by Toby Neal
Sophie’s heart beat with heavy thuds. She raised her weapon and pointed it at the middle of his chest. “Today is a good day to die.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Assan laughed. “You want to kill me so soon? That’s no fun at all.”
Of all the things Sophie had imagined, this was not one of them—Assan waiting for her, greeting her, unarmed, apparently nonchalant. He wasn’t afraid of her. He hadn’t been that last time either, when she’d almost shot him.
He didn’t know how much she’d changed from the cowed young bride she’d been.
“I wonder how you’ll explain away murdering an unarmed man. That won’t do your career in security much good,” Assan said.
“I don’t care how it looks.” It wasn’t murder when the person was already trying to kill you. “Do you want it in the head, or the heart?” This had to be done, not just for revenge, but for the good of humanity. She understood the Ghost’s mindset more every day.
“You must be hungry, thirsty. That stakeout across the street seemed a little unplanned. Come in, I’ve prepared some refreshments for us.” Assan pushed the door wider. “You can check for threats, if you like.”
“You are a threat just by breathing.”
“You overestimate me.” He leered. “I made a permanent impression on you and loom large in your life. They say your first always does.”
This was the man who’d stolen her innocence and tortured her in ways she didn’t even want to remember. How he’d enjoyed it! And she wasn’t his only victim.
“I know what you are, now.” Sophie took a step out of the stairs’ doorway. “A sadist who preys on the fear and suffering of others. A conscienceless psychopath, a disease on the earth that needs to be stamped out. Thanks for making it easy for me.” Eyes on Assan, she advanced slowly, peripheral vision alert. Assan liked to do his own dirty work, but he was no purist. He’d have a backup plan or other staff handy if he needed them.
“You want revenge. I understand that. But if you shoot me—someone you care about will suffer. Someone who needs you to let her out of a very dark place.” He held up his phone. On it, too far away to make out, she could see a live video feed with a human figure against some kind of white backdrop.
Sophie halted. The Glock felt too heavy for her hands.
Of course, he wasn’t just going to let her come in and shoot him. He’d anticipated her moves, watched her, and found leverage to use against her. This was Assan, and that was how he operated. She had to find whoever it was, get that person out, then shoot him.
Her phone was on in the small webbing athletic pack around her waist. She needed help. She lowered the weapon and pointed it at his groin. “I don’t need to kill you right away. We can take it in stages.”
Assan chuckled richly. “How my child bride has grown up. I’ve never found anyone quite like you, which is why I’ve gone to all this trouble to get you back. You’re mine, you know. No one else will ever put his hands on you. I’ve made sure of that.”
Sophie took another step forward. “What do you mean?” Connor’s face rose in her mind’s eye. This was her chance to find out if Assan had anything to do with his death.
“There will never be anyone but me, for you.” He spoke the same words Connor had written Sophie in his note, and though she shuddered, it wasn’t a straight answer. Assan opened his arm in a welcoming gesture. “I’ve taken care of your lovers and made sure that there will never be anyone else for you, either. And in the end, you came to me just as I planned.”
Sophie needed more information before she shot him. But like she’d told him, they could take it in stages. She lowered the pistol to point at his knee.
“No, no, no.” Assan held up the phone again. “You shoot me, and I push this button. The air keeping the woman you need to rescue will be cut off.”
Sophie swallowed a ball of tightness, of hatred, of helpless frustration. “What do you want?”
“You, of course. Come in. Relax. I’m no barbarian. We can have a drink.”
A sense of hopelessness rose in Sophie, swamping her like a rising tide.
Inevitable.
Her capture, her suffering, her death at his hands—already scripted. She couldn’t catch a break to save her life—a cliché Jake had said one time about a hapless co-worker.
Jake.
She had to get word to him. Marcella was too far away to help.
Sophie lowered the weapon to block her action as she slipped a hand into the waist pack, pressing hard on Jake’s number, speed dial number one on the burner phone. She felt the vibration of the phone. “Where is this woman you’re holding captive?”
Sophie heard a faint squawk from the phone. He’d picked up. She just had to keep the line open so he could track her. She walked into the apartment, and the door swung shut behind her.
“She’s somewhere safe. We’re in no hurry. A few hours more or less won’t make a difference to her—as long as she’s breathing.” Assan preceded Sophie into a spacious, luxuriously appointed living area. He gestured to a round, lacquered table set for two, glasses at each place. “Water and wine.”
Sophie shook her head. “Do you really think we can sit down together while you hold a woman’s life in your hands as leverage over me? Do you think this will solve anything? I will still hate you.”
Assan’s dark eyes glittered. “It is perfectly acceptable that you hate me.”
A chill passed over Sophie. Yes, he still enjoyed every moment of her torment; it was an aphrodisiac to him. Indifference was the answer.
She shrugged. “Very well. Let’s get this over with. Whatever this is.” She sat down. “But you can taste my beverages first, if you don’t mind.”
“Clever girl.” Assan reached over and sipped her water glass, quaffed her wine. “Your weapons, please. All of them.”
Sophie looked at the phone in his hand, at the woman’s figure, bound, dimly lit, twisting on a bed. She looked at the circular red button on the surveillance app that controlled his prisoner’s air supply. This woman could be anywhere in the world! She couldn’t take that chance right now. She’d have to find another way to kill him.
Every movement heavy and slow, Sophie took her Glock out of the shoulder holster and the second .19 out of the hip holster and set the guns on the table.
“Your ankle piece.” Assan gestured with his wine glass. “And that waist pack.”
She had to work in a location for Jake to come find her. She glanced around the apartment with its stunning art on the walls. She leaned down, removing the small Colt six shot she kept in an ankle holster. “Paradise Treasures is full of surprises. The sixth floor is listed as ‘storage,’ you know. Magda Kennedy has you stashed up here like a mad old relative that must be hidden.”
Assan’s mouth tightened in annoyance. He slipped into Mandarin. “Like your mother?”
Sophie’s breath hissed out. He was so good at this. She answered in the same language. “Yes. Like my mother, poor sad woman that she is.”
“You’re becoming like her with time.”
Had he found her Mary Watson apartment, seen her drop down the well of her depression after Connor’s death? Had he hacked into the Security Solutions AI feed? Probably. It was safer to assume that he knew everything.
Sophie took off the waist pack and its precious tools, set it on the table with the rest. “That’s everything, you bastard.” She glared at him, shoving the pile of weapons toward him. “I don’t need any of these things to kill you.” She picked up the glass, careful to sip from a side of it that hadn’t touched his mouth.
“You’ll pardon me if I don’t take your word for it. Stand up.”
Hopefully Jake had heard her location and was on his way. She stood and Assan frisked her, sliding his hand over her hips, down her legs, between them, slow and lascivious, trailing his fingers over her thighs and butt. Sophie stared straight ahead. The slender, razor sharp knife was still strapped to her calf in the flat Velcro holder tha
t was designed to fool pat-downs, and she let out a held breath as he moved on, going into the kitchen. “You need something to eat. You’re getting too thin, stringy as an old chicken.” The kitchen’s sleek steel expanse of cabinetry and built-in appliances looked barely used. Assan opened the refrigerator, producing a wrapped tray. “You used to like sushi.”
Sophie’s belly tightened. She was hungry, but accepting food from him was giving ground. “You haven’t told me what you require to let your prisoner go.”
“Twenty-four hours. I require your complete cooperation and submission to me for twenty-four hours.” Assan smiled. Vultures had more warmth in their eyes.
“No.” Sweat broke out under Sophie’s arms. “I will kill you first, or die trying.”
He set the tray of sushi on the table and held up the phone. “This woman means something to you, does she not?” He hit a button. Lights came on in the video feed.
Sophie leaned forward to peer at the phone.
Her friend, Lei Texeira, lay on a king-sized bed in nothing but bra and panties, her hands and feet bound behind her back. She was blindfolded and gagged with a rubber ball, and in response to the lights, she thrashed uselessly on the bed. Her skin looked bleached in the video, her hair a tangled, curly brown nimbus against the pale sheets.
“No,” Sophie whispered. “Oh no.” Her dear friend had already been through so much! “Let her go. She’s a mother! She has a child who needs her!”
“She’s a cop. And I don’t like cops.” Assan extinguished the lights with a satisfied punch of his finger. “But I will let her go. Once I’ve had your complete submission for twenty-four hours.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sophie ate the sushi. She drank the water and refused the wine. She needed strength for what lay ahead.
Assan unzipped her waist pack to reveal her lock picks, small electrical toolkit, tape, and phone. “Ah. Likely you tried to call someone. Unfortunately for you, I have a jammer inside this apartment.” Hope of rescue died as Assan picked up Sophie’s Glock and brought the gun’s butt down hard on the phone, smashing it. “Come. We have places to go.”
Sophie schooled her face into that mask he’d taught her so long ago, standing silently. He walked around the table, drawing a hand down her cheek. “This scar. You’re so ugly, now.”
She swung her head and snapped her teeth at his hand, almost catching his fingers. He laughed, lifting the phone in his other hand.
“Submission, my dear. That was the agreement. When you don’t cooperate, your friend suffers.” He pushed another of the row of buttons on the side of the video app. The image of Lei convulsed abruptly, arching and shuddering on the bed in trembling, agonized spasms.
“Electrodes. On very sensitive parts of her anatomy.” Assan’s eyes gleamed. “I enjoyed taping them on.”
“Oh God, no,” Sophie whispered. “Stop. Make it stop.” She could take any amount of pain herself, but not that inflicted on someone she loved. How had he learned that? “Please make it stop.”
Assan pushed the button again and the body of her friend went limp. “I like it when you beg.” He snaked out an arm to grab Sophie by the back of the neck, hauling her in to kiss her brutally with teeth, tongue, and violence.
Sophie shut her eyes and detached.
Assan let go eventually, and Sophie cast her eyes down so he wouldn’t see the rage—it would only arouse him more. He stroked her cheek again. “Better. Now follow me.”
Assan turned and walked out of the apartment, so confident that she was cowed and neutralized that he gave her his back. Sophie walked after him, spitting his foul taste from her mouth. Could she bend and get the knife up and into him before he had time to punch the button on the phone?
Unlikely. She’d have to kill him instantly, and he was on alert, the phone in his hand. She had to bide her time, wait for a moment when his hands were occupied or he was distracted.
He led her to the elevator and pushed an unmarked button. “You are right to conclude that Paradise Treasures is full of surprises. There’s another floor down below the building.”
The doors closed. The elevator shot downward as Assan turned to fondle her, sliding his hands over her breasts and down her abs, holding the phone up to taunt her with her helplessness.
Sophie kept her eyes open, watching for his distraction.
Her body was just a thing now, an object to be touched, used, abused, and discarded—by herself as much as him, as she abandoned her physical self to focus on getting that phone away.
Assan pinched and twisted her nipples, bringing involuntary tears to her eyes. Every wince and gasp made him more aroused, and he slid a hand down to grasp her sex, staring into her eyes, grinding against her, refusing to let her withdraw.
Sophie looked right back. She rehearsed killing him: the bulge of his features as she strangled him, the pulsing jet of his blood as she stabbed him and cut an artery, the bursting of his intestines as she gutted him…
“You hate me so much,” he breathed into her ear, licking her neck. “It makes me hot.”
The tiny ding of the elevator’s halt hardly seemed to register to Assan as he pushed her against the wall, panting, raping her with his hand and the pressure of his body, a preview of what was coming next.
The elevator door opened. The phone lowered as he turned—and Sophie whipped her knee up, knocking the phone out of his hand. The device landed on the floor of the elevator, and she kicked it with her other foot so that it flew out into the hall.
The doors began closing automatically as Assan stumbled after the phone with a curse.
Sophie bent, whipped up her pant leg and pulled out the slender blade. She coiled and sprang, landing on Assan’s back, knocking him flat to the floor. Her knee in his spine, she grabbed his hair and yanked his head back, setting the point of the knife against his throat. “Where is she?”
He held up his hand with the phone in it.
“Where is she? Tell me now and I won’t kill you.” Sophie’s mouth had gone so dry that she could hardly force the words out.
“She’s dead. You brought this on her.” Assan whispered hoarsely. “I’ll never tell you where she is.”
He’d had a chance to bargain for his life.
He was never going to let either of them go.
“Wrong answer.” Sophie buried the knife in Assan’s throat, feeling nothing but determination to finish the grim task. Even with the wickedly sharp edge of the blade, cutting through the sinew and corded muscle of his neck took surprising effort, and he bucked spasmodically, trying to dislodge her, thrashing like a landed marlin between her thighs. The sharp reek of the hot blood jetting from his neck filled her nostrils and she shut her eyes and held her breath, waiting.
A seemingly endless moment later, Sophie dropped Assan’s head into the spreading pool of blood and retrieved the phone from his clenched hand.
The device was black, the screen locked down. Assan was still dying, messy gurgles and spasms racking his body, as she grabbed his hand and pressed his forefinger down on the phone’s activation button, hoping it was set to his fingerprint.
The phone bloomed into life on the familiar scene of Lei on the bed, and Sophie stood up, resetting the phone’s security quickly to keep the screen open, then switching back to the video.
The red button now showed as a black X.
Assan had cut off Lei’s air.
“Poxy swine!” Sophie kicked the still-twitching body. “If I could kill you again I would!”
Assan went still at last.
Sophie looked down the hallway into the bowels of the basement beneath the building, desperation tightening her throat. She wiped the knife on her pants and stowed it in the holster on her leg, forcing her mind to work. If she’d had her computer rigs or even her own phone, she could try to track the signal that his phone was picking up. But even if she had been able to hack his phone’s signal to track the video, it would only identify the address, not exactly where in the b
uilding the signal was originating from.
She didn’t know where Lei was, but chances were good she was on this floor somewhere—he’d brought Sophie down here for a reason. She’d try all the doors on this level first.
Sophie tried the phone to call Jake. “No signal. Dung of a four-horned goat!”
She bent and rifled through Assan’s pockets and pulled out a key ring with a grunt of satisfaction, straightening to run forward down the dimly lit hallway.
Chapter Thirty
Sophie’s gloved hands were sticky with Assan’s blood as she reached for the first door handle—locked, of course. She flipped through the keys, her hands trembling with urgency. Car key, a couple of room keys, a small one that looked like it went to a security box… She pushed the others aside and just tried the room keys.
Neither fit.
She worked her way down the hall, stuffing her panic somewhere down deep where it could be used as fuel for action. Feelings didn’t help. Compartmentalizing did.
None of the room keys worked. She ended up back at the bloody mess that was the remains of her ex.
“Why did you bring me down here?” She yelled at the body, giving in to the urge to kick him again. “Damn you to hell where you’re no doubt burning!”
How much time did Lei have?
There was no way to know. If she was just in a sealed room, she might be okay for a while. Sophie had to hope—and she had to get help.
She got on the elevator and punched the button back up to the penthouse. Outside Assan’s apartment, she tried for a signal again and was able to get a call through to Jake, though he didn’t pick up. “This is Sophie. I’m at the Paradise Treasures Gallery on the sixth floor.” She swallowed. “Assan has Lei Texeira hidden somewhere and her air supply has been cut off. I need help locating her! Call me back at this number.”
She hung up with a punch of the button. She should call 911, but when they found Assan’s body, wouldn’t they just arrest her? No. She needed someone from MPD who knew her, and would be able to help her navigate this messy crisis. She could call Stevens, Lei’s husband—but she needed someone whose judgment wouldn’t be clouded by emotion.
