Prologue
HADLEY
The day I’d discovered my dad was an illegal arms dealer was the worst in my life.
Or so I’d thought, until six months later when I woke up to find myself on a cement floor with my arms tied behind my back.
When I’d fallen asleep, I’d been safe and sound in my dorm room.
I never thought I’d see the day when I regretted my decision to move into a single room instead of a double.
If I’d still been in a double, my roommate would have been with me.
Or if I’d somehow found a way to forgive my dad, I might have been home with him and my mom, sheltered behind the security of their estate.
After my time in this hellhole, I wasn’t sure if I hated my dad more than I had before I’d been kidnapped or less.
I’d been beaten the first day, all so they could take pictures to send to him.
I didn’t understand much of the Spanish they spoke, damn my decision to take French in high school, but their leader took great delight in informing me of the reason I’d been taken in the first place.
My father had snubbed him, rejecting a lucrative deal, and I was to be the leverage they used to make him change his mind.
They hadn’t really touched me since then, except to force drugs on me a couple times when they needed me to be docile for another photo.
The drugs made me easier to control, and I hated how weak I felt afterwards.
I couldn’t even be certain how many days had passed since I’d been taken.
I thought it was thirteen days, but when they gave me the drugs it messed with my head.
I might have missed a day or two. Either way, too much time had passed.
There was only one thing I knew for certain.
I had no hope of being rescued. Not anymore.
I’d been so certain my father would cave to their demands and give them the guns they wanted to save me.
Even though I’d screamed hateful words at him the last time we’d spoken, I knew he loved me.
He was my father. He would do whatever it took to get me back. Right?
Apparently not, because the days had passed without any sign from my captors that he’d yielded to their demands.
Their treatment of me hadn’t improved in preparation to return me to my family, either.
If anything, it had worsened. My meals, if you could call them that, were spaced further and further apart.
It felt as though I’d become an afterthought, forgotten by my captors—and my family.
It was all I could to do to survive one day at a time.
I was weak and virtually starving. My chances of getting out of this hellhole were slim to none, but I did my best to stay alert.
If ever I found an opening, no matter how slight, I was going to take it.
I might have been down, but I wasn’t out.
Not yet. I still had some fight left in me.
If nobody was coming for me, then I just needed to figure a way out by myself.