Chapter 58
Nina
The guy behind me said, “Take him to the other room and shoot him.”
“No!” I screamed and tried to pull away from the man yanking on my hair. He’d kept a firm grip on it, and any time I’d tried looking away, he’d forced me to watch what they were doing to Austin.
Blood covered Austin’s swollen and bruised face. He hung almost lifeless from the chain in the ceiling. Blood pooled below his shattered left leg.
More than anything, I wished that Austin really was made of steel so these assholes couldn’t hurt him.
I’d always prided myself on finding a reason to smile during hard times, but this was the worst thing I’d ever seen a human do to another human. Smiling wasn’t an option.
But losing my shit was.
Twenty-six, nay, twenty-seven years of frustration bubbled over.
“No!” I screamed again. “If you kill him, I won’t tell you anything.”
“You’ll tell me everything I want to know, Miss Singer.”
“The treasure you’re looking for doesn’t exist. The only things they left me were some fucking baby pictures of me with my parents.
Parents I can’t remember. You want my fucking baby journal so you can read about my mother’s morning sickness?
So you can read about the first two years of my life, before they had to send me away to protect me from you!
Two years I have no fucking memory of? Then it’s yours.
I’m sure you already found it in my bag. ”
They smiled as I sucked in a breath to refill my lungs.
“Miss Singer—”
“My. Name. Is. Novak!” They’d adopted me, raised me, loved me. If I was going to die, I would do it with their name.
The asshole laughed. “Miss Novak. We found the photos and the journal. Or should I say, the copies? I have men combing through them as we speak to find clues.”
Would they find them? If they did, they wouldn’t need me anymore.
“So far, we haven’t had any luck. So, you’ll tell us where it is, or your grandmother will pay the price.”
Nana Sue.
If my heart beat any harder against my ribs, it’d fly out of my body.
They couldn’t.
Could they?
John promised.
Images of Nana Sue flashed through my mind. She took care of me after my parents died, and I’d spent the last two years caring for her.
Losing her to cancer would leave a hole in my heart, but losing her to these murderous assholes would destroy me.
“Why are you doing this? Don’t you have enough money?”
“You can never have enough money,” the guy behind me said.
“Take him,” the other man in charge said.
They lowered the hook and unhooked Austin’s handcuffs from the chain. When his legs collapsed and his body dropped on his shattered knee, Austin let out an agonizing scream that tore through my heart and damaged my soul.
They were none too gentle when they pulled him off the floor and dragged him through a door to the left.
Austin turned his head towards me and mumbled, “Don’t tell them anything.”
“Fucking Boy Scouts, they never know when to quit.”
The guy in front of me paced while he waited for his orders to be carried out.
Glass shattered as a gunshot cut through the silence.
Then another.
“No, no, no…”
The guy behind me let go of my hair. My head fell forward while I sobbed for the man who’d done everything he could to save me. He gave me my parents. The steel eyed man who showed me his soft side. The caring man who stood between me and the bad guys.
“Now that he’s gone, there’s no reason for you to keep lying.”
The room went dark.
I screamed.
Flashes of light lit the room like fireflies on a warm summer evening.
I closed my eyes and waited to die as bullets flew around the room.
I heard thump after thump as things—people?—dropped to the floor.
I held my breath.
How long until a bullet ends my life?
“Clear,” someone yelled.
“Clear,” someone else echoed.
“Lights,” a third voice said.
I was still alive.
How am I alive?
The lights came back on. Six men, covered in black from head to toe, stood around the room.
“Nina Novak, I presume?” The guy nearest me said.
Nothing. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think. All I could do was stare at the dead bodies and pools of blood covering the floor.
“Miss Novak, it’s over. We’re here to bring you home.”
Austin? I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
“A lot of people will be happy to see you.”
Someone unlocked the handcuffs holding my hands behind the chair, and my arms fell like limp noodles at my sides.
When I finally found my voice, all I could say was, “Austin.”
“He’s alive.”
My head weighed too much to lift, but my eyes snapped up to look at the man who’d spoken. Black paint covered his face, but I could see the compassion in his eyes.
Austin’s alive.
The world faded to black.