Chapter 23
Vivian wasn’t a stranger to fear.
She could chart the sensation like a map. Fear pinched behind the ribs. Sat cold and heavy in the gut. Crept into the dark hollow of the throat like a swallowed scream.
Fear was a part of her job.
But this?
This was different.
This wasn’t fear of bullets and bombs. This wasn’t fear of danger and destruction. This was fear of—
Stop it!
The words thundered through her head.
Stop it right now!
Letting herself fall prey to panic was a sure-fire way to lose her damned mind. And she needed her wits about her. Needed to keep sharp. Stay steady.
How long have I been here? she wondered, knowing it had been hours. But how many? Two? Twenty?
It was impossible to tell.
Also…where is here?
She’d been blindfolded and handcuffed in the chopper. Chopper! The Black Knights had a motherfucking helicopter, and Bishop hadn’t bothered to tell her about it.
He hadn’t bothered to tell her about a lot.
She’d been flown…somewhere. She’d counted twenty minutes before she’d lost track. Her ears had popped twice during the descent.
But where had they landed?
O’Hare airport?
No. Somewhere smaller. More private.
There’d been no roar of jet engines. No beep, beep, beep of cargo trucks backing up. Just the distant buzz of the city and the occasional muffled conversation.
Then came the trunk. She’d fought to keep from being shoved inside. She’d kicked and screamed. But all that had gotten her was a sweaty length of fabric shoved into her mouth and a strip of duct tape slapped over her lips.
In the end, she’d been folded into the cramped space like human origami. Every bump in the road had jarred her bones. Every breath had seemed to lack enough oxygen to feed her brain. She’d kicked at the enclosure until her thighs ached. But…again…she’d gained absolutely nothing.
And now…this.
She sat strapped to a metal chair. Ankles bound. Wrists cinched tight behind her back.
At first, her nostrils had flared at the scents pressing in on her. Wet concrete. Musky mildew. Fish? But she’d long since gone nose-blind to the smells. And now, the only thing that reached her nose was the slightly chemical odor of the duct tape beneath it.
A soft plip-plip-plip told her water dripped nearby. It reverberated. Echoed into empty space.
But it wasn’t a large empty space. She could feel the cold, hard presence of rock walls—or maybe concrete?—hovering around her. Over her.
Had they left her in a cave? An old bomb shelter? A bunker?
She was underground. She was certain of that.
Somewhere deep. Somewhere hidden. Somewhere where silence echoed, but there was no light. No time. No certainty.
Just…thoughts.
That was always the worst part of capture, of confinement. Not the pain. Not the thirst or the hunger. Not even the not-knowing.
It was the thinking.
Thinking about the mission. Thinking about where and how they’d gone wrong. Thinking about her team. Dead. All of them down to the last man.
It’d taken her four years to gather and train them into a unit she could depend on. Starting over would be a pain in the ass.
If she lived long enough to start over.
Because even if she managed to escape this place, she’d failed. Failed in her mission to kill the hostage. Failed in her job to shine a light on the true nature of Black Knights Inc. Failed in the task Bishop had set before her.
Bishop.
From the beginning, she’d known he didn’t do forgiveness. Didn’t believe in second chances. Measured lack of success in ounces of blood and pieces of bone.
He was the true source of her fear and—
Motorized movement cut into her thoughts. It was a mechanical growl. Like a garage door, but bigger. Thicker. Heavier.
She’d heard it once before, after they’d pulled her from the trunk and secured her to the chair. And now, just like then, she blindly turned toward the fresh air that poured across her face. Her nostrils flared at the smell of motor oil and molten metal.
The motorcycle shop?
Was the cave/bomb shelter/bunker attached to the old menthol cigarette factory?
Bishop hadn’t mentioned that either.
The sonofabitch. This was all his fault. If he’d told her—
Footsteps echoed and interrupted her thoughts. They were heavy. Booted. Coming closer with each heartbeat.
One man? Two?
She caught a faint whiff of aftershave mixed with laundry detergent. Beneath all that was the familiar scent of gun cleaner.
The air around her shifted, grew warmer. He was close. They were close. Within arm’s length.
She braced for the slap. For the punch. For the bullet or the blade.
None came.
And then…there it was again. The grinding sound of metal on metal as the garage door that wasn’t a garage door swung shut, taking the fresh air with it and sealing her back inside the damp and the dark.
She could hear the breaths of those who’d joined her. The soft sound of air filling lungs. Then…something clicked. A flashlight?
Yeah. A flashlight.
Dull light filtered through the fabric of the blindfold. A second later, the cloth was pulled away, and she was left blinking against the darkness.
But it wasn’t a true black now. The pale glow of the handheld lamp carved out just enough contrast to paint shadows across the concrete walls and show her the long, dark tunnel that seemed to dip down into nothingness.
The road to hell, she couldn’t help thinking.
She’d always assumed it would be hot and sulfurous, not cold and fishy-smelling.
She tried to see the end of it, the orange glow of a sulfur fire. But the blackness was complete. And she was left to swing her attention to the man who stood directly before her.
He looked as solid as a mountain. His face was just as craggy.
Beside him towered another man. Younger. Prettier. But just as big. Just as dangerous-looking.
The eyes they fixed on her were unreadable. And the lack of emotion on their faces made her skin feel like it was crawling with bugs.
It occurred to her then…
She’d been focused on what Bishop would do to her when she should have been focused on what the Black Knights could do.