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But did Death work for Victor? I guessed he’d have to. Victor would have to be making money off this auction. Was he doing this to me to keep his promise to Mateo? How cruelly he kept his word. How easily he twisted it.
Mateo had begged him for my life.
He’d been on his knees when they’d brought me in. He’d been beaten and bloodied, bound and kneeling in the middle of that horrible room with the scent of fresh blood, of death, overwhelming every other sense. When he’d seen me, God, his eyes when he’d seen me. The shock. The horror. Like everything they’d done to him up until that point was moot. Like me seeing him like that, Mateo, my older brother, my hero, the one who always took care of me, who saved me every time, me being there to see him on his knees had broken him in a way they hadn’t been able to break him before.
He’d begged them, then. I knew he hadn’t begged before. Victor said so.
Victor.
Victor had looked so smug upon hearing my brother beg.
I would kill Victor with my bare hands. I would do to him what he’d done to my Mateo.
I wiped hot tears from my face and steeled myself. But remembering…remembering what he’d made Mateo do to promise to keep me alive. What he’d made me watch.
I leaped off the bed and ran into the bathroom, making it to the toilet just in time as that granola bar made its way back up. I’d had nothing to eat in so long. I didn’t even know how long.
When I stopped retching, I opened the medicine cabinet in search of a toothbrush. I did find one, a small travel-size one, but no way was I going to brush my teeth with a used toothbrush. And before he made me do it, I flushed it down the toilet. At least there was a tube of toothpaste. Squeezing some on my finger, I brushed my teeth as best as I could.
I needed to focus. To find some way out.
Using the night-lights, I searched both rooms again, and like the first time, found nothing. The chest where he’d kept the crop was locked tight, but I knew if I could get in there, there might be something for me to use, some sort of weapon. Something to use to escape, or at least to hurt him long enough to get out of here. He had to have a phone. I would take it and make the call to David Lazaro, Mateo’s contact. I’d memorized his number. But was he in on it too? Had he set Mateo up?
It didn’t matter, not right now. I needed to get out of here first. He had to have a car. I mean, if we were in some remote location—and I knew we must be—he’d need a car to get here. I could take the car. The rest I’d figure out. I just needed to get out of this room.
I didn’t know how much time had passed, but I tried the door for the hundredth time, growing so frustrated that this time, I pounded on it with both fists, screaming out for him to let me out.
A light went on in the outer room. I scrambled backward to the bed, climbed on, and waited, my back pressed against the headboard.
The lock slid, and I found myself hugging my knees, hiding my face behind a curtain of hair. When the door opened, I lifted my head. Death stood there without the mask, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. His damp hair told me he’d recently had a shower. I guess he’d built up a sweat whipping me.
My ass hurt, and I shifted my weight.
He didn’t close the door.
Without a word, he entered. I studied him.
He watched me, his gaze as effective as chains keeping me locked to the spot.
Then he changed direction and reached into his pocket for what I knew was the key to the chest. It was like as soon as he looked away, he released me. Like the bonds holding me stupidly to the bed while the door stood open had been broken, and I ran. I bounded up faster than I thought I could move and bolted straight for the door. I didn’t trip, I didn’t think, I just ran. It wasn’t a big room. It would only have taken five or six steps to get to it. But I didn’t make it. And I knew from the look in his eyes that he’d expected me to do just what I did. That he’d left the damn door open on purpose, testing me. I knew it the instant he shot his arm out and caught me just before I could set foot outside the door. Just a breath away from that other room, that brightly lit room.
