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Reaching the outer door, he pulled at the heavy lock mechanism. It took some effort to open, and when it did, it was with an ear-piercing screech which could easily be heard by any of the guard towers. It shut with an equally pleasing CLANG loud enough to reverberate through his soul.
The interior was not pleasant. Rusted walls, pools of water along the floor, and stairs which led down a passageway which sloped toward the bowels of Hades very sharply. It was down this path he walked; his footsteps sure with the experience of having been there before many times.
This was his happy place.
Here, he could feel the weight of earth around him. There was a heaviness to this place, abandoned long ago. He’d purchased the mine as part of a deal by which he made millions by losing hundreds of thousands. It had been described as a death trap when it was sold.
A mining cart waited at the end of the passage. He stepped into it, pulled the lever beside it, and was promptly slingshotted into a darkness so complete he could see nothing. Not even his hand before his eyes. He felt the motion in his gut, the rush toward oblivion which all men experienced every day of their lives made solid and real.
Fun. This was all such fun.
A little cart ride to his prize, an amusing distraction on the way to let her know that she would soon be claimed as she had been made to be claimed.
After many winding turns, crests, and valleys, the cart slowed, squeaking and creaking toward the final terminal, and one last door.
When he opened it, there was light. It came from the grate at the very top of the tower, a clear plastic over wrought iron guards. It was a long way down from the platform he stood on to the hole below, a way which wound down and around an iron staircase clamped to the sides of what was once a massive industrial bore.
She was at the bottom. Sitting on the mattress he had given her out of generosity, arms wrapped around her knees, head down. She had the most delightful dark curls. Really very pretty. An exquisite little creature by all metrics and measures.
He came down the stairs deliberately, with slow steps, enjoying every moment of what he knew would have to be a fleeting experience. With every step, he drew a fraction closer, and could make out some additional detail to her pretty form. The way the light played over the ringlets around her head, the way the nape of her neck bent so prettily. The way her fingers clenched and unclenched, signs of the nervousness she was forced to tolerated in her captivity.
This was not fair. She was an innocent. She should have been thousands of miles away, attending her local college and protesting something. Believing in a cause worth fighting for. Instead, she was left to fight for the limited scraps of her own dear sanity.
“I was with your father tonight,” he told his captive. She looked up when he spoke. Eyes which should have disappeared with the rest of her body, clad in the darkness of the hole, somehow managed to shine whenever he saw her.
Tears probably, constantly glimmering in those soulful orbs of hers. That look would almost have been enough to make him feel guilty if he had any kind of conscience.
She was not bound. There was no need to tie her, though it would have made her pretty predicament even more appealing.
“I told him he has a daughter,” he said.
Her face crumpled into annoyance. Funny how it didn’t matter how bad a situation was, reminder of a lacking parent always distracted the mind.
“Was he happy to hear the news?” Her voice was husky and sarcastic. She had not had an easy life. The riches which should have been hers by birth had been denied her. Instead of being the cherished daughter of a billionaire, she had been raised as the unplanned offspring of a woman who discovered the joys of methamphetamine when she was five years old.
“He is not,” Indigo said.
“Figures.”
“You don’t harbor hopes of your long lost father coming to save you, tearing down barriers, fighting bad guys…”
“You mean the plot of Taken, except with a dude who didn’t use a condom eighteen years ago? Yeah, nah.”
Such sarcasm! Such possession of mind! Such strength of character! He had been concerned that capturing Christo’s daughter would force him to endure endless whining and tears, but that was not Daisy’s style.
“Hope can be a powerfully dangerous thing. You are fortunate not to be burdened with it.”
She gave a little half shrug. Those blue eyes were so out of place in the rest of her face. That caramel skin dashed with freckles, her hair curling to her shoulders. She was quite a beauty.
