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“Becca?” he called out. “Hey!”
No answer. That chilled him. No way could she be asleep. Maybe she just didn’t feel like speaking to him. He could hardly blame her.
“Becca!” He sprinted down the center aisle towards the fifth bank of scaffolding where he had chained her. “I know you’re pissed, but—”
He rounded the corner and skidded to a stop, his heart squeezed tight to bursting in a claw of icy terror and dismay. Rats scattered.
Not there. The bags were there, the water bottles, the scattered protein bars, but Becca, the handcuffs and the chain were gone.
He wanted to vomit. Oh, fuck. He had no idea where to start, where to turn. What cliff to jump off of.
He wanted to howl like a mad dog.
There was no sound, but the air behind him shifted and moved, alerting him just in time to spin around—and take the length of metal pipe on the front of his skull, rather than the back.
A burst of blinding, white-red light, and he slid right down a long, agonizingly painful slope, into an oily black nowhere.
Becca had thoughtthat what had happened in the warehouse would burn away the tender feelings she had for Nick. That she could fall no further. She was dead wrong.
Kristoff and the man that Zhoglo called Mikhail had hauled Nick in, unconscious, trussed up and bleeding. Zhoglo began taking out his rage by kicking him—back, legs, belly, groin, face. Every awful thud of contact against Nick’s limp body was like a blow to her own flesh.
There were depths left to come. That was Zhoglo’s specialty, after all. Untold depths of pain, of shame, of despair.
Nick’s hands and feet were bound before him with a ratcheted plastic cuff. Another tie fastened hands and feet together, folding him in half.
Zhoglo kicked over the table that held the snack foods that Pavel had brought out to them. Crystal goblets smashed, food scattered and flew, wine glugged from the bottle, dark and heavy as blood.
Becca flinched as Zhoglo hauled off for another violent kick to Nick’s ribs, which drew the man’s attention to her own unlucky self.
He swung around and hung over her, panting. “Hundreds of millions of dollars!” Spittle from his wet red mouth hit Becca’s face, making her flinch again. “Do you have any idea how much money you and this bleeding piece of shit have cost me? Can you even conceive of the magnitude of waste?”
“The important things were saved,” Becca said softly. “Money is nothing.” Her sane side cringed at her own brash idiocy. Where had that come from? A fatalistic desire to speed up her own death? God.
“Nothing?” Zhoglo shrieked. “Nothing?” He slapped her hard across the face. “Arrogant bitch! Who are you to say that money is nothing? Have you ever survived without it?”
Yes,she wanted to say, but she didn’t have the nerve to speak when she looked into that maddened face, livid with rage, those staring white eyes, pupils contracted to pinpoints.
He whacked her again, backhand. Her eyes teared. “Have you ever had to steal it?” he bellowed. “Have you killed for it? Felt hot blood well over your hands for it? How hungry have you ever been, you goddamn American rich bitch?”Whack.“Have you fought rats to eat rotten meat from a garbage dump? Have you bent over in an alley and let yourself be buggered by swine for a crust of bread?”Whack.“Have you?”
His voice rose to a grinding scream of fury. He grabbed thick handfuls of her hair, and flung her, chair and all, onto the deck. Right next to Nick’s booted feet. She could almost touch them.
Food lay all around her. Smashed grapes, apple peels. Crumbled water crackers, little triangles of cheese. A slice of ham lay next to her face, spread out like a panting dog’s long, pink tongue. The fatty, meaty smell of it made her stomach heave in protest.
And the fruit knife. It gleamed and flashed before her eyes, catching the light. The little paring knife that Zhoglo had used to peel his apples and his grapes. Right beyond reach of her fingertips.
Zhoglo turned away from her, kicking at the metal stand that held the computer monitor, knocking it to the ground. She lunged for the tiny knife while he occupied himself with kicking the portable computer into ruins. His henchmen were watching him, beady eyed and cautious not to pull any more rage down on themselves than they had to. No one watched her as she strained her body, pulling against the tape until it cut against her skin, reaching—
Got it. She palmed it. Nick’s boots were right in her face. If she tried again, she could just about reach…yes.
She kept the blade hidden in her hands, let her hair flop over her face and tried to look limp and defeated while she picked at the thick plastic tie that held his hands and feet together.
It took forever. No way could she get through it before they saw her. But she had to try. She had an atom of a chance to actually do something. She’d be damned if she’d waste it.
The tie popped loose. Zhoglo was still bellowing in Ukrainian, flinging the detached monitor screen at the plate glass window—
Crash,the window shattered. Shards peppered her arms, her back. Becca dug around until she found the tie that bound his legs together, and sawed desperately while the rest of them scrambled out of range, pulling slivers of glass out of their flesh.
The tie popped loose. She tried to reach the one that fastened Nick’s hands together, but she came up about two inches short. She willed him to shift, to wake, to help her out. Please, Nick.Please.
