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I tried again to make myself remember how I’d gotten there. A man had broken into my house, but I wasn’t even sure what he looked like. Was he the man who’d been following me? Was he connected to Swain and the other men I’d been investigating? If that was who had me, I was as good as dead.
Devil will save you.
He had no idea where I was, and I doubted I’d live much longer. The only reason for them to keep me alive was to get information from me. When I refused to give it to them, they would kill me. Even if Devil was looking for me, I doubted he’d find me in time.
My best chance of survival was to escape before anyone came back for me.
My captors would have to be amazingly incompetent to have left the door to this room unlocked. If only I had Devil’s lock-picking skills. But before I worried about that, I needed to free myself and find some kind of weapon since there were likely guards outside the room.
I braced myself for the nausea I knew would come when I moved again. I managed to lift myself up onto my knees. The room swam around me and my stomach churned. I waited through a few slow breaths. My hands were essentially useless bound together, and my right wrist was possibly broken. I was going to have to scoot on my knees to the desk to see if there was anything there that was useful.
My bound ankles made it hard for me to shift my legs separately, and my nausea worsened with every movement. I managed to reach the desk just as my stomach revolted, and I vomited into a trash can. I expected the sounds of my retching to alert any guards outside, but I didn’t hear a sound.
I bit my lip to hold in a cry of agony as I used my fingers to pull open a desk drawer. There was nothing in it but papers, mostly logs of sales—probably of illegal goods—but I didn’t care about that now.
The next drawer contained a pair of scissors. There was no way for me to angle them to cut through my ties, but if I opened them, I could try sawing the tie against the blade. With enough time, I could free myself that way.
But I didn’t have time. Someone was approaching. I heard a man’s voice. I couldn’t make out his words, though. I wasn’t sure if that was because he was too far away or because of the buzz in my head. They must have drugged me. I’d had a concussion before, but this felt different. I wished I could remember more of what had happened. I moved away from the desk, leaned against a shelf, and hid the scissors by sitting on them.
The door opened and a tall, thin, blond man wearing a dark blue suit stepped in, followed by another man carrying what looked like a bag of takeout and a few bottles of water. My stomach rumbled at the smell of the food, and as I forced my eyes to focus, I realized the man in the suit was Dennis Swain.
The man sat down at the desk. Thankfully, I’d managed to push the drawers closed. He wrinkled his nose when he realized I’d thrown up in the trash can.
“Disgusting.”
It was, but what did he expect?
“Get that out of here,” Swain told the man who’d come in with him.
“Yes, sir.”
“Wait outside. I’ll call you if I need you.”
“Yes, sir.” His assistant grabbed the trash can and scurried out.
Swain opened his takeout container, and my stomach growled again, loudly.
“Hungry?” The man asked.
I didn’t say anything.
“Probably thirsty too.” He unscrewed the top of one of the bottles and took a long drink.
When I still didn’t respond, he gave me in assessing look. “So you’re the quiet type, huh? That’s probably for the best. I don’t need to hear any fucking chatter from you. I just need you to listen.”
I held his gaze, forcing my expression to stay neutral as if my wrist wasn’t throbbing and my head wasn’t about to fall off my shoulders. I couldn’t let this man think I was anywhere near as weak as I was.
“I considered just having you killed,” he said. “You’re an inconvenience to me. However, you’re also in a position to give me information about your new friend and his family. It’s interesting a cop like you, who proclaims to be all about staying within the law, has gotten cozy with the Marchesis. You know what your new friend is involved in, don’t you?”
I’d known better than to think no one knew about me and Devil. We hadn’t been as careful as we should have been to hide our connection. It had been easy to convince myself we were safe, like we actually existed in a bubble, protected from the world around us. Reality always seemed so remote when I was with Devil. I’d been stupid not to pay more attention or consider who might be watching.
