Chapter 33 Wren
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
WREN
“Get up.” I sit up with a gasp, looking around as a headache pounds against my temples. I see I’m in a closet with a bucket. A pain in my hand and hip tells me that’s what I landed on when I was thrown in here.
A guard grabs my arm and hauls me up to my feet, wrenching my arm and making me cry out in pain.
“Shut up and start walking.” He gives my shoulder a push toward the door, and I quickly move before I end up tripping.
Glancing around, I see three men have come to collect me.
“Where’s Elias?” I ask as I’m led into the hall.
Nobody answers, so I just do my best to take in my surroundings. This hall is lined with doors, some open, some closed. I glance into each one we pass, but I don't see anything noteworthy.
We move back down the same stairs I was brought up…
how long ago was that? Hours? Days? Although I passed out quickly when I was first placed in there, I remember waking several times in that horrid place.
Each time I took the coward's way out and let the panic sink in so I’d pass out.
It’s probably the reason for the pounding headache now.
It might not have been the smartest choice, letting the panic take over, but I was too scared to do anything else.
I’m led into a different room this time. It looks a bit like a mix of an office and a library, with bookshelves lining one wall and a plain, nondescript table in the center, with a laptop and a single chair.
My brows pinch in confusion. This definitely wasn’t anyone's office; the setup was too temporary.
I’m led to a sofa on the far wall, set in front of a window. Glancing outside, I see it’s daytime and still raining. Does that mean it’s still the same day we were taken? Or is it the next day now?
“Sit,” the guard barks, and I quickly take a seat in the middle of the couch, as I wait to see what will happen next.
Anxiety and nerves start to fuel me as I watch two guards standing at the entrance, guns in hand. Would they shoot me if I tried to run? Would Robert really have gone through all this effort to catch me, just to kill me?
The truth is, I don’t really know him. I have no idea what he’s truly capable of anymore. I never would have thought he’d sell his own sister, so I clearly have no idea what extremes he will go to to get what he wants.
The question plaguing me now is: what does he want?
Movement has me glancing at the door as Robert steps inside. The moment his eyes connect with mine, he gives me a soft smile, the one he would give me growing up. One I thought meant that he cared for me, but now I know differently. That smile was a lie. A lie that I believed for far too long.
“Bring it in,” he says over his shoulder, and as he walks toward me, a man follows holding a tray with food and drinks on it. “Set it down there,” Robert points to the ground in front of me, and someone grabs a small side table and moves it in front of me as the tray is placed on it.
I glance at the bottle of water and cut up carrot and celery sticks before looking back up at him.
“Go ahead. You must at least be thirsty. You’ve been here for almost a day,” he says gently.
A day?
Well, that answers that question. And now he’s said it, I do feel parched. Keeping my eyes on him, I reach forward and grab the bottle of water. It looks sealed, but I doubt he would poison me; there’s something else he needs from me. And I have a feeling it’s my willing submission.
I drink a third of the bottle, then grab a carrot stick and eat it. Robert just stands in front of me, watching me the whole time. It’s unnerving, but I know I need to keep my strength up. A lack of food and water will not only make my body weak but my mind as well, and I need to stay sharp.
After I eat a handful of carrot sticks and drink half the bottle of water, Robert turns his head and nods at one of the guards, who exits the room.
“Feeling better?” he asks me. I nod slowly, unsure where this is going.
He takes a seat beside me and looks at me for a moment, a look of sadness covering his face. But I don’t buy it. “I know you don’t trust me anymore, Wren, but I do care about you. I’m only looking out for your best interest.”
“And selling me was in my best interest?” I ask angrily.
“Yes,” he says, nodding his head. “Wren, don’t you understand?
” He places his hand on my thigh, and I yank it away from him, not wanting his touch.
He frowns at me but doesn’t comment on it as he continues speaking.
“You can’t take care of yourself. You need someone to look out for you.
I picked Ivan because he’d give you a good life.
He would give you anything you could ever need. ”
“I can take care of myself,” I snap back in defense.
His eyes turn pitying, and he shakes his head. “My poor little Wren. You were always a little delusional about the real world. Tell me, how well did you fare out there before finding someone else to take care of you?”
I suck in a sharp breath of surprise, remembering what happened with the bikers before my guys saved me. There’s no way he could have known about that, is there?
“I was just fine on my own,” I tell him, despite knowing the opposite.
He shakes his head, looking disappointed.
“We both know that isn’t true. What life do you think those criminals could have given you?
They’re wanted fugitives, and it’s only a matter of time before they’re caught.
Then what will become of you?” I open my mouth to respond, but he keeps speaking.
“With Ivan, you would never have had to worry about that.”
“He’s a worse criminal than any of them.”
He nods. “Perhaps. The difference is, he’s never been caught. He knows how to protect himself from the authorities. And he was willing to give that same level of safety to you.”
Realizing he’s speaking in the past tense, I’m unsure what that means. Does Ivan not want me anymore? If that’s the case, what does Robert want with me? I cross my arms and lean back against the sofa, deciding to keep my mouth shut to see what else he reveals to me.
“I know you’ve been away for a while, but are you going to be good and start listening to me again?”
“Not likely,” I say, my eyes screaming are you crazy?
“I thought you might say that.” He gestures toward the door, and a few seconds later, two guards enter, pulling Elias along with them.
“Elias!” I yell in surprise, jumping to my feet.
“Wren! Are you okay? Have they hurt you?” We both look each other over, and I’m surprised and pleased to see he looks unharmed.
“I’m okay, what about you?”
“I’m okay,” he says, his eyes bouncing to Robert, who’s now standing beside me with a hand on my shoulder, preventing me from going to him.
Elias is made to stand behind the chair at the table, in front of the laptop, as he tries to take in everything around him: the guards, Robert, the laptop, the food, and me.
“Wren, sit down,” Robert commands. My lips tighten, but I obey; there’s no reason not to right now. “Now there’s something the two of you need to understand,” he says, his eyes moving between Elias and me. “Do what I say, and nobody has to get hurt.”
He turns to me as he tells me, “If you obey me, then Elias won’t be harmed. But disobey…” he turns to the guard beside Elias and nods.
The guard suddenly punches Elias in the stomach, making him grunt as he bends over in pain.
“Elias!” I yell as I try to run to him, but Robert grabs me and yanks me back down to the sofa.
“Try to go to him again, and the next hit will be to his face.”
I clench my fists and sit back, my heart hammering in fear and anger.
“Take a seat, Elias,” Robert says as one of the guards pulls out the chair and forcefully pushes Elias into it. He glances at the laptop before turning his angry eyes on Robert.
“Your job is simple. I want to know everything you can find on the John Montgomery Airport. Schematics, arrival and departure schedules for the next three days, security protocols, access points, camera feeds, and every blind spot that place has.”
“You want me to hack into the airport's systems?” Elias asks him as if he’s crazy.
“Yes, I know you’re more than capable.”
“They have excellent security, they’ll track us instantly,” Elias says. I don’t think that’s true because Elias is great at hacking, but it’s a good bluff.
Or at least I think it is until Robert shakes his head. “Lie to me again, and Wren will pay.”
His hand shoots out, grabbing me by my hair and yanking me toward him, making me hiss in pain.
“Okay!” Elias yells, before continuing a little calmer. “Okay, I’ll do it, just don’t hurt her.” Robert releases me before trying to soothe the side of my head where he wrenched my hair. I bat his hand away and do it myself, fixing my hair as I glare at him.
Elias clenches his jaw and turns to the laptop as he starts typing. “Why do you want this anyway?”
“That’s not your concern.”
I press my lips together as I think about the airport. What reason could Robert have for wanting information on it? He obviously already had ties everywhere; he’d been running his empire just fine without Elias’s hacking skills before now. So why did he need him to perform this task?
“Are you trying to flee the country?” I ask, the only reason I can think of for him wanting to know about it.
He sighs as if disappointed in me. “I don’t expect you to understand, dear sister. You never were the brightest.”
The insult has me glaring his way. I want to argue, to tell him that anything I don’t understand is because he didn’t do his job as my guardian to teach me about.
He purposely left large gaps in my knowledge, leaving me naive and vulnerable so I’d depend on him, and later, Ivan. But I decide to keep my mouth shut.
Maybe he should underestimate me. I’ve learned a lot in the month I’ve been away, thanks to my guys, and I might be able to put some of that knowledge to use to get us out of here.
For now, it’s best he still thinks of me as the same naive girl I was before I ran. Glancing at Elias, I wonder if he’s been given anything to eat or drink since we got here.
I pick up my half-full bottle of water and turn to Robert as I ask, “Can I give this to Elias? He’ll work better if he’s not starved and dehydrated.
” He stares at me for a moment, as if wanting to know if I have an ulterior motive, before nodding slowly.
He must realize there’s no harm in me giving it to Elias.
I stand slowly, grab the plate of veggies, and move to the table.
Elias stops typing as I move up beside him and place the plate beside the laptop, handing the bottle over to him.
He reaches up to take it, his fingers purposely wrapping around mine and sending me a small spark of strength before Robert yells at me to hurry up.
Pulling my hand away, I offer him a weak smile before resuming my seat.
Elias chugs all the water before starting in on the veggies, keeping his eyes and free hand on the laptop the whole time.
Of all the things Robert could have requested, this is probably the easiest. He could have asked for something that could put innocent people in danger.
But I didn’t see the harm in him knowing more about an airport.
After a few minutes, Robert leaves, leaving strict instructions for the guards not to allow us to talk to each other. I see several guards pacing outside the room, while two station themselves inside the doorway.
Over the next hour, I try to talk to Elias a couple of times, but it’s quickly shut down with threats to hurt him. I try to talk to one of the guards next, but he just ignores me.
I end up lying on the couch, angling myself so I can watch Elias work. At least with him in here with me, I don’t have to worry about what they’re doing to him. If only we had a way to communicate.
Elias glances at me, then, when he sees I’m watching, reaches down to scratch his right leg. I watch the movement and try not to let anything show on my face when his hand starts to sign.
Of course, sign language! It’s not easy to do; the guards are facing me, and Elias is doing it one-handed at his side, making most words impossible to sign. I watch as he spells out his question.
I think he’s asking where they took me before I was in here.
Knowing I can’t get away with full-on ASL, I let out a deep sigh as I rub my cheek with one finger, hoping he realizes I’m pointing up.
I see the tiniest nod from him in understanding, then I add two more fingers, before I close my fist, my thumb pointing to my right.
Let’s hope he gets that, upstairs, third door to the right.
He keeps typing on the laptop, his eyes flitting back and forth between me and the screen before dropping his hand again.
I think he tells me three to the left. They were keeping him in the same hallway as me?
That’s promising. Of course, that’s if they take us both back to our same rooms again.
I didn’t even know how many guards I’d been left with since I was locked in a closet.
But maybe if they returned me there, I could control my panic and find a way to escape. Hopefully, since I was cooperating, I wouldn’t be shoved back in there. That would make things a lot easier.
Of course, getting out of the rooms was only the first step. This place seemed to have way more guards than we’d ever had in Arizona, and without Elias guiding me behind the scenes, I wasn’t sure we’d be able to escape this place.