Page 116 of When He Plays

She wiggled her toes. Her fingers. Stretched a little. Everything seemed to be in working order. That was good news. The not-so-good news? She had no weapons. And she was locked in the cage with Harper. So much for a big rescue scene. “How long was I out?” Knocked out cold.

“Just a few minutes,” Harper rushed to say.

“Long enough for him to drag me in here?” Her mouth was too dry. Her whole body ached. And a sickening headache built behind her eyes. Also, had her heart just skipped a beat?

Hell. It had. Probably a fun side effect of electrocution.

Mental note—get to a doctor!

“Yes.” Harper’s miserable response. “He…he dragged you in here.” Then, “He’s going to kill us.”

“Not if I can help it,” she muttered.

“What?”

Through clenched teeth, Charlotte asked, “Where is he now?”

“Watching.” Barely a breath.

“Right. That’s what he likes to do, isn’t it?” Not like she could just sprawl there forever. Time to get up. Time to get the hell out of there. Charlotte shoved herself upright. She also almost vomited then and there as the whole room seemed to spin around her.

She sucked in a breath. Let it out. In and out. In and out.

Then she thrust back her shoulders.

The bright lights above bore down on her. The bright light made her head ache all the more, and she couldn’t see beyond the cage. Light inside. Darkness beyond.

“Who did this?” she asked Harper as she closed in on the other woman. First item on the to-do list…Get Harper free.

Okay, fine, maybe the very first item was…Remain upright. Because her legs kept wanting to fall out from under her, and nausea swirled through her body. She’d never been electrocuted before—imagine that—so Charlotte had no idea how long her symptoms would last or if she would suddenly find herself unconscious again.

So she’d better get to work. Fast.

She went behind Harper and started yanking at the ropes that bound the other woman. They’d been tied so tightly that they’d cut into Harper’s wrists, and her blood covered the thick rope.

“I…I think I was drugged,” Harper confessed softly. “A woman came to my hotel room door. Evelyn. She, uh, said she worked f-for Ares. That he wanted to enter a partnership with my family.” A shudder worked over her body.

This did not seem the time to tell her that Evelyn had been found with her throat sliced from ear to ear. That was more news for later. When they weren’t in a killer’s lair.

“After she left, I had a little of the—the champagne she’d brought. I remember drinking it and…then I woke up here. He’s kept me here, and he…he hurt me.”

The ropes weren’t unknotting. She needed a damn knife to cut through them. Where was her favorite knife when she needed it?

Oh, right. At Ares’s place.

That was the last place she’d had it.

“Who is he?” Charlotte demanded as she kept working at the ropes. Unfortunately, she was seeing double every few moments. Another fun side effect of her electrocution? Or of her slamming her head into the floor? “Ares?”

“I—”

“No.” A loud, clear voice cut through the darkness. “It’s not that fucking idiot.”

Her fingers jerked harder at the ropes.

One of the knots came undone.

Her nails broke as she kept clawing at the ropes.