Chapter 19 Captivity
Tristan
Stabbing pain, dizziness, bile creeping up his throat.
Tristan jerked awake, feeling the sensations all at once in a jarring return to consciousness.
Blinking as he tried to focus, the room spun viciously, and his eyes recoiled from the harsh lights, so he squeezed them shut again, sucking in deep, rattled breaths. He tried to swallow, but his mouth felt like cotton, and he couldn't get his bearings.
Bracing himself against the dizziness, Tristan peeled his eyes open, bringing the room into shaky focus. A room, a car. His brain struggled to make sense of the unfamiliar surroundings, but wooziness jumbled his thoughts.
Trying to clear his sight and mind, he reached up to rub his eyes, but confusion spiked when he realized his hands wouldn't move, that they were bound tight behind him.
A glance down showed his ankles tied to a chair with white rope.
Panic flashed, and he strained against the restraints, but the knots held tight.
He still couldn't grasp what was happening.
Disoriented and dazed, he focused on the last thing he could remember... the rescue, the house, the car.
The memories twisted back into focus, sharp and sickening.
Tristan had felt antsy and cramped as he crouched on the floor of the car, so he peeked over the seat to look for signs of activity from the house.
Believing that the headlights rolling toward him signaled the end of the extraction, he was relieved.
.. until it became clear the vehicle wasn't Kate's white van.
Dropping back to the floor, he cursed his stupidity as his heart hammered with fear. When the car door jerked open, he nearly pissed his pants.
"Get out, nice and slow."
Blood turned to ice in his veins as Tristan peeked up and came face to face with a gun. Again. Praying for Cade or the other guys to save him, he climbed from the car as slowly as possible, trying to buy time.
"Who are you, and what are you doing here?"
Tristan tried to stall, tried to think up something clever, but all that came out was stuttering. "I... uh... "
"Wait a minute, you're the red-headed reporter. What the fuck are you doing here?"
The weapon inched toward his head, and Tristan imagined being shot right there, pictured Cade and Natalie finding his body in this very spot. The ghastly image had words tumbled out, "Getting my sister."
The man's eyes flicked to the house, then back at him. "Why are you out here?"
When Tristan didn't answer, the guy shoved the gun into the flesh of his forehead. "You got someone in there for you? How many guys?"
As cold metal dug into his skin, bloodcurdling fear had Tristan blurting out a spontaneous lie that might prevent the man from going inside. "Six!"
The man stared at the house, his face screwed up in concentration as Tristan held his breath, afraid that any tiny movement from either of them would signal his death.
But after several beats, the man cursed, turned back to Tristan, and said, "You took the Broker's laptop, didn't you?"
Tristan gulped, trying to think, but he was too afraid to answer, unsure if saying yes or no was better.
The man cocked his gun. "Answer me," came the menacing hiss.
"Yes!" Tristan squealed.
For a moment, time stood still. Tristan was convinced he was about to die. He screwed up his eyes, not wanting to see it coming, praying that at least Natalie was safe, that Cade and his friends would take care of her.
He held his breath, hoping he'd be dead before he even realized it was happening.
He waited — one second, two, then three, expecting to hear a click or feel the weapon twitch when the man pulled the trigger, but instead, the press of the muzzle against his skin disappeared, followed by a snapping sound.
Still too terrified to open his eyes, Tristan stood frozen.
Then the man barked, "You're coming with me," and grabbed his sleeve. Tristan's eyes flew open as his mind struggled to process the development, and he stumbled as the man dragged him toward his car, opened the back door, and then...
Nothing.
Tristan shook his head to jiggle the rest of the memories free but instantly regretted it when pain jabbed his temple. The man must have hit him, knocked him out with the gun, which tracked with the throbbing in his head. Based on his sluggish brain and nausea, he might also have a concussion.
As his mind started churning with some sense of clarity, he realized he didn't know if they'd actually gotten Natalie out. Fear and worry bloomed in his chest, but he tamped them down, refusing to believe Cade and his team had failed. She had to be safe; he had to believe that.
But now he was the one in trouble — kidnapped by the bad guys like some freaking movie — and no one would know how to find him.
This was really, really bad.
Desperate to do something to free himself, Tristan scanned the surroundings.
He was facing one door of a closed two-car garage, while a sleek, black sedan sat in the other bay on his left.
There were mostly empty shelves to his right and a tool bench behind him, but everything was too far out of reach to be of use.
Behind him, an angry voice interrupted his thoughts, snapping, "Get over here now."
Twisting toward the sound, Tristan saw an open door leading to the interior of the house but couldn't see who was speaking. As he squinted into the living area, footsteps approached, and the guy who found him at the house appeared through the doorway.
Carrying a gun.
Tristan hadn't gotten a good look in the darkness, but now the man's features came into focus: pear-shaped face, beady gray eyes, a wide nose, and sagging jowls. The buttons of his blue dress shirt strained to hold in his bulging belly, and his thinning hair barely covered his greasy scalp.
He didn't look scary, just some normal, middle-aged, out-of-shape guy. But even if he hadn't had the gun, even if Tristan hadn't been tied up, the predatory look in his eyes would have warned anyone to be on guard.
Gulping, Tristan braced himself for... something. Surely, the guy wouldn't kidnap him just to kill him immediately, right?
Eying the man warily, he tried to read his body language, tried to determine if he was about to die.
"Good, you're awake. I have some questions for you."
The words felt like a reprieve.
Pulling up a chair across from Tristan, the man leaned back casually as if they were sitting down to afternoon tea, but Tristan had a hard time prying his eyes from the firearm resting on the man's lap, remembering how he thought it would kill him before.
How it could still kill him.
"The Broker found you in his house the other night."
It was a statement, not a question, so Tristan didn't respond.
"And you killed him. Even though he had you at gunpoint and told me you were unarmed."
Tristan assumed this was the guy Wilson was talking to that night and filed the information away. He didn't answer, hoping it might be good for his captor to think he killed Wilson.
"And you also escaped from the motel. The way I figure, you're either very skilled, very lucky, or you have a guardian angel."
Tristan did have a guardian angel, but the man didn't seem to know for sure that someone had been with him both times, and he wasn't going to confirm that and put Cade in danger.
"Just lucky, I guess," Tristan said flippantly, hoping the guy wouldn't be all that eager to decide which situation applied.
"You have the Broker's laptop, I assume."
Tristan hesitated, not knowing if he should confess to that. Apparently, he took too long to answer because Pearface pointed the weapon at Tristan and hissed, "Answer my question. Did you take his laptop?"
Jesus, he was getting really tired of guns pointed at his face. Pulse racing, Tristan gulped and nodded.
"Where is it now?"
"With a friend."
"What information did you find on it?"
Deciding to give only information that the man would already know he had, Tristan answered, "The location of the house where my sister was." He wasn't going to mention that they also followed a van to the house.
"Is that all?" the gunman pressed, staring Tristan down ominously.
Tristan's mind whirred. If Pearface didn't already know, he would soon find they had raided all ten houses.
"No, the other houses too."
Eyebrows twitching, the man asked, "What did you do with that information?"
Again, Tristan debated how much to divulge, but Pearface really didn't like his stalling. He cocked the gun and snarled, "I'm losing patience with you."
A primed gun was an amazing motivator, Tristan recognized as he blabbed, "We got the other girls out of them too." At least I hope we did.
"Who's we?"
"A bunch of guys."
The man's eyebrow twitched, and his jaw tightened. "Who are they? Who do they work for?"
"I... I hired them," Tristan lied, vowing that no matter what, he would not divulge the identities of Cade and the others.
Apparently believing the lie, at least for now, Pearface stood abruptly, scraping the chair against the cement floor. He strode from the garage, cursing under his breath.
Letting out a breath, Tristan felt some of the tension drain from his body, but only for a moment, because now that his brain started to chug, it occurred to him: Pearface had wanted information, and now that he had it, there was no reason to keep Tristan alive.
Shuddering, he tried to listen for sounds from the house, to be prepared for when they would kill him.
He didn't see or hear anything for a while, but it was hard to guess how long without a phone or clock, and his fuzzy, pounding head didn't help.
As the minutes dragged on with no imminent threat, pain and discomfort caught up with him.
His temple throbbed with sharp pain with every pump of his heart, his mouth begged for water, and he desperately wanted to lie down, to sleep.