Chapter 10 Sadie
SADIE
According to my smartwatch, which was about to run out of battery, I had been captive under Emil’s command for almost two weeks now.
Due to the reception and losing my phone, probably from when I resisted Emil when he grabbed me at the airport, I couldn’t use the watch to contact anyone.
Obviously, that would’ve been my first action when my hands were freed.
I was still without any means of calling for help. Without a way to get out of this hot house. I tried the doorknob to find it locked, but that hardly shocked me. Emil knew what he was doing, and he was skilled at it.
“I’ll be back.”
Emil had paused after he’d said that before exiting the room earlier.
I’d paused—mentally—as well. That was the first time he’d told me any kind of “plan” or part of an agenda. As far as planning went, he wasn’t really sharing much. It was implied that he’d be back because he was intent on keeping me here until I broke and spilled some secrets he thought I had.
He must have thought it was strange to give me a timeline of when to expect him.
And it was. He was my captor and I was the captive.
He didn’t “owe” me any clues about what was going on.
Yet, the lines were blurring between us.
Neither of us was lowering our guard and talking about anything incriminating, although we mutually wanted intel from the other. In the meantime, we were…
What? What the hell are we doing?
Admitting that I was befriending my kidnapper was a form of Stockholm Syndrome I really didn’t want to consider accepting.
I couldn’t be. Right? I couldn’t be friends with the man who’d snatched me from the airport and held me here against my will.
I couldn’t be friendly with the guy I was supposed to arrest and bring in for intel about the Obsidian Eye group forming—not to mention the many crimes and murders he could be tried for.
It would take years to fully prosecute him for all he’d done as an assassin.
But he’s got a point.
Sometimes, he’s doing good, after all.
Like Sergei Romanoff. His death, if it was due to Emil, was a good thing for the rest of the world. We were safer without that rogue war-minded man.
That’s still not an excuse.
I sighed, leaning my head back against the chair. Before I could let my mind go idle—a dangerous concept because I would be taken to the memories of how he’d touched me—I wondered what was going on outside this remote safehouse.
After this many days of being missing, someone would have to do something.
I wasn’t well-liked in the department, chosen to be the one criticized and harassed in the office.
But still, Special Agent Hufford would notice my lack of checking in.
Someone would know I was gone, and even if I wasn’t anyone’s favorite at the FBI headquarters I worked out of, I was one of them.
Or maybe they assume I’m just off on a case.
Something like that.
And those guesses weren’t far-fetched. All agents had flexible schedules, coming and going for the sake of our jobs. We didn’t hold nine-to-five gigs.
Even if no one was motivated to wonder where I was, someone in Emil’s world would. I knew from researching his movements that if he wasn’t on one job, hunting down a target, he’d be after another. He didn’t take time off, so I had to imagine Luka Dubinin would be expecting him to check in.
Or maybe he has been all this time. Maybe Luka put him up to kidnapping me because he doesn’t want me to interfere with the Obsidian Eye formation.
I didn’t have enough evidence to suggest that the Dubinins were interested in being a part of the Obsidian Eye alliance, but they very well could be.
It was the biggest reason I couldn’t interrogate Emil here, like this, right now.
He had to be the one without options for me to question him.
I needed the security of someone else protecting me before asking him anything.
Due to the heat, not to mention the toll of constantly being on guard and stuck in a survivalist mode, I grew drowsy. My lids felt heavier as I sat in here alone.
The chirping of insects and birds outside lulled me to breathe slower.
And without anything to alert me and drag me out of this sleepy state, I soon fell asleep.
When I woke, I wasn’t sure how long I had napped for. All I knew was that I was no longer alone.
A sixth sense, something wired inside me, alerted me. That was the only reason I snapped out of this sudden slumber. Wide awake and straining to hear a sound or feel a vibration, I narrowed my eyes. Zoning out as I stared unseen at the still-closed door, I waited for a clue.
Something had to have woken me up like that.
Someone or something.
An animal?
Emil coming close to the door?
I shook my head. No. I would’ve woken up, too light of a sleeper, to doze with the sound of the door being opened.
He wasn’t here, anyway.
But someone else is.
Staying as still as possible, I tried to rely on my ears to pick up a clue. It couldn’t be something I’d imagined. I wasn’t prone to startling easily. I trusted my instincts because they'd seldom failed me before.
Who’s out there?
The four walls of this room remained unchanged.
Hanging heavy and thick, like soup, the humid air was a stagnant cloud that made my skin sticky and too warm.
No windows let in light. Despite the lack of any openings that would enable me to look outside or for anyone to spy inside, I suffered that telltale prickle along my spine.
Someone was out there.
Because they were watching me.
I couldn’t explain the feeling away, and the longer I experienced this vulnerability of having no means to move away from danger, I wished Emil would be back.
I didn’t know where he was, what he was doing, or why, but I did take his word for it when he told me that he’d be back. It was the first time he’d said something like that, and I just knew I could believe him.
What if something happened to him?
What if he’s gone, though, and I’m stuck here and—
I closed my eyes and exhaled a deliberately slow breath. No. Stop. Just stop.
Panic wouldn’t do me any good. But as I wondered how long he had been gone for, it was a challenge to convince myself that he was all right.
What the hell is going on here?
I can’t be thinking this.
Acting like this.
If I sensed danger, I had every right to assume that he could be the danger in the midst. He was a killer, and he wasn’t all too pleased with my being stubborn like this.
I should be wary of Emil, for fuck’s sake.
Yet, I wasn’t. Enough had shifted between us that we had a weird middle ground. I was worried about him now. With his continued absence, I grew more stressed about wishing he were here to handle whatever was watching me.
Is it an animal?
A person?
What’s going on?
Footsteps sounded through the house, and I let my shoulders sag with the familiar noise. Emil was back. I recognized the gait and weight of his walking through the house.
“Emil?” I called out. I licked my lips, hating how shaky I’d sounded.
Showing him my weaknesses wasn’t smart. I learned that the hard way when he proved how I desired his touch. But like this, with my fight-or-flight instinct triggered because of someone watching me, I didn’t really care if he heard the panic in my voice.
He opened the door, alone like always. The slight smile on his lips curled upward as soon as he saw me. But once he fully entered the room and must have noticed the anxiety written on my face, he furrowed his brow, then smiled again. “Aww. Did you miss me?”
“No.”
He didn’t lose his smile. “You seem a little agitated there. Like you were waiting for me to come back.”
“I was. I am. I mean, I was.” I shook my head, keeping my voice to a whisper.
He narrowed his eyes.
“I think someone’s near.”
A blank stare was his response. Already, I knew him well enough to interpret that look.
I was becoming familiar with his tells and mannerisms. While he looked like he was just staring back, deadpan, I could tell he was actually considering what I’d said.
Maybe he was sorting through what he knew to detect whether this was a concern.
“I felt like someone was close by,” I said, as if paraphrasing it would change the severity of why I was so glad to not be alone again.
He smirked, shaking his head slightly. “Stop messing with me.”
“I’m not,” I whispered.
“After all this time, this is the ploy you’re going to try to use on me to get away?” He crossed his arms, giving me a skeptical and almost disappointing and unamused frown.
“No,” I hissed, wishing he’d keep his voice low too. “I felt it.”
“Hmm.” He leaned his side against the doorframe.
“I did. Emil, I’m not joking.” He had to believe me.
“Sadie…” He shook his head slowly.
“Lower your voice.”
He frowned, studying me.
“Unless you know of your own backup in the area, someone is here.” I licked my lips and braced myself to run, to move, to defend. He had to believe me. “Someone has been watching me.”
He shook his head. “Look, I’m not stupid,” he whispered. “This isn’t exactly my first rodeo at holding someone hostage and hiding.”
“I know that,” I whispered back hotly.
“Which means if someone were around, I’d know.”
I tilted my head to the side, narrowing my eyes more. “Do you have proof of that? Cameras? Tripwire?”
He frowned.
“If you don’t, and you’re the only one keeping me here, then you don’t know.”
“I was just outside, getting some fresh air.”
“Did you do a perimeter check?”
He lowered his arms, seeming annoyed now.
“Did you?”
“You’re serious.”
I looked at the ceiling, wishing I could smack him. “Yes.”
He did that intense stare again, likely debating once more whether he should believe me.
“Fine. Then you’re checking the perimeter with me.” He approached me and cut my ties.” He left the rope linking my hands together, but not with my palms flush against each other. I could walk, but as soon as he led me outside, I wished I could run.
He kept his hand on my back, guiding me to walk outside with him. “This had better not be a—”
“It’s not. I’m not trying anything.”
Pausing only to shoot me a stern look, he urged me to walk around the building with him. It was the first time I’d been out of that room, out of the small house, and all that greeted me as far as the eye could see was the jungle. Wet leaves. Soggy moss. Soft earth. And all that humid air.
Even though he didn’t ask me to have his back, I edged behind him so I could look out to the rear.
He frowned, keeping one hand on his gun and the other gripping the rope between my hands.
Maybe he was surprised that I was sticking so close to him, like I wanted no gap between us for security.
Perhaps he was confused that I was acting like we were a team, or partners, with me watching his back as a lookout.
I didn’t care. That feeling wouldn’t go away.
“I don’t know what you’re feeling but…”
We’d almost walked all the way around the small building without finding anything now. “I don’t know how you can’t feel like someone’s watching us,” I whispered back.
Once we completed the circuit twice, double-checking that nothing and no one was near the house, he led me back toward the exterior wall on the east side.
“All I feel is annoyance,” he quipped wryly as he pushed me up against the wall. Caging me in with my back touching the moist wood, he set his hand up by my head and stared me down.
“I swear, I felt like someone was watching me.” I furrowed my brow, hating that it looked like it was a false alarm. I didn’t want to be wrong and then be caught unaware by a surprise. Nor did I want him to think I was trying to trick him into letting me go.
“We scoped the area,” he argued.
“I know, but—”
He stepped closer, invading my space.
“Instead of imagining someone else being near, feel this, little agent,” he growled in a husky whisper.
Closing the distance between us, he pinned me to the wall. His hot lips brushed over mine possessively, lighting a fire of yearning and need at the initial contact. The taboo touch. The sinister seal of his mouth over mine. The warm burn from the friction of his facial hair on my cheek.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
I wasn’t supposed to feel so alive with him kissing me.
I sure as hell wasn’t supposed to kiss my kidnapper right back.
Under his mouth, I gasped and parted my lips, needing so much more. Desire snaked through me. Lust boiled in my blood.
A feral growl rumbled from his chest as he pinned me to the wall, trapping me in this deliriously thrilling kiss. As I canted my head to the side, guided by the harsh push of him against me, I wanted to sink in the wicked heat of his mouth stealing my breath.
“Fuck.” He pulled back, sucking in much-needed air. Those dark-blue eyes glittered with rabid lust as he licked his lips and threaded his fingers through my hair at the back of my head. “You want to talk about feelings, little agent?” he taunted in a raspy growl. “Then feel some more of this.”
As he lowered to kiss me again, making my heart race, I blinked and reached up to kiss him back.
But before I could dive in for more of what I had no business wanting, I caught the barest glimpse of a light.
Red.
A thready, thin ray of red light through this jungle thick with greenery.
I didn’t think.
I didn’t plan.
Because I was right.
Someone was here.
And they had their rifle sights aimed on the back of his head.
“No!” I whispered, reaching up to loop my rope over his neck. With my hands on his shoulders, I pushed him down to the ground as gunfire blasted through the wet woods.