Chapter 36
Zane
I punched the gas and flew around another car.
The wait seemed interminable until Jordy came back on comms. “No, she’s not there. A minute later, she came out the front door just after the timestamp of the phone call.”
Hearing that, I took a quick breath and stomped on the throttle. She’d gotten away. Now we just had to find her.
“Smart girl,” Lucas said.
“There’s bad news,” Jordy added. “She came out the front, but not long after that, those two guys from the BMW followed. She took off to the east.…”
Run, baby run. I’m on the way.
“Then what?” Lucas’s impatience showed in his tone.
“Hold on, I’ve got to find the next camera angle.”
I had to know that she was all right. All I could do was concentrate on the road as Lucas and I darted in and out of lanes to make better time.
“What’s happening?” O’Connor looked green.
“I don’t know yet, and don’t you dare puke in my car.”
He closed his eyes and slammed his head back against the headrest.
“Crap, they caught her,” Jordy said.
“Shit.” I banged the steering wheel with all my might. My heart thudded hard in my chest. This whipsaw of emotions was killing me. She was in danger, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it yet.
“What?” O’Connor asked.
“She got away, but they caught her again.”
“And after that?” Lucas prodded.
“Hold on,” Jordy said. “They got her back into the BMW and… left.”
Lucas sped up some more. “Where to?”
“I’m working on it.” Jordy did not sound happy. “The camera coverage is spotty in that part of town.”
“Plate?” Lucas prodded.
“Working on it.” Jordy knew the pressure was on. “Got the plate… Running it.”
Ahead, Lucas darted into the oncoming lane to pass a delivery truck. It would be an insane maneuver in anything with less power than the Cayenne.
“The plate doesn’t get us anywhere,” Jordy said. “It’s from a Suburban stolen in Pasadena.”
I came up behind the delivery truck, and after a few cars went by in the opposite direction, I got my opportunity to pass, as Lucas had. Mashing the pedal down, the turbos spun up, and the V-8 roared.
“Jesus,” O’Connor screamed. “Do you have a death wish?”
I swung the wheel and, with two seconds to spare, swerved back into the correct lane ahead of the truck. There was no substitute for raw power.
O’Connor spluttered. “I’m never driving with you again.”
“That would be fine by me.”
He’d let Peyton get kidnapped, and I hated him for that.
A minute later, we reached the Chinese restaurant she’d visited.
“We’re here,” Lucas told Jordy over comms. “Which way?”
“North on Broadmore,” the tech geek said. “Stop three blocks up and wait until I get more sightings.”
At the suggested spot, I pulled to the curb behind Lucas’s Cayenne.
It sucked having to wait, but we were totally dependent on Jordy tracing the route the BMW took.
O’Connor unbelted and hurried out his door.
Then… the detective puked on the grass.
Lightweight in addition to being incompetent. He deserves way worse than this for putting my woman in danger.
Peyton
I blinked open groggy eyes to find myself alone, tied to a chair in a dingy bedroom. Looking around, dread was a lead weight in my stomach. The comforter on the bed had a dozen dubious stains, and handcuffs hanging on the headrest. There was only one door, and no window—a dungeon.
Slowly, the memories flooded back in.
I would have been safe if the restaurant manager’s office hadn’t had a small window to the alley.
I’d run and been caught again by the monster and his ugly henchman.
Refusing to give him any more airtime, I shook my head to clear the ugly memories. All that mattered was what I did now.
My wrists screamed in protest when I pulled against the bindings holding them behind the chair. The good news was, the strain created the slightest bit of looseness in them. Grabbing the end of the rope with one hand, it felt like cotton, which gave me hope.
The doorknob rattled, and I slumped my head forward against my chest.
The door opened, letting in screams of what sounded like a circular saw cutting wood. “She’s still out.” It was Baldy’s voice.
“When do I get a turn with her?” More sickening than the implication was that it was a new voice. How many of them planned to assault me?
“Me too.”
Bile rose in my throat. That last voice made the asshole count at least four.
“Patience,” Monster said. “I’ll be back in half an hour. Nobody touches her. Nobody even goes in the room, you hear me?”
“Got it,” Baldy replied as the door closed.
I kept my head down and listened carefully.
Had he left someone in the room to see if I was faking?
After a minute of not hearing anything, I chanced one eye open, then the other.
I was the only one in the room, and I had a half-hour countdown to a fate so terrible I couldn’t contemplate it.
Scanning the room for options, I refused to let the monster dictate my fate.
Grace’s recounting of Terry’s advice rang loud and clear in my head—“Fight with everything you have and never give up.”
Zane would be tearing the city apart right now looking for me. He’d come, I was certain of it. But when?
He’d told me of the escape and evade training he’d undergone, and now it was my responsibility to do just that until he found me.
This chair was wood, which meant that with enough force, it could be broken. Sometimes in the movies, the bound person knocked the chair over and it broke, but they were all big, heavy, strong men. For me, it would be too risky. If it didn’t break, I’d be stuck.
When I jostled the chair, my legs throbbed where the ropes bound me to the wood. It moved with a small squeak, at the expense of some skin on my shins.
It hurt even more when I rocked the chair one more time. I couldn’t let the pain matter. This pain was nothing compared to what was to come if I didn’t get out of here.
Bang.
I froze at the sound of a gunshot outside the room.
“What the fuck?” That was Baldy. “Boris, put that gun away.”
“I hate fucking rats.” That voice belonged to the one who wanted to know when he got his chance with me.
“You shoot again,” Baldy warned, “and I shoot you.”
The shooter mumbled something unintelligible.
With no more gunfire, and only muffled conversation, I scanned the room for a destination. The nightstand’s wood looked too smooth to be of any help cutting my bindings, the same with the small dresser.
The headboard was wrought iron above smooth wood, but too high for me to lift my hands to it. Looking closer, I noticed the handcuffs attached on each side. Lovely. Then, I had an idea.
I rocked and twisted to walk the chair slowly across the room. If I was lucky, there might be some matching wrought iron at the foot of the bed under the comforter.
It was a lot harder than the movies made it seem. A drop of sweat ran down my forehead and into my eye. It seemed like it took forever to reach the bed, moving only an inch or two at a time, being careful not to tip over. If I fell to the floor on my side, I’d be doomed.
Rotating the chair slowly to back up against the corner of the bed, I finally grasped the comforter and lifted it one handful at a time.
I finally uncovered a short section of wrought iron. Thank God, it was at a height I could rub against. Rubbing a section of rope at my wrists against the corner of the ironwork, I wondered how much time remained before Monster came back.
When I felt the first strands give way, I sped up my efforts. “Come on, come on,” I chanted under my breath. If I wasn’t fast enough, none of this effort would matter. I would be cuffed to this bed, and what would follow was too terrible to contemplate.
Thread by thread, the rope gave way to the cutting action of the iron. Then, my hands were free. I had no idea how much time it had taken and how much I had left.
Quickly, I untied my legs. Then, I checked the dresser for anything I could use as a weapon or a tool, and found it completely empty. Moving to the nightstand, all I found was a jumbo box of condoms.
Great.
Next, I surveyed my situation, trying to think in three dimensions as Zane had said was important, or was it outside the box.
Box was an appropriate term, because that was what I was in. The room had no overhead air ducts, so climbing up was out. A single narrow and short air grate in the wooden floor against the wall wouldn’t help either.
I couldn’t use the door. I’d heard the muffled sounds now and again that told me the monster’s goons were out there. Without a window, that left only the walls. The one the bed was up against was brick, an outside wall. The other three walls were drywall painted off-white.
Grateful for the home renovation shows I’d watched, I remembered that the wall would have vertical studs set wide enough apart that I could easily fit through.
Eennie meenie miney moe, I had to choose a direction to go and, since I was right-handed, chose that direction. It was the wall with the dresser. Tapping lightly on the wall, I found it thankfully hollow, like on TV, and located where I thought two wooden studs were.
Kicking a hole in it and pulling pieces of the drywall away would get me through, but would be too noisy. I needed something to cut into it that wouldn’t make noise.
Looking at my shoes, I tried to figure out a way to use one, but then noticed my belt buckle. I pulled my belt off and used the sharp edge of the buckle to gouge the wallboard. It worked, and in no time I had a small square hole large enough to get my fingers into.
On my first try at pulling a piece of the drywall loose, I lost my grip and fell backward on my ass. Desperate, I attacked it again. After expanding the hole a little, my second attempt worked, and a large piece of the material ripped loose.
My heart went into overdrive. The sound was loud enough that I thought the guards might hear it. The ten seconds I waited to see if they would come barreling through the door were the longest of my life. I wiped my brow and got back to work.
Carefully, I broke smaller pieces loose, then started a hole through to the other side. When it was large enough, I put my eye to it.
I’d chosen well. It was an empty room with two doors, one that clearly led to the hallway with the guards and another on the opposite wall.
“I don’t care what he said,” a loud and obviously drunk voice said on the other side of my door. “I’ve been waiting long enough. I want my turn with that piece of ass.”
I froze.
“You wait.” The bellow was muffled, but clearly Baldy’s voice. “We all wait.”
I pushed out pieces of drywall into the other room, moving as fast as I could quietly. Then, I wiggled partway through and then backed out.
Why had Monster told Baldy to get my purse?
It didn’t matter why he wanted it. I wasn’t leaving it for him. So, I grabbed it and then went through the hole and scurried to the door on the opposite wall.
It wasn’t locked, so I cracked it open. It was a hallway.
One direction was the area the goons were hanging out in, and in the other direction it turned a corner after a few feet.
I tip-toed out, closed the door quietly behind me and scurried away.
The corridor went left, and then into a dimly lit and scary warehouse area.
The lights were off, and from the little light that filtered in from the few small, filthy windows high up, I made out haphazard rows of pallets stacked three high, each holding blue barrels.
Loud voices sounded behind me.
There had to be an exit at the back somewhere, and I took off at a run. The floor was slippery, and I fell the first time I tried to dodge a pallet.
Suddenly, the lights came on. “Find her.” Crap. Monster was back. “She couldn’t have gone any other way.”
Getting up, I could now read the skull and crossbones marks on all the barrels with the words hazardous waste. Double crap. I’d landed in a puddle of toxic who-knows-what. Wiping my hands on my pants, I moved only slightly more slowly toward the back, where freedom beckoned.
“Marko,” Monster bellowed. “In case she already got out. You go outside and take the left side of the building, and Oleg, you take the right side.”
Triple crap. None of the back exits would work. I’d have to do the one thing they didn’t expect and sneak past them the way I’d come in.
First thing though was to hide my purse. I went to the next pallet where the floor was dry and kicked the purse underneath. If they wanted it, they’d have to find it.
Two clusters of pallets later, I turned the corner, and ran straight into one of them.
“There you are,” the skinny dude said. He blocked my way, but was too far away to attack.
I cowered, making myself as small as possible. “Please don’t hurt me.” Come closer, asshole. I’m easy prey.
“Oh, I’m going to enjoy fucking you,” he said as he lowered his guard and walked forward.
Yeah, that’s right. I’m no threat. “Please don’t give me to him,” I mumbled, staring at the ground and his shoes.
When he took another step, I launched upward and hit him as hard as I could in the throat.
He fell to his knees and grabbed at his neck, trying to yell, but it only came out as a gurgle.
Eyes, throat, nose, balls, knees. I jabbed my fingers into his eyes and then kicked him in the groin.
He curled into a ball on the floor.
Taking off as quietly as I could, I zigged and zagged back toward the front. Zane, right about now would be a perfect time to show up and save me.
“Dimitri is down.” The yell came from behind me. “He’s hurt bad.”
I stopped and listened, then smiled, knowing I’d taken one bad guy off the board.
Wait a minute? Dimitri, Marco, Oleg, Baldy, and now whoever had just yelled, that made five bad guys working for the monster. Did this guy have one-eight-hundred-Russian-goons on speed dial?
Hunched over, I kept moving. Never give up. Never give up.
“I see her.” The monster’s yell came from my left.
Our gazes briefly locked before I turned and ran.
Rounding another set of pallets, I ran smack into trouble.
Baldy. He swung. The blow connected with my temple, and pain exploded through my skull. Beefy arms grabbed me and lifted me off my feet. “Got her.” He grabbed my breast and squeezed hard.
Fight with everything you have. I threw my head back into him and heard the satisfying crunch of cartilage. Take that asshole.
“Bitch.” He grunted and threw me to the ground. “You’ll pay for that.”
I rolled, ending up against a pallet.
Blood ran from his nose as he snarled, then kicked me in the head.
It hurt for an instant, then nothing, and the world went dark.