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Okay, what the hell h
appened? And why don’t I recognize this place?
My head is pounding, my pulse kicking against the inside of my skull, and my stomach is trying to climb up my throat. Tequila? Jack? Absinthe? A mixture of the above?
Wouldn’t be the first time—but unknown surroundings aside, something feels definitely wrong, and I still can’t put my finger on it.
Speaking of fingers… Why can’t I feel them? Or my hands? I concentrate, roll my shoulders, get a sense of my arms.
Why in the fuck are my arms stretched over my head? I lift my face, try the lash-lifting, eye-opening thing again, and bile rises in my throat as pain ricochets inside my head. My vision blurs. I’m panting.
But it’s getting worse. I’m sitting on the dirty floor of a warehouse, and… my legs are tied together at the ankles with a thin rope wrapped around my ankles. I’m wearing black pants, but my shoes are gone.
When I move my feet, testing the give of the rope, I find another length wrapped around my middle, tying me to something. Not a wall, because edges dig into my shoulders. A pillar?
A goddamn pillar.
All right. Okay. Gotcha. So this is how it is. Gotta say, though, it sucks ass.
And this is when it finally hits me, in the freezing warehouse, with my wrists and ankles and middle bound to a concrete pillar and my thoughts scattered, that I’m well and truly fucked.
***
Water trickles somewhere behind me, intensifying my thirst. My shoulders burn. Time ticks by. I prod my memory for clues, trying to figure out how I ended up here and where this is.
I remember sitting at my desk, in my office, at the Fleming Enterprises HQ, listening as the company lawyer explained to me facets of the bureaucratic chaos left behind by my father’s arrest and his shady dealings with the Organization—the secretive criminal faction Storm, Rook and I discovered. A group in which our parents played a leading role, killing whoever got in their way, be it friend of foe.
Friend, as in Storm’s parents. Foe, as in everyone else. Made no difference in the end.
And then refused to help the police end this, refused to give up any vital information, and got themselves the best lawyer out there to help them maintain that silence.
Still can’t fucking believe my parents were involved in this, can’t fucking digest the fact that—
Focus, Hawk. You’re in a hot mess right now. Focus on that.
Right.
So, I was at my office, hitting my head against the bureaucratic wall, and after I was done with that, I decided to go out for a drink. I remember grabbing my helmet, my jacket and my phone and thinking about calling Storm and Rook, or maybe just Hot Body for some dinner and a quick, satisfying fuck, not necessarily in that order.
But I decided against it, as I often do lately, not wanting to put her in danger. So I thought I’d rather ride my bike through the city instead, clear my head and my thoughts.
I remember nodding at my secretary, entering the steel-and-glass elevator, and pressing the P for the underground parking lot.
I remember the doors dinging as they opened, and my steps echoing as I stepped into the dimly lit space, heading for my custom-made Deus Grievous Angel bike.
And then… a blank. A fucking big black hole.
Why was I out for so long? How many hours has it been? I shouldn’t be out so long from a hit to the head. Unless I was drugged.
Awesome.
Either could explain the fact my head is ready to explode and my mouth tastes like blood and dirt.
Okay, back up. What do we have so far?
Someone grabbed me from the parking lot of my building and tied me up like a sausage in what looks like a warehouse. Where?
The light is coming from a bare lightbulb high above my head. Although it felt like a knife to my eyes, the light is actually faint, barely illuminating the high-ceilinged interior with its steel beams crisscrossing high up like a spider web. No windows.
