Seven
Winslet
Were those spots? I thought they were spots. I blinked, and there they were again.
I picked up my bottle of water and took another small sip. I had about one drink left, and as dry as my mouth was, I knew I needed to save that for when I woke up. I had struggled this morning with my dry mouth and not having saliva to swallow until Oz appeared with my tiny portion of water.
The good news was, my stomach wasn’t rumbling anymore. Either I was so dehydrated that things weren’t working properly or my body was adjusting.
What were the spots about though? They were baffling. It was so dark down here that I shouldn’t see spots floating around.
Footsteps filled the silence, but I didn’t jump up this time. Mostly because I didn’t have the energy. Sitting here on the floor was fine. I was tired, but I couldn’t sleep.
Was it morning already? Had I stared at spots all night? I hoped it was another day. I would get more water. If I could have perked up, I would have. But that required more than I had to give right now.
The rattling of the key, the swinging open of the gate—all things that were morning signs. What did I know? There was no sunlight down here or a clock. I had no clue if he was bringing me water in the morning or in the middle of the night. Heck, he could be stopping by at lunch every day.
The flashlight looked like it was coming from his phone this time. I waited quietly, wondering what news he would bring me now. I only heard one set of footsteps, so I knew my brother hadn’t shown up to save me. Not that he’d be saving me alone. Oz would have him locked up down here with me. Doing much worse things to him from the way he had talked.
I blinked and rubbed my eyes, trying to get that image out of my head. When you spent the majority of your life protecting someone, it was hard to navigate a situation where you were powerless to help them.
If Perry had done this, then why? He hated breaking rules, and this was one of those ultimate rules you did not break. Piss off the United States government and psychos who would lock your sister up and starve her to death.
Oz appeared inside the glow of his phone light. I studied him to see he had a large bottle of water in one hand and a plate of food. If I’d had the energy, I might have jumped up and tried to tackle him for it. I didn’t care what it was. I hated carrots, but I’d even take a bag of those at the moment.
As he drew closer to me, I began to stiffen and press my back against the wall. What was he going to do? Had my time run out?
He stopped in front of me and bent his knees as he lowered himself to the ground, then placed the food and the water in front of me. My eyes immediately dropped to the items. Bacon, eggs, two slices of toast, and some fresh berries filled the plate. My mouth instantly watered as my stomach made loud noises. I snatched up both slices of bacon and shoved one in my mouth in case he was teasing me. I was getting a bite before it was taken from me.
“Not so fast. You’ll get sick,” his deep voice said.
Those eyes of his met mine, and there was some concern there—or I was hallucinating from dehydration, starvation, and little sleep.
I chewed quickly and swallowed.
“Are you gonna take it away from me?” I asked.
He shook his head, then stood back up.
The relief was so powerful that I wanted to weep. Picking up a strawberry, I began to eat it, not taking my eyes off Oz as he reached for the lantern and turned it on. Then, he walked over and took the chair, pulling it a few feet in front of me before sitting down.
Before I ate the other piece of bacon, I decided I needed water. Grabbing the bottle, I opened it and took a drink. The first long gulp I had allowed myself since realizing the tiny bottle was all I would get each day. God, nothing had ever felt as good as the cold liquid coating my throat.
“Slow down on the water, too, or it’ll come back up. Your stomach has shrunk from not eating,” Oz stated.
In theory, I knew this, but I was terrified that this was going to disappear at any moment, and I wanted to get all I could before that happened. But throwing up down here and being left to smell it would be an unpleasant outcome.
I took a piece of toast. “I know all about that, trust me,” I told him before breaking some off with my teeth, unable to hide the small moan as the warm, buttered bread met my tongue.
“You get starved often?” he replied.
I finished chewing and swallowed. “It’s been years, but yeah. There were times in my childhood I went without. Then, when I was given food, I ate it quickly and too much of it, only for it to come right back up,” I explained before taking the fork to scoop up some of the scrambled eggs.
“Why did you go without food as a kid?” he asked.
I didn’t exactly want to chat. I had food to eat, but if I had to stop and answer his questions, then perhaps that would slow me down. It also wouldn’t hurt to talk some. If I told him truthfully what I knew, then he might bring me more food and water.
“We had an alcoholic mother,” I started. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been around someone who is a severe alcoholic, but all they care about is the liquor. Our money went to it. She couldn’t hold down a job because of it. She went missing for days, often on a binge with some man who supplied her with it. Until I could get a job, it was up to me to make sure my brother ate. When we didn’t have much, then that meant I went without.”
I didn’t enjoy walking down memory lane, but I preferred it over no food.
“She’s dead.” He said it more like a statement, but I nodded anyway. “Drink herself to death?”
I lifted a shoulder. “More or less. She was drunk and fell down the stairwell at our apartment building in the middle of the night. Broke her neck on impact.”
I watched his face while I ate another berry. I wondered if he’d let me save the food for later. If this was going to be a once-a-day thing, then I wanted to be sure I could eat again before I went to sleep. Without the hunger pains, I would sleep better in these conditions.
His hair looked damp, as if he’d just had a shower. I was envious. I wanted a shower, to be able to scrub my body, brush my teeth and hair. Heck, to sit on a toilet instead of squatting over a bucket. I was sure I looked like some savage animal while he looked as perfect as always. Another reason to hate him.
“How long have I been down here?” I asked him, unsure about the time. It all seemed to be one long, endless existence.
He glanced down at his phone. “Fifty-eight hours and eleven minutes.”
That was it? It’d felt much longer than that.
I took another forkful of eggs and put them in my mouth. I’d gone a week without food before. I was spoiled now if two days had me thinking I was on the brink of death. He wasn’t going to let me starve down here if two days was all he’d been willing to let me go without eating.
I licked my lips, making sure nothing was on my mouth. Why I cared about that I didn’t know. My hair was probably a rat’s nest, I had to smell bad, my teeth…ugh, I didn’t want to go there. A little egg on my face couldn’t make me look any worse. Not that my appearance mattered.
Okay, that was a lie. I was a female, and Oz—albeit a criminal who had abducted me—was gorgeous, sexy, hot, all the things that made a woman very aware of how she appeared and where she lacked. Because I doubted that man had ever lacked a day in his life when it came to anything. He’d still look good with dirty hair, unbathed, having slept on a basement floor for two days. Me? Not so much.
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he studied me. I was probably blushing because of my thoughts, but this was where living in dim lighting came in handy—he wouldn’t be able to tell.
“Someone checked the location of your phone,” he told me.
All other thoughts were zapped from my brain as several emotions and thoughts rushed in. Fear for Perry, anxiety over what he’d do, if he was guilty, the small trace of hope that I was going to be freed. I didn’t know what to cling to and what to focus on. Perry needed me, but I couldn’t figure out a way to help him. Not if what Oz was claiming was true. I could save him from our drunk, abusive mother, but the Feds and the…Mafia? I was still working through that one. Not sure what to believe there either.
“Do you know anyone who lives in Atlanta?” he asked me.
I started to shake my head, then paused. I’d heard Perry talking about introducing me to a business associate and friend of his. Sam, Samuel, Samson. It was Samson.
“You do,” Oz said without me saying a word. “Listen to me, Winslet. If you want to eat again in the near future and you want more than a small bottle of water a day, then you need to give me something.”
I nodded and gripped my hands together tightly. I was nervous. What if they went there and found this man and…and I don’t know. Would they kill him? Would I, in return, be a murderer because I’d told them a name of a man I had never met? Crap. I wasn’t sure I could live with myself.
Those slate-gray eyes of his bored into me, as if he could read my thoughts. Nervously, I licked my lips again. I had to say something. And if a phone had tried to find me from Atlanta…well, it had to be Perry. Right? He was there? Would he come here?
“Winslet.” There was a sharp warning in his tone that caused me to jump.
“Okay. I’m just…” I stopped and took a deep breath. “I know you have no problem abducting people, starving them, doing God knows what else. But I am struggling here. Because, yes, Perry has mentioned to me someone who lives in Atlanta. I’ve not met this man. I do not know him. And if I give you the name and you go and…well, string him up and torture him or whatever, that will be on me. I’ll have to live with myself over it.”
His brows drew together, and dang it, he even made a scowl sexy.
“You are being held in a basement, without a bathroom, and being starved.”
My eyes dropped to my plate, and I grabbed another berry in case it was about to be taken from me, then looked back up at him. “You just fed me,” I blurted, then winced.
That was probably not what I should have pointed out. He might not feed me again.
His jaw twitched, and he took a deep breath, as if he was trying to contain his temper. That said something about him, didn’t it? I mean, he could have jumped up and slammed me against the wall, put a knife to my throat or a gun to my head, and demanded I talk. But he was sitting there, trying not to get angry.
“Tell me what you fucking know,” he said through clenched teeth.
My body tingled a little from the snarl in his tone, and I began to wonder if perhaps captivity was making me insane. I shouldn’t feel any kind of thrill from this man.
Fear, hate? Yes. Thrill, tingles? Heck no.
It was because I hadn’t had sex in so long. That was it. The abstinence and lack of a man in general were getting to me. When I got out of here and no longer smelled like a sewer, then I’d possibly agree to a date with Toby, the eighth-grade teacher at MCS. He’d asked me out twice already, and I had told him I was coming out of a long relationship and needed time.
“Winslet.” Oz’s voice snapped me out of my scattered thoughts.
“Sam…Samson,” I told him.
I really hoped Samson was a bad guy. Maybe he was who had gotten Perry into this. Someone had to have because my brother didn’t sit around and plan things like this. He had to have had help.
“Samson isn’t a rare name, darlin’. Gonna need a last name,” he pushed.
I was trying to remember it. If he’d stop looking at me so intensely, I could focus. But with his winkled brow, slightly flared nostrils, narrowed-eyes thing he did well, it was all very distracting. I closed my eyes. That would help. If I couldn’t see him, then his godlike image would not distract me.
Samson…Samson…UGH! Why didn’t I listen more closely?
Because you thought your brother was trying to set you up on a date.
Perry had been worried about my not dating after Alec. He’d said I focused on work too much. My classroom was my life, and he didn’t think it was healthy.
A click sound had me opening my eyes again. If there had been tingles moments before, they had all frozen solid. I stared at the barrel of a gun that was pointed at me.
Holy shit. My chest began to rise and fall rapidly as my breathing became quick. He was going to kill me after all. Feed me, then end me. Oh God.
“I need a fucking last name.” Oz’s voice dropped even deeper as he glared at me.
I hadn’t known he had a gun. Where had he been hiding it? Did he just walk around with one? The Mafia story seemed very legit now. I no longer doubted it.
Focus, Winslet! Think! The name of the man…you need a name, or you’re going to die. Am I going to die?
I heard a whimper and realized it had come from me.
“Who are you protecting?” he demanded.
“No one! I am trying to-to re-member his last na-name.” I stuttered out most of my words as my body trembled.
I’d been hit and slapped, had my bones broken, but I’d never had a gun pointed at me. This was a new level of terror.
I closed my eyes again because I wasn’t going to be able to think about anything other than that gun if I didn’t. Blocking out Oz, I played back the conversation from a few weeks ago.
Perry had taken me to dinner one night. He told me about a new business venture he’d been working on. A guy he’d met at college—a talented artist. He thought I’d like him. He lived in Buckhead, Georgia. I didn’t know where that was, and he explained it was a wealthy residential area in Atlanta. Samson owned an art gallery and was brilliant in the stock market. The art gallery was…
What was it? Come on, Winslet. Think.
My eyes flew open. “Zephyr Galleries!” I almost shouted. “His name—he owns Zephyr Galleries. It’s an art gallery in Atlanta, and Zephyr is his last name. He lives in Buckhead.”
The gun lowered, and the relief that came from that should have made me feel guilty because I might have just led killers to an innocent man to save myself.
Oz kept his eyes on me as he lifted his phone to his ear. I swallowed hard. I really hoped Samson Zephyr was guilty. Which was also probably bad of me, but I didn’t want him to be innocent and die either.
“Zephyr Galleries. Art gallery in Atlanta. Samson Zephyr owns it and lives in Buckhead,” Oz said into the phone. He was silent for a moment, then said, “Yes,” followed by, “I am.”
Then, he ended the call and stood up, sliding the phone into his pocket.
He hadn’t taken my plate from me, but I quickly ate the last of the eggs and grabbed the last piece of toast. With my other hand, I took the water bottle and held it close to me, watching him warily. I wanted to keep this too. I’d given him a man that I didn’t know, someone who might be as innocent as I was in all this. But Perry didn’t have a big friend circle. It was as small as mine was, if not smaller.
“Get up,” Oz ordered.
I slowly stood, wincing from my sore muscles. My eyes went to where I had seen him tuck that gun behind his back. I didn’t want it to come out again.
“Let’s go.”
His words surprised me, and my eyes flew back to his face.
“Where are we going?” I asked, afraid to be relieved.
He might be handing me over to worse people. Some who wouldn’t feed me.
He raised an eyebrow, as if I had no right to ask him anything. I felt like it was a reasonable question. I just needed to prepare myself if he was about to give me my death sentence. Now that they had a name out of me, they might see me as a waste of time. Bad guys in TV shows did not let their victims walk free. I wasn’t stupid enough to assume he was going to call me an Uber and put me in it.
“Do you want to stay down here?” he asked.
I shook my head, then stopped. Maybe I did. I mean, if it was here or death, I was going with here. “Um, I mean, if it’s safe to leave. If not…I think I can stay here longer.”
Those dark brows of his drew together again. “What?”
I sighed, then held his confused gaze. “Are you taking me upstairs to release me to someone who is going to kill me?”
Slowly, a smirk curled his lips. I didn’t see how that was an amusing question.
Psycho. He was a psycho.
“No, Winslet. You gave us a lead. You get rewarded. I’m taking you upstairs so you can take a shower, brush your teeth, put on clean clothes. Use a fucking toilet.”
My eyes flew open wide. “Really?” I asked in shock.
I hadn’t expected that outcome. Again, the guilt that I’d just given them the name of a man I couldn’t be sure was connected to anything was there, but the reward part might be worth it. Which made me a terrible person.
How would I sleep at night?
I glanced back at the hard concrete floor and decided I wasn’t going to sleep much anyway. I might as well be clean while I sat awake down here, feeling like the pits of hell were licking at my feet.
“You give me information that leads to your brother, and I will give you what you want. Well, at least the things within my power. Freedom is not one of those. Not until we have Perry.”
Right. But what if I couldn’t answer any more of his questions? That had been pure luck that I remembered that.
Shoving that panic away until the time came, I nodded.
I’d just be sure to make this one hell of an epic shower. I wondered if I could shower, then take a bubble bath. That would be wonderful.