Chapter Twenty-One
The zip tie bites deeper into my wrists, cutting off circulation somewhere around hour three.
I’ve been counting seconds in my head—eleven thousand, four hundred and change—since the trunk slammed shut and Lila stopped screaming.
She’s been quiet for the last twenty minutes.
Too quiet. I shift against the concrete pillar they’ve chained us to, straining to see her in the pitch-black.
The basement reeks of rust, standing water, and something chemical that burns the back of my throat when I breathe too deeply.
My left eye is swollen shut, courtesy of the stocky bastard with the brass knuckles who didn’t appreciate me trying to keep Lila out of the van.
Every inhale feels like broken glass grinding between my ribs.
“Lila,” I whisper. My voice cracks. I try again, louder. “Hey. Blondie. Stay with me.”
A rustle of fabric. A shaky exhale. “I’m here,” Lila says, her voice small and stripped of its usual laughter. “Just… thinking about how much I hate basements. And kidnapping. And men in general right now.”
Despite everything, I almost smile at Lila’s small attempt at normal. “Yeah. Solid list.”
My fingers are numb, but I keep working the zip tie behind my back, rotating my wrists in small, grinding circles.
The plastic is industrial grade. Asher didn’t cheap out, but I’ve got a razor blade tucked into the seam of my boot.
Old habit from years of learning how to survive when no one was coming to save you.
Never thought I’d need it for an actual kidnapping, but here we are.
I’ve already mapped the room: twelve by sixteen feet.
One metal door was deadbolted from the outside.
No windows. A single overhead bulb buzzes on a timer that clicks every forty-five minutes.
Two guards upstairs, heavy footsteps on the floorboards.
One favors his left leg. Three sets of lungs breathing in the dark earlier, which means Asher’s been down here at least twice.
He’s not what I expected. When he walked into the house smiling like he was picking up a pizza instead of binding our hands, I thought he’d be older.
Meaner in a more obvious way. But he looks like a finance bro: clean-shaven, soft hands, eyes that don’t blink quite enough.
“You think they’re coming?” Lila asks, knees drawn tight to her chest. Her yoga pants are torn at the knee, blood dried brown on her shin. She’s shivering despite the sweatshirt they threw over her shoulders. Shock, probably. Or fear. “Sterling and Kiera?”
“They’re coming,” I say, making sure it sounds like fact, not hope.
My phone buzzes in the corner where Asher tossed it, screen cracked but still glowing.
The light pulses in stuttering flashes across the basement.
I can see the text preview from here. You’re late.
My stomach drops. He’s using my phone to text Sterling.
Taunting them, leading them straight into whatever trap he’s already set.
“He’s drawing them here,” I say, the pieces clicking together despite the fog in my head. “The industrial district, this building—it’s a trap, not a hideout.”
Lila lifts her head, her voice groggy and thick. “What?”
Shit, this isn’t good. I need to keep her conscious. “He wants them to storm in,” I whisper quickly. “He’s got something waiting upstairs.” I strain against the zip tie, feeling the plastic bite deeper, slick with my own blood. “We have to warn them. If they come down that stairwell…”
“They’ll walk right into it,” she finishes, eyes widening in the dark as they catch the faint glow of my cracked phone. “Can you…do your tech thing? Hack something? Send a signal?”
“The screen’s locked. Biometric,” I say, gesturing at my swollen eye with my chin. And my face is currently compromised. Plus, he’s got a jammer running. I can hear the hum in the vents. No signal in or out.”
“Then we get loud,” Lila says, suddenly fierce, struggling against her bindings. Her blond hair is matted with blood I’m trying not to focus on. “We fucking scream. We make noise. If they’re close…”
“Then the fucking guards come down here and shut us up permanently,” I cut in, keeping my voice low and urgent. “Lila. No. We wait for the right moment.”
“I don’t want to wait.” Her voice breaks, raw and trembling. “Cam, I can’t… I can’t just sit here and let him use us as bait for Kiera. She’s already lost so much. If something happens to her because of me…”
“Hey.” I shuffle closer, ignoring the way my ribs scream, until our shoulders touch.
“Look at me. Kiera’s not some damsel—she’s the fucking cavalry.
And Sterling…” I think about the look on my best friend’s face every time Kiera Hawthorne walks into a room.
The way he watches her like she’s the only thing that exists.
“He’d burn the whole damn city down to get her back.
He’s not walking into a trap blind. Not with her. ”
The light bulb flickers. The timer is counting down to the next cycle.
Footsteps overhead. Multiple heavy sets.
Lila goes rigid against my shoulder. I can feel her heart hammering through the thin fabric of her shirt.
My fingers finally work the razor blade free from my boot.
Hands shaking, I start sawing through the zip ties.
The door at the top of the stairs groans open.
Yellow light spills down the stairwell like a blade slicing through the dark.
I squint against it, shoving the razor up my sleeve and shifting to shield Lila with my body as best I can.
Two figures descend, silhouetted against the harsh glow.
Tall. Armed. Moving with that military precision that makes my gut clench.
The lead figure pauses, tilting their head.
I know that posture. I’ve seen Kiera Hawthorne stand exactly like that in doorways—sizing up rooms, calculating exits.
“Cam?” The whisper cuts through the dark.
I exhale hard, the tension flooding out of me so fast my vision swims. “Down here,” I rasp. “Two guards upstairs, east wing. Asher’s got a jammer and a secondary exit through the…”
“Through the ventilation shaft in the northwest corner,” Sterling finishes, voice low and steady as he appears behind Kiera, weapon raised, covering the stairs. “Already mapped it. Cam, you good?”
“Been better,” I manage, voice laced with pain. “It’s a trap. The whole building.”
“We know,” Kiera says. She’s at my side in three strides, blade already in hand.
One clean motion and the zip-ties fall away.
Her hands are steady, but her eyes are wild when they meet mine in the dim light.
“Asher thinks he’s hunting,” she says, her voice lethal and low.
“He forgot what happens when he corners prey that has claws.” She moves to Lila, slicing through her zip ties with one quick motion, then pulls her into a fierce, almost desperate hug that makes Lila gasp.
“I’m sorry.” Kiera breathes into her hair. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Took you long enough,” Lila mumbles, but she’s gripping Kiera’s jacket like a lifeline.
Sterling crouches in front of me. His eyes sweep over my face, my ribs, cataloging injuries in that cold, detached way he has. “Can you walk?”
“Can I walk?” I snort, then immediately wince as pain lances through my ribs. “Fuck you, Ster. I can run.”
“Good.” He hands me a spare gun. Heavy. Familiar. “Because we’re going out the front door, and we’re burning this place down behind us.”
Above us, something crashes, followed by shouting.
The guards must have realized the basement’s been breached.
Kiera pulls Lila to her feet, then turns to me with a look I’ve never seen on her face before.
Not the ice-cold predator. Not the broken daughter.
It’s something new. Something righteous.
“Stay behind me,” she says. And for the first time since I woke up in this basement, I actually believe we’re getting out alive.
The alarms scream as we climb the stairs into the fire.
The stairs are a death trap: narrow, no cover, every step echoing like a gunshot.
I grip the gun Sterling gave me, trying to remember the basics he drilled into me last year: Front sight, trigger press, don’t anticipate the recoil.
My hands shake so badly I’m more likely to shoot my own foot than someone coming at me, but the weight of the gun still helps.
Kiera moves like smoke ahead of us. Sterling has our back.
Lila’s between us, her fingernails digging crescents into my forearm.
The door at the top of the stairs explodes inward before we reach it.
Splinters rain down like shrapnel. I throw my body over Lila, turning my back to the blast. Wood shards pepper my back like buckshot.
Kiera doesn’t flinch. She fires three times—sharp, precise.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Someone on the other side starts screaming.
“Move!” Sterling roars, shoving us through the gap.
The main floor is worse than the basement.
An open warehouse with forty-foot ceilings and rusted gantry cranes hanging overhead like skeletal fingers.
Emergency lights paint everything blood-red.
I can see the jammer immediately–a black suitcase-sized box bolted to the central support beams, LEDs blinking angry green.
“Asher!” Kiera’s voice cuts through the chaos, loud and carrying, echoing off the metal walls. “You wanted me? Here I am!”
Silence, except for the low hum of the jammer. Then, from the catwalk above, a calm, almost amused voice drifts down. “You brought him.”