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“I can cook you something. You want eggs?” Nick offered.
“Thanks, but I’m good. I’ll take some coffee though,” I replied as I nodded to the full pot which was beside Nick.
“I’ll get it,” Kailan assured me. “Take a seat.” I nodded and took the seat between Harris and Aleks, both of whom looked to me with a smile before returning to whatever had them so busy on their computers.
“Aleks sent the cell to your brothers last night. They should get it this afternoon at their office,” Nick told me as he nodded to the small, older looking cell that sat on the counter beside Aleks’s laptop. “We just need them to call now.”
“Really?” I gasped excitedly as I looked to Aleks.
“Yes. Hopefully it won’t be too…” I cut off whatever Aleks was saying as I threw my arms around him and hugged him tight.
“Thank you!” I cried. “You have no idea what that means to me.”
Aleks seemed a little taken aback by my affection at first, but after a few moments his tense body relaxed and he wrapped his arms around me in return.
“You’re very welcome, malenka,” he told me softly. I was reluctant to pull back. He gave the most amazing hug, holding me tightly in his arms and making me feel so secure, but I knew I had to.
“Here, darlin’,” Kailan said as he set a steaming cup of coffee before me, along with vanilla creamer and the pot of sugar. He gave me a wink as I thanked him and I tried not to melt right there on the spot. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me. Since the day I arrived in Boston I had felt nothing for a single man I saw except fear, and here these four were setting me alight that morning. I needed to calm down! Maybe it was the scotch I drank the night before? Or maybe it’s the fact you’re surrounded by hot men?? My mind screamed at me.
“Nick said you wanted to speak with us all this morning? Are you still feeling up to that?” Harris asked. I looked to Nick as panic surged through me, instantly cooling any lust I had been dealing with.
“It’s okay if you’re not ready, Evie. I’m not going to push you,” Nick assured me.
“No. I…I need to do it. You need to try and save those three girls before…before it’s too late,” I argued. “I just…I don’t even know where to start.”
“Why don’t you start with how he took you? Do you remember that?” Kailan asked.
“Yeah. Some of it,” I nodded as I busied myself adding creamer to my coffee.
“I’m going to take notes. Is that okay?” Aleks asked and I nodded in reply. I looked to Harris nervously and he placed his huge hand on my knee comfortingly, the heat of his palm seeping through my jeans and soothing me.
“I was at the store. I wanted ice cream. I was kind of a mess because my asshole fiancé had cheated on me and I had to move back home with my mom and dad,” I began. It seemed so ridiculous to think about how cut up I had felt about finding Dean cheating on me a few months earlier. It seemed so trivial now, compared to all that had happened since.
“Asshole,” Harris hissed.
“It was evening, so the parking lot at the store was pretty quiet. I parked near the front, in a well-lit area. My dad and brothers had drilled that kind of shit into me for years, so I was always careful,” I explained as I looked up to Nick. He nodded, so I went on, “When I came out of the store some asshole was parked right beside my car, so close I couldn’t get in. I was pissed, but when I got closer the guy got out of his car and started apologizing, saying he’d move his car in just a second.”
“Did you get a good look at him?” Nick asked.
“Not really, but I got details since then. That was the only time I saw him without a mask. He was wearing sunglasses though, even though the sun was setting. I should have thought more about that. I didn’t. I leant into the back of my car to put the groceries in and that’s when he attacked. I think he tasered me. I remember something touching my neck, then everything went black. When I woke up I could feel two tiny bumps on the back of my neck.”
“Where did you wake up?” Kailan asked.
“A cell. That’s what it looked like anyway. It was a tiny room with no windows and one door. The building was old and decaying. It smelled really badly of damp and mold. I never saw it from the outside because he drugged me before he took me out of there, but I felt like it was big, like maybe a warehouse or business of some kind that had been abandoned.”
“You have no idea where it was? How far out of Chicago you drove? Anything like that?” Nick asked.
“No. I was always unconscious outside of that building.”
“It’s okay, Ev. Carry on, sweetheart,” Harris urged.
“I tried to count the days I was there, but with no window and me in and out of consciousness I lost track. It wasn’t until I got out I found out he held me for twenty two days. I know he takes three girls at a time, but I never saw or heard the others, so I don’t know if they were in that same building, but they had to be, right?” I looked to Nick again.
“It seems likely, but we just don’t know,” he replied.
“He said I had to call him Soloman. He didn’t talk much, except to yell at me to say it, say the words he wanted. To beg him to make it stop and kill me. He was white. Tall, over six feet and strong. He was really toned and muscular. From seeing him in the parking lot before he grabbed me, I’d guess his age at around late thirties, early forties. His hair was dark and short, cut right to his head. I…I’m pretty sure he’s ex-military,” I said as I glanced between the four of them.
“What makes you say that?” Aleks asked as he paused whatever he was typing and looked to me.
