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“I don’t know. I heard some noises and then it went quiet again. When they came in earlier they said they were down the hall with someone.”
“Can you leave?”
“He had a key to a service elevator.”
“There has to be stairs somewhere.”
“Where am I gonna go?”
“Just get out of the damn building and call an Uber or catch a train. Hell, go home. Your parents still live there, right?”
“Fuck,” I mutter, taking a step toward the door.
Heavy footfalls rush down the hall, making me pause, my hand flying to my throat. Autumn tries talking to me but I stay quiet for several seconds, afraid to speak.
Once I don’t hear anything anymore, I whisper, “Sorry, people walked by. I think they left.”
“He left you there?” she exclaims.
“I don’t know.”
I creep toward the door and slowly turn the knob, pulling it open millimeter by millimeter, listening for any little noise. Once I can peek out, I do, but I don’t catch sight of anyone. I tug on the knob a little more and look down both sides of the hall. Nobody’s here.
“I think they’re gone,” I say in a voice that’s barely considered a whisper.
“Good. Get your ass out of there before they come back. Find a stairwell. They have to have one. Is your location on?”
“Yeah,” I say.
I take off my heels and hold them in my hand as I tiptoe down the hall in the opposite direction of the elevator since I didn’t see a stairwell that way when we came down.
There are a couple doors on either side of me, but I don’t bother looking in them, because they wouldn’t be stairs. At the end of the hall there’s two doors on both sides of an alcove. An exit sign hangs above the right one. I breathe a sigh of relief.
“I think I found them,” I whisper.
“Okay,” she replies in her own quiet tone.
Two things happen nearly simultaneously. A door behind me opens loudly, followed by a deep voice that says, “I wonder if he’s still alive.” My head snaps around to find Jian and someone I’ve never seen before. They freeze in place, staring at me like I’m a ghost. Five seconds later, the door to my left opens up, revealing Vicente.
Those brown arms decorated with black ink that I was admiring earlier are now embellished with droplets and splashes of crimson red blood. His neck and face wear the same color. His crisp black shirt is rumpled and stained, as are his pants. He has a cigarette between his lips, and a cool, detached look on his face.
Behind him is a man slumped on his side in a pool of his own blood, and in the corner is Khalid who is also wearing the same crimson color on his clothes and skin, though not as much as Vicente.
He sucks in a puff of the nicotine before releasing it with a sigh and rubbing his thumb and forefinger across his brows. “I told you to stay.”
Before I can say anything or even think to move, he gestures with his hand and I’m grabbed from behind as a hand clamps over my mouth, and I’m shoved into the room with a killer.
ChapterEight
Jian has me in his strong grip, my arms pinned to my sides. The other one takes my phone from my hand, and I wonder if Autumn heard anything to know I’m in trouble. All Vicente said was, “I told you to stay.” I didn’t scream or anything. It was only silent.
“What do you want to do about this?” Khalid asks Vicente in a calm voice, like they deal with this all the time.
I squirm and fight in Jian’s arms, wiggling my body and attempting to get my arms loose, but his hold is solid. It doesn’t help that he’s so much larger than me. He’s probably only using half his effort. I lift a foot off the ground and kick back, hoping to get him in the knee. I hit part of his leg and he grunts, squeezing me tighter.
“Don’t make me do something I’ll regret. I respect Vicente, but I will desecrate you,” he whispers into my ear.
My body goes still at his threat. He never seemed so menacing before. Flirtatious, yes, but clearly there’s other sides to these men that they keep fairly well-hidden.
