Page 80 of Good Girls Beg

Did he know I went down there?

I hurried across to the door and placed my hand on the knob. It didn't move. The door was locked.

I glanced around, stepped over to the dresser and looked through the pile of stuff on the top. It didn't take long to locate a key. Worn and well-used, it hung from a leather strap.

"Nothing ventured…" I said to myself.

I carried the key over to the door and pushed it into the lock. It slid in effortlessly, turning when I twisted it. The lock clicked, letting me push the door open.

My phone held in my hand, I headed down the stairs, taking them one at a time, slowly and silently.

I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and stared.

"What the hell?"

The basement wasn't empty anymore. Now, it held a chair. A figure sat in the middle of it.

He lifted his head and looked at me. He tried to speak, but his voice was muffled by the tape across his mouth.

"Victor?"

I blinked a few times, trying to get my head around what I was seeing. The guy who flirted with me in the restaurant was sitting in the basement. His hands were behind his back, ankles duct taped to the legs of the chair.

"What are you doing here?" I approached carefully, watching him while listening for sounds behind me. There was no doubt in my mind the men knew he was here. They put him here.

Why?

I grabbed a corner of the tape from his cheek and yanked it off quickly, wincing at the sound it made tearing away from his skin.

"Fucking hell." He winced in pain. "Ask your boyfriends," Victor said. "Did you know they were watching you while you were at that restaurant? There's a camera there. They were watching your every move. Mine too. Rude.”

I shook my head slowly. "Why would they do that?"

"Just a wild guess here, but it might be because they're fucking psychos," he said. He moved his arms, trying to free his hands. "I like being tied up as much as the next guy, but are you going to let me out of here?"

I stepped around behind him. His wrists were duct taped together behind the back of the chair.

"I'm going to need a pair of scissors. I'll be right back." I hated to leave him down there like that, but there was nothing else I could do. I couldn't break the tape off with my bare hands.

"I'll be right here.” He dropped his chin to his chest.

"Yeah." I trotted back up the stairs and out of Oak's room.

A door at the back of the house opened and closed. I froze for a moment, then shook my head to force myself to move again and hurried into the kitchen to grab a pair of scissors out of the everything drawer.

Judging by the shuffling and swearing coming from the pantry, Shannon was back with groceries, sorting and unpacking.

Hoping like hell she didn't realize I was there, I ducked back out of the kitchen and into Oak's room, closing the door behind me.

Holding the scissors carefully, I trotted down the stairs. My dads would have a fit if they knew I was running with them.

"Thanks for waiting for me." I offered Victor a faint smile.

"I had nowhere better to be right now," he said, surprisingly cheerful given the circumstances.

"I'm sure you don't." I snipped through the tape on his ankles, then stepped around to free his wrists.

He shook them out, trying to get blood back around his arms and hands.