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Preface
StolenInnocence
She hearda loud pop before the car swerved and her grip tightened on the steering wheel. Her Driver’s Ed teacher’s words filtered through her thoughts with lightning speed as the first spike of panic laced her veins. Lifting her foot from the accelerator, she gently pressed the brake pedal and guided the car to a stop on the side of the countryroad.
Fine gravel shifted and crunched beneath her sneakers as she stepped around to the passenger side and got her first look at her first flat tire, on her first solo drive toschool.
“Fudge.” She walked down the road a bit to where the paper bag she’d hit lay torn to shreds, what was left of several green glass bottles shattered aroundit.
“Dad is going to kill me.” Or worse, never let her drive again. How was she supposed to know it was filled with glass bottles? Okay, so she hadn’t exactly swerved to miss it, but it wasn’t her fault some people werejerks.
Sprinting back to her car, she thought briefly about calling her boyfriend to come change the flat. That thought lasted long enough to remember her dad’s stern warning about no boys in the car. Not that they would actually beinthe car, but she didn’t need her dad giving her anymore grief about Michael. No, she might as well call the warden and get it over with. It wasn’t like she took out a tree oranything.
She located his number on her cellphone and pressed send, not bothering to leave a message when the call was automatically forwarded to his voicemail. After two more tries she was about to dial Michael’s number when a car she didn’t recognize pulled up behind hers andstopped.
She watched nervously in her rear view mirror as a tall, lanky man got out and approached her side of the vehicle. Unsure of what to do, she was a little relieved when his lips curved into a friendly smile and he tipped the bill of his baseball cap to greether.
“Everythingokay?”
The creep factor gone, she rolled down the window and nodded. “Yeah, just a flat tire. I’m trying to reach my dad, but he’s notanswering.”
“The glass got you, huh.” He shrugged and pulled his cellphone from the back pocket of his faded blue jeans. “Let me make a quick call to my wife to let her know I’ll be a little late, and then I’ll change it foryou.”
“No, that’s okay.I—”
“It’s no problem. It will only take a fewminutes.”
Her eyes followed his movements as he held his phone to his ear and walked around to look at the tire. She couldn’t sit in the car and let him do all of the work. Keys still in the ignition, her purse and book bag piled in a heap on the front seat, she opened the driver’s door and stepped out onto the shoulder. Shoving her cellphone into her front pocket, she rounded the back of the car just as the man ended hiscall.
“You don’t have to do this. My dad willbe…”
The rest of her words were smothered by the hand that clamped tight over her mouth as someone behind her snaked an arm around her waist and yanked her off the ground.Oh God!“Help!” she tried to scream, but nothing more than a muffled cry made its way beyond the suffocating pressure. Twisting and kicking, she watched helplessly as the nice man with the baseball cap grabbed her legs and wrapped a thin length of rope around her ankles. Fear turning to sheer terror, she flailed and thrashed and clawed at anything she could grasp. When she finally managed to sink her teeth into the hand clamped over her mouth, the man holding her captive tightened his grip on her jaw until she thought it would break and she was forced to let go as he shoved her to theground.
She tried to crawl away. Beyond words, her cries for help turned into incoherent screams as a heavy weight pressed her into the ground and her arms were pinned behind her back. The sound of tape being ripped from the roll barely registered before a long strip was slapped over her mouth, tangling in the wisps of long hair that had escaped her pony tail in the struggle. Her wrists bound tight behind her, she was wrenched from the ground and dumped into the trunk of their car. No words were spoken between the two men. No second glances or hesitations as they closed the trunk lid and the first wave of darkness swallowed her whole. It was only a shadow of the dark days to come. She would not be alone in herfate.
One
“Where’s the disk?”Fire exploded behind Thalia’s Brezlin’s right eye as the butt of a gun crashed into the side of her skull. Random flashes of light from the bare bulb swinging above her penetrated her rapidly swelling eyelid, making either the room or her head spin out of control. Any moment now she was going to puke or pass out. She truly didn’t care which came first, as long as the pain stopped. Neither option, she feared, would matter to thisbastard.
“It’s not a disk.” Dammit, it hurt too much to talk. She could feel the fresh flow of warm blood pouring from her temple; see it dripping into her lap onto what was left of her tattered cargo pants.My favorite pair.Only her sick sense of sarcasm kept her from giving into her fear. A fear she knew would cripple or kill her the moment she gave it even a shred of control. If this evil creep knew how scared she truly was, how scared she’d been for so long now that she could barely remember a time without fear, he would use it to eat heralive.
Keep him talking.The pain from the metal handcuffs slicing into her wrists was nothing compared to the hell her face was going through, but she kept working. If she didn’t get her hands through soon, the swelling would make it impossible. She was soclose.
She’d already mapped out her escape. The chair she was handcuffed to wasn’t bolted to the floor. That would be weapon number one. If it didn’t splinter apart after taking out her first target, she’d use it on another. Her second choice would be to go for the metal chain she’d spotted in the corner behind the only door to her dark, mammoth-sized cell. Dammit! If only she could get her hands on the nice piece of nickel this asshole kept beating her with…At least he hasn’t shot me with ityet.
“Don’t toy with me bitch!” The sound of ripping fabric echoed past the pounding in her ears. Her body jerked against the chair with each brutal tug, cold air swirling over the sheen of sweat that covered her bared breasts.Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!Thalia sucked in a sharp breath as twin spikes of pain pierced her nipples and rippled down her spine.Please don’t do this!She choked back her plea. She would not cry out and give him the satisfaction. Biting the inside of her cheek until she tasted the rusty tang of blood, she sucked in another deep breath, her nostrils flaring with her effort to control the pain. She forced herself not to look at his gun, now tucked neatly into the front waistband of his tailored suit pants. As long as both his hands were on her, the gun was fairgame.
“Hamisi,” she hissed through her clenched teeth, careful to mask her fear. “Were you really born on a Thursday? It is what the Hindi name means,yes?”
Hamisi kept one hand on her naked breast, tightening his vise-like grip. He threaded his other hand through her sweaty black hair and wrenched her head back, the sickening scents of peppermint and tobacco washing over her battered face. “What games are these you play? You know I will kill you if you do not tell me where itis!”
Thalia looked into Hamisi’s inky black eyes, her gaze trailing over his near flawless complexion. He was an attractive man; tall and solid, his dark skin revealing his Indian heritage. Plump lips, with a hint of dryness around the edges, pressed into a snarl. He wasn’t accustomed to the climate. She must have hit a nerve for Don Lalia to send his personal guard to deal with her. Killing his second in charge had been blind luck, but she’d taken it. She was quickly growing tired of running. She was tired, period. It would be nice to send another one of these bastards to hell before one of them finally killedher.
Returning her gaze to his cold, dark eyes, she knew one thing for certain. He would kill her with or without the thumb drive. His grip tightened in her hair, a fierce growl rumbled from his chest. “You will give me what I want. Or I will rip it from you one strip of skin at atime.”
She didn’t flinch at his biting tone or the spray of spittle that peppered her face. Her eyes slowly moved past his and focused on the rusty metal ceiling above them, ignoring the searing pain that ripped over her scalp. “I think it’s a fake name,” she said with a casual shrug of her shoulders, her right hand slipping silently through the cuff. “I’d have guessed you were born yesterday, and yesterday wasTuesday.”
He released her hair and she turned her head just as his fist came down, glancing off her forehead. She felt nothing. Nothing but the blissfully cold nickel that soothed her palm as she wrapped her hand around the gun tucked into Hamisi’s belt.Now let’s see how tough youare!
