Chapter 23
MARI
Iwake to concrete, cold air, and a plastic bite digging into my wrists. It takes a second for the shapes to click into place. I’m upright. My arms are wrenched behind the back of the chair. The chair’s edges cut into my forearms. It feels too hard to be rope. Zip ties, maybe?
The room looks like a forgotten basement under a warehouse. Dirty cinder block walls. A single strip light that hums and flickers. There’s almost nothing here except for two pillars, one metal door, and what looks like an elevator. I wonder if it works.
There’s a folding table, a laptop, and a stack of files I recognize from Levcon’s archives. I force my heartbeat into a steady rhythm and try to breathe.
Marcus is perched on a crate pulled up to the table, not looking at me yet. His jacket’s off, his sleeves rolled. His tie hangs off the table while he stares hard at the screen in front of him. He doesn’t look friendly now. He looks cold and calculating, and it terrifies me.
“Morning, sunshine.” He smirks, a cruel glint in his eyes. “I didn’t mean to hit you that hard, but it’s for the best. It made getting you down here a whole lot easier.”
I swallow. My head throbs, the pain radiating from a single spot. I wonder if there will be a bump. I desperately want to touch it, to inspect it, but I can’t move my hands.
“Where are we?” I ask, my throat hoarse and my voice much drier than I expected.
“A place I pay cash for,” he answers coldly, effectively telling me that Lev won’t find us here. “But it’s just temporary. We’re not staying long.”
I look at the laptop on the folding table. It isn’t mine. There’s no Levcon asset label. It’s old and bulky, a junker if I ever saw one. He follows my gaze.
“You’re going to log in to my accounts,” he says. “And help me get my money.”
“The money you stole,” I spit back, venom sharp on my tongue. “Lev trusted you! How could you do this to him?”
He gives me a cold, dead smile. “I knew you were smart. That’s why I told Lev to hire you. But I didn’t think you’d be such a bleeding heart. I definitely didn’t expect Lev to start fucking you all over the city.”
My stomach turns. It’s not morning sickness though, it’s disgust.
“You vouched for me?” I can’t help asking, grasping at anything to buy time.
“It made sense,” he says. “You were green and na?ve. You were hungry for work, but you were also good. I figured you’d do your job and find the discrepancies, then I could use a buddy of mine to scare you off.
I thought Lev would be so freaked out about the Feds sniffing around, he’d put the embezzlement to rest.”
“You sent the fake fed?” I say, catching up with his words. “You wanted me to quit.”
“I did,” he answers. “I didn’t count on you confronting Lev and telling him off. That’s when I knew I’d hired the wrong person.”
“So you threatened me,” I whisper. “You sent that picture to Lev. What did you think would happen?”
“I thought he’d be chasing his tail long enough for me to get away with the money. But you just wouldn’t stop digging. I knew I had to get rid of you, too, but he’s had you locked down for weeks.”
“You’re going to kill me?” I ask.
“Probably.” He shrugs as casually as if I’d asked him the time. “But not yet. I still need you.”
“Need me for what?” I ask, my stomach turning with fear.
“It seems our little disappearing act raised some red flags,” he says, and he gestures at the laptop. “The accounts are locked. Lev must have panicked and froze the system. He thinks he’s clever. He blocked my tokens and my backup device. But he didn’t freeze your account.”
My wrists twitch against the plastic as I test the give. It bites deeper. I stop before I rub my skin raw.
“I’m not helping you,” I tell him through clenched teeth. “You’re going to kill me anyway. What incentive do I have?”
“I am going to kill you.” He smiles, eyes gone cruel.
“But I thought maybe I’d let you live long enough to pop out that little bastard.
It’s the most leverage I have against Lev.
You’re inconsequential to him, really. He’ll get over you.
But as long as I have a bargaining chip, I can negotiate my freedom. ”
My fingertips go numb. I keep my face still. It costs me not to flinch. He laughs softly.
“You’re good in a crisis,” he says. “You’ve got a lot more spunk than I expected. But ask yourself, Mari. Are you really willing to let your baby die with you?”
“I don’t know how to get into the accounts,” I lie. “All my passwords were saved on my computer. The one you threw away when you forced me into your car.”
“Quit stalling, Mari,” he growls. “You can’t buy any more time. I’ve seen how that mind works. You know how to get in. Do it, or I’ll kill the baby first.”
“I can’t access anything off-network,” I lie again. “And not from an unfamiliar device. You need a hardware token Lev controls. You need the intranet. We’re not in the office.”
He tilts his head. “We can be,” he says.
“He’ll notice,” I say. “He’ll see my badge, my IP, the access attempt.”
“He’ll be busy in the wrong places,” he answers. “If I know him, he’s running the garage and the townhome and screaming at his men. He’s hotheaded when the target is personal. He’ll burn time on noise.”
“He’ll find us,” I say.
“He might,” Marcus says. “But he’ll be too late. And by the time he gets smart, the money will be gone, and so will you.”
I flex my fingers and breathe. My wrists are swelling under the plastic.
I test the chair. It’s cheap. The back is screwed into the seat with four bolts that aren’t flush.
The metal bites my skin when I curl my hands.
If I work the tie against the bolt head, I can saw through it. It will take time. Time is a resource.
“I don’t accept your terms,” I bluff. “I’m not just going to do this for you on the off chance you’ll let me live until after my baby is born. Let me go. I’ll convince Lev to forget about you. What’s a few million dollars to him? I’ll get you your money only if you give me my freedom.”
“Why would he listen to you?” Marcus laughs. “Do you think he actually cares about you?”
I don’t answer, but my face must give something away because he starts laughing harder.
“You’re even more naive than I thought! He doesn’t care about women. He never has. He only gave a shit about you once he knew you were carrying his heir. Trust me, you’re better off dead than following him around like a sad little puppy for the rest of your life.”
“You’re wrong,” I yell, hoping it covers the sound of plastic against metal. “He told me about Tatiana. He wants to raise this baby with me. He’s been protecting me since the day you sent that picture of me outside the compound. Why would he do that if he didn’t care about me?”
“Because he cares about control, you stupid child,” Marcus shoots back. “He’s obsessed with you. Don’t delude yourself into thinking it’s anything more than that. You should have just walked away when Agent Cole showed up at your door.”
He stands up and brings the laptop over to me.
“Now you’re going to get me into these accounts, or you’ll be taking a very unfortunate spill down the stairs.”
Tears burn at the backs of my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall.
I’m not going to let him hurt my child. I’m not going to let him hurt me, either.
I just have to keep fighting long enough to get away from him.
He’s said it himself that I’m smarter than he gave me credit for.
Stronger, too. Maybe even a little stupid.
I just have to find a way to use all of that to my advantage.
His phone buzzes.
He answers with a grunt. “What?” He listens, eyes narrowing. “No, you don’t engage. You keep your head down and you wait for my word.”
I can’t imagine what’s happening on the other end, but my hope tells me that Yuri and Lev are looking for me. Maybe they’re in the wrong place for now, but either they’ll find me or I’ll get out of here. That’s the only thought I can cling to.
The tie on my right wrist has been worn down to a thin band. I flex my hand and it bites deep. A little more. Another scrape. A slow pull. It holds. I grind again and feel the first give. If I get it off, I can’t stand and run. He’ll shoot me before I cross the room.
I need a plan. I need to find a weapon or a distraction. Preferably both. He’s physically stronger, he’s proven that, but can he outwit me? Probably not.
I hear him grunt something else into the phone, and then he hangs up. I’m running out of time. The zip tie is just about to snap when he turns his focus back on me.
“Don’t get too excited,” he sneers. “Lev’s got men at my townhome. He’s so goddamn predictable. We’re out of time, so what’s it going to be? Your life or your baby’s?”
“I can’t help you like this,” I say, shrugging to show that my hands are still behind my back.
“You talk, I’ll type,” he says, sitting back down at the table and turning the laptop back around. “I’m not dumb enough to untie you.”
“What does it matter?” I ask, forcing my voice to break just a little.
“You’ve made it clear there’s no way out for me.
Either way, I’m going to die, so I’m not going to fight you.
But I can’t just rattle off passwords and numbers.
I need to be able to type them. It’s a muscle memory thing, it’s just how my mind works. ”
“It’ll have to work differently today,” he scoffs. “I’m not going to untie you until I’m ready to move you, and I don’t plan on you being conscious when that happens.”
A shudder goes through me, and my head begins to throb again. I’m quickly running out of options, and I realize he’s probably right. There’s no way for me to get out of this. But if I can’t make it out alive, I’ll go down swinging. I won’t just be compliant in his game.
“If you won’t let me do it on my terms, then I won’t help you,” I say calmly. “So you do what you need to do. Kill me and get it over with.”
His jaw tightens, and he says nothing.
“Of course, if you did kill me, you’d have no money and no leverage,” I continue. “You need me, whether or not you want to admit it.”
I breathe and push. The plastic bites, thins, thins, then slips over my knuckles. My right hand is free. I don’t move.
“You stupid bitch,” he says, seething as he gets up and comes toward me.
I get up, too. I grab the side of the chair I’m still tethered to with my free hand and use it as leverage.
I hit him squarely in the face. He howls in pain, but there’s no time to stop and admire my handiwork.
I have to get out of here. I run to the large metal door and find that it’s padlocked on the outside.
Undeterred, I make a run for the elevator, pressing the button repeatedly while I keep my eyes on Marcus.
I hold up my chair as a warning, but he doesn’t seem to care. He lunges for me, tackling me to the ground so hard the other zip tie snaps. I try to fight him off, but his hand comes over my mouth, and darkness falls again.