drumbeat to drown out the scuttle of rats and the faint, echoing drip of water from the sagging roofline at the far end of the space.
I’ve been here before, she thought again. Not here, here. But here with people who have no intention of letting me live.
She had survived the last ordeal. Her brother hadn’t, but she had.
Something told her she wouldn’t survive this one.
Making herself sit up straight—or, as straight as her restraints would allow—she lifted her chin and mirrored the Banshee’s cold, careless stare.
If this was the end, she refused to let them see her fear. She refused to give them any more of her tears.