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Chewing on my bottom lip, I pretend to ponder his answer, all while one hand is sliding over the cell-shaped bulge in my jeans pocket and the other is slowly digging under my waistband. “You’re right. About the nap thing, I mean. Maybe I’ll wake up and feel better.”
Relief flashes across his face for just a moment before his features harden again. He takes a step toward me as if to force me farther down the hall. “Boss has set you up in the second door to the left.”
“Thanks,” I mutter. I drag my feet across the marble floor, and with every step I take, Ronan takes one too, escorting me. I slow down, closing the gap between us until I can almost feel his heavy breathing on my back.
And that’s when I strike.
Spinning around, I flick out my pocket knife and plunge the blade into his stomach. He doubles over, groaning, but I know men like him, and I know their reflexes are scarily quick, especially in the face of sudden violence.
Men like him, though, never bank on me being quick too. They don’t know I grew up fighting. I dodge his arm as he swings for me and tilt my head up to connect my forehead to his. There’s a sickening crack, and I’m not sure if it’s from my bones or his.
“You fucking bitch!” he roars, staggering backward, one hand alternating between the wound on his stomach and the trickle of blood on his forehead, the other reaching for the holster on his slacks.
Despite the dizziness and the searing pain around my skull, logic tells me he won’t shoot me. His boss needs me alive. But still, I don’t take the chance, and I lift my boot to connect my heel with his groin. As he sinks to his knees, gargling something incoherent, I kick the gun out of his hand, chasing after it down the hall and snatching it up. A brief glance tells me it’s a gold-clad Heckler and Koch. Nice. If I sold this thing, it’d stock Mak’s and my fridge for over a year.
Ronan is scrambling to his knees, fumbling for his radio, so I have to be quick. I dart to the elevator doors and stab at the iPad-sized screen next to it. Nothing. I tap it harder, trying different corners of the glass.
“Motherfucker,” I mutter. That synthetic calmness is slowly dissolving, making room for that panic again. As I frantically sprint around the apartment, flinging open every door and drawer looking for something, anything, that will get me out of here, that panic taunts me. It slowly increases the weight on my chest and makes my hands grow sweatier and shakier by the second.
At the sound of heavy, uneven footsteps, I turn around to see Ronan staggering down the hall. Face like thunder and a glare like lightning. With a trembling hand, I point his gun at him.
“Don’t come any closer,” I rasp.
Wheezing, he lifts a finger to catch the blood trickling into his eye and glances down at the small puncture wound soaking his knitted sweater. He looks back up at me with disbelief.
“Don’t be a fucking idiot, lass,” he says growls. “What do you think is going to happen if you shoot me?”
“You’d die, hopefully,” I spit.
He half rasps, half chuckles. Then he gingerly lifts his blood-soaked sweater, revealing his carved torso. Surrounding the disappointingly small stab wound are knots of scar tissue. Bullet wounds. “Hasn’t happened yet. Then what?” He leans into the wall with newfound ease. The actions of someone who genuinely thinks they aren’t about to be shot. “That elevator is retina, fingerprint, and voice-activated.” As I open my mouth, he lifts his hand to silence me. “Before you say you’ll carve my eyeball out and chop my finger off, there’s also a twenty-four-digit code. Even if they are my dying words, you won’t remember them, will you?”
A hiss escapes my nostrils. I glance back at the elevator doors, willing them to open. Like he can read my mind, Ronan says, “Those men I sent on break will be here in twenty seconds flat at the press of one button.” He holds up the radio. “All twelve of them, heavily armed and lethally trained.”
“So am I,” I say, stabbing the barrel of the gun in his direction to emphasize my point. “I took you down quick enough, didn’t I?”
He pauses, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, you did. Fair play. You don’t look like you’d have the guts.”
“I’m not just a pretty face,” I snarl back.
He raises an eyebrow. “Clearly not. Now, why don’t you give me back my bloody gun, and we’ll forget this happened?”
After a few tense seconds, I sigh. My panic is subsiding, and logic is seeping back into my brain. “I’m really not getting out of here today, am I?”
He shakes his head. “Sorry, lass. No point in wasting your energy.”
He’s right. I’m stubborn, but I’m not stupid. With a streak of anger coursing through my veins, I scan the large room in front of us, taking in all the shades of white. Every countertop, coffee table, and couch gleams back at me smugly. So much fucking wealth it makes me sick. My eyes land on a sculpture standing proud in the corner. A silhouette of a woman, each soft curve, from the swell of her breasts to the dip of her hips, carved from glossy marble.
I turn my attention back to Ronan. “Fine,” I say simply. “I’ll stay.” Like I had a choice. “But if that monster wants to keep me here, then I’ll make it very difficult for him.”
“Don’t—”
But it’s too late. I’ve already pulled the trigger. The bullet has already left the chamber and is whizzing across the room. It pierces the statue’s skull, creating an explosion of shards and dust.
Ronan groans. “Now why the fuck did you go and do that for?”
“Target practice.”
But a cocktail of satisfaction and glee brews within me. I’ll show my darling husband why keeping a girl like me locked in his cage is a bad idea. Next, I stride over to the couch, tugging the pocketknife from my jeans. Without wiping off Ronan’s blood, I slash through the cream leather seats in long, deep strokes until the goose feathers fly out and float down onto the plush rug. Feeling borderline deranged, I hungrily scan the room, looking for what else I can fuck up. When I lock eyes with Ronan, he just shakes his head slowly.
