It was all I could do to remain calm, heart beating out of my chest. When the key finally made its way into the lock and the bars slid to the side, I could barely breathe. The guard entered first, stun gun in his hands—with the power off. His eyes met mine, and we exchanged a subtle nod.
The Labcoats followed, but before I could even give Davis the cue, he was springing from his bed at them. Acting for the cameras, I lunged at the guard and hit him as realistically as I could, grateful when he stumbled backward and pretended to fall unconscious. Although fake, it undoubtedly was a boost to my masculinity.
“Stay down,” I whispered to him, then turned to help Davis.
But my help wasn’t needed.
At all.
Davis was unleashing a fury on the two Labcoats that left me with no choice but to get out of his way. Rage and revenge exploded from him as he violently stabbed and slashed at both men, backing them into a corner. Blood splattered as they tried to defend themselves, both dropping to the floor as Davis dropped the needle and reached for a pair of needle nose pliers.
“Stop it, Davis,” I said firmly, horrified by what he was doing.
His arm pummeled up and down in a brutal rage. The Labcoats weren’t squirming anymore. Their gurgling had stopped. But Davis kept stabbing.
“Stop it, Davis,” I repeated.
He was manic. Tears spilled silently down his cheeks.
“Davis… they’re dead.”
Chest heaving, he finally dropped the pliers, and a grim shade of satisfaction came over his face. He stepped back, every vein in his arms and neck bulging, chest heaving, and for a moment I feared for my own safety.
“Let’s get out of here now, all right?” I said softly.
Davis took in a deep breath, not displaying any regret over what he had done, and I suspected if I wasn’t here, he would continue. The white T-shirt stretched over him was soaked with sweat and the Labcoats blood. His feet were bare, but he didn’t flinch when he stepped on a shard of broken glass. The instability in his eyes was absolutely frightening, and I warily watched him pick up the ring of keys that had fallen to the ground.
“Ready?” I asked, stepping into the hall.
“Sindra,” was all he said, and he was charging toward the room we’d heard her screaming from, frantically trying keys in the lock until one clicked.
When the door opened, it brought me to my knees. There she was. Chained to the wall. Beaten and bloody and covered in cuts and welts from the whip. Her hair had been shaved off and she was dressed only in black and blue bruises that covered her thighs and torso. Her eyes were open, but they were distant and unfocused. The glorious and revered Sindra had been broken, and I wondered by the mess of her if she even had any hours left in her life. She barely registered Davis removing her shackles and falling into his arms. I grabbed a coat from a hook. Together we maneuvered her into the sleeves while she moaned in pain.
“Davis?” she croaked, eyelids fluttering as she drifted in and out of consciousness as he scooped her up into his arms.
“It will be all right,” he said, voice tight. “I’m getting you out of here. You’re safe now.”
In moments, whoever was in the security room would see us on camera and there would be no escaping. Davis stood still, staring down at Sindra in his arms as if he’d forgotten what we were doing.
“Davis, we have to hurry,” I urged.
He shook his head then bolted from the room. We passed the others in the hallway as we made our way back to the stairwell. I tossed them the keys and the scalpel that was still in my shaking hand.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Davis said darkly as we headed up the stairs. “They don’t want out. They want to die.”
I was about to ask why but changed my mind when I could hear muffled screams followed by the thud of bodies falling to the floor.
No amount of scotch was going to make me forget this day.
Oliver was certain that this time we’d have a way out of the laundry room, and I had to admit, I admired his positivity.
We were on the last of six stairwells that led up to various sections and floors of the estate, all barricaded and boarded up at the bottom and the top. Our hands were bloodied and swollen from prying away boards and bricks, and legs tired from climbing God knows how many flights of stairs. At the top of each, we’d been met with a wall of solid concrete. This stairwell was our last hope.
The vending machine was almost out of food, the remaining pop was warm and making nasty sweaters on our teeth, neither of us had slept at all. Whether it was day or night or one day or the next, it was impossible to tell. Exhaustion was getting the better of me. Oliver too, obvious by the increasing hunch in his broad shoulders and the short answers to my questions.
“Why so many entrances?” I asked, willing one foot in front of the other and drawing in lungfuls of damp, musty air. One step, two steps… three hundred and fifty steps…
“Big building,” he said breathlessly.
“The laundry chute… I don’t think it will hold our weight if we have to climb it.”
Oliver was struggling. “It won’t.”
“So, if this stairwell ends with another concrete wall, we’re screwed.”
“Thanks for pointing that out, Captain Obvious.”
We must have been somewhere around the third or fourth floor, and I felt a burst of energy when I could see a sheet of plywood covering the exit at the top and not a cement wall. There was the faint echo of footsteps behind it too, and voices, muffled but encouraging.
Oliver collapsed behind me while I wondered what was on the other side; a hallway? One of many ballrooms? A guest suite? Henry Lowen’s office? I was filled with even more energy at the thought of running into him. Getting my hands around his neck would be so satisfying.
Painstakingly stabbing at the plywood with a butter knife I’d found in the break room, I worked at trying to make a hole big enough to see through. I felt crazed wondering where Kaya was, worrying about her so intensely that I didn’t notice the floor shake with approaching footsteps.
“Be quiet, Luke,” Oliver warned.
I held still. Many guards marched past. I even heard the swish of their swinging arms.
“They’re patrolling,” Oliver wheezed.
I sat back on my heels, the tiny hole in the plywood staring at me like the light at the end of the tunnel. When it was quiet, I got back to work, ignoring stinging blisters and the uncontrollable shaking of my arms. Not enough food or sleep and the lingering pain of my healing wounds had made me weak. When the knife slipped from my grasp, Oliver snatched it up without second thought.
More footsteps. We waited. We remained quiet. And when there was only the sound of our heavy breathing, he took over, shaving and slicing off hunks of plywood while sweat dripped into his eyes. When he faltered, I took the knife, putting my shoulders and back into it, using my body weight as leverage because the strength in my hands was failing. When we finally had a hole a few inches across, I wrenched my fingertips in and pulled off a foot-wide strip—only to find a wall of stone.
Oliver sighed so heavily I thought he’d never catch another breath.
“This is fine, Oliver,” I said, taking on the positive role now. “At least it’s not cement. We can get through this.”
“Yah,” he muttered bitterly.
“Really, if we can get a few pieces loose, we can at least see what we’re dealing with.”
“I just… I know where this wall is, Luke. And we couldn’t be breaking through in a worse spot.”
He drew in a long breath, but it seemed to be an effort for him. His dark skin seemed grey, like it did in that hotel room when he was going through withdrawal.
“You don’t look so good,” I said.
“Tired,” he muttered.
I pulled away some more plywood then started picking at the mortar. The dull knife was frustrating and slow going, and I had to stop when I heard another rush of footsteps.
&nbs
p; “This is going to take forever,” I said, my hair soaked against my cheeks. “We need better tools.”
Oliver’s reply was a cough. He covered his mouth and his eyes began to water madly as his chest heaved violently. More footsteps were approaching.
“Dammit, they’ll hear you,” I said, dropping the knife and reaching for him. “Quick, get downstairs.”
He clung to the railing as I followed him back down to the laundry room, cough growing louder and more aggressive. I was half worried he might hock up a lung and half worried he might take the fast way to the bottom if his feet gave out, so I kept a grip on him. Guiding him through the long hallway of spider web-covered laundry machines and shelves of linens, I was relieved to get him to the break room and onto the makeshift bed.
“I’m fine,” he said, closing his eyes.
He wasn’t. “I know,” I said, patting his shoulder. “You just need to rest.”
He didn’t object.
I wrestled open a pop and held it out to him, my hands shaking harder and leaving my own trail of blood from broken blisters all over the place. I stumbled and realized I needed rest, too.
“We have to have our wits about us once we get through that wall,” I said, falling into a creaky chair.
Oliver was already asleep.
I finished some flat root beer, scarfed back some stale chips, and stretched out next to him on my stomach, letting the wounds on my back breathe. I closed my eyes. I thought of Kaya, dreamed of her. On a beach. Her pink painted toes. Stretched out on the sand next to me with sunlight dancing in her eyes… Then I dreamed of all the ways I could make Henry Lowen suffer for what he’d done to us.
Persistence and luck helped coax away enough stone to reveal the backside of a piece of furniture. Oliver and I made a hole big enough to fit through, then pushed an armoire, massive and ancient, out of the way. It screeched across the marble floor, thankfully not toppling over, and we crawled out from behind it into a dark hall.
The air was much better here. Cool. Clean. Rich. I drew in deep lungfuls as I took in my surroundings. It seemed I had stepped back in time. Medieval and dim, a cavernous hallway was lined with flat stone and gold framed portraits lit by the orange glow of gas burning lamps. There were no windows. No doors. Only stairs at each end—one set winding up, the other twisting down.
“Which way?” My voice sounded too loud.
Oliver shoved the armoire back against the hole while I kept watch. “Left.”
I followed him and almost collided with his backside when he spun around and headed in the opposite direction. “Nope, right.”
“Ya sure?” I asked.
He sighed. “Nope.”
“Ah, that’s comforting. I thought you knew this place.”
“So did I. Now stop yammering and let me think, Golden Boy.”
“I hate that nickname,” I muttered, following him down the stairs and into a room of antiques covered in thick layers of dust. Worn, blood-red carpet led us from there into another hall, this one lined with many doors and silvery grey brick walls. At the approach of chattering maids, we slipped into a dark alcove that covered a now boarded-up public washroom. There, we waited. Held our breath as four vacant-eyed guards marched by, then a man with a cart, then four more guards… and it seemed like we would be here for hours when another stream of people rushed past. So when the coast was clear, we bolted, only to slow and creep along a dimly lit wall until it opened and overlooked one of the many ballrooms. Below was a vast and opulent space with what was either the sunrise, or the sunset sneaking in around thick velvet drapes. Oliver seemed flustered, his hand running over his cropped hair, eyes darting about nervously as he peered between the rungs of the railing we’d hunched in front of, then back the way we’d came.
“This is not a good place to be,” he said.
As if on cue, the unmistakable stride of a man below us moving with purpose echoed and shook the room, the heels of his shoes striking the marble floor and black glossy hair matching their shine. I blinked, crouched lower next to Oliver, and felt my pulse race; there, hands sparkling with diamonds and wearing an immaculate three-piece suit, was Henry.
Every part of me was consumed instantly with rage and hatred. The desire to leap over the balcony and crush him with my bare hands was so intense I saw red. I was standing again.
And then I wasn’t.
“If you move one more inch, I’ll kill you myself,” Oliver hissed.
He’d gotten a hold of the back of my pants and yanked me to the floor. Right. Oliver. Putting his life on the line to satisfy my craving to pulverize the love of my life’s father into mincemeat probably wasn’t a good idea.
“That’s his office,” Oliver whispered.
Henry was heading toward a doorway where a guard in the standard issue camo garb stood waiting, semi-automatic assault rifle slung over his shoulder.
“You’ve got one more hour, and one hour only!” Henry roared at him.
The guard, stocky and wide, stood his ground, not flinching.
“Have all the guest rooms been checked?” Henry asked.
“Yes, sir. Twice. Every room in this building and the North Section has been thoroughly searched. All boarded-up spaces as well. Every nook and cranny, inside and out—kitchens, pool area—no rock has been left unturned. There is no sign of them anywhere.”
“Well, we know they’re still here!” Henry was yelling. My skin prickled. “Oliver got in. So, where the hell is he?”
The guard kept his composure. Oliver, however, couldn’t hide the slight smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. Apparently, seeing Henry upset pleased him, too.
“We will find them,” the guard assured him.
Henry paced a moment, eyes cast downward, pinching the bridge of his nose. “When you do, Oliver gets returned to me alive and unharmed. Understand?”
The guard must have nodded because there was no audible reply, just the sound of the wind whipping around outside, hammering against the windows with a fury that matched Henry’s.
“But kill the rest. Sindra, Davis, Stephan—when you find them, get rid of them. And Mr. Luke Ravelle—save me some recognizable pieces to send my daughter.”
Stephan and Davis must have escaped and taken Sindra with them. Oliver and I both breathed a sigh of relief at this realization.
Oliver tapped my shoulder and pointed up; a camera aimed on the ballroom was now swiveling in our direction. We crept off the balcony and back into the safety of yet another long hall, stopping at a gate that blocked us from going any farther.
“Let’s hope they haven’t changed the codes,” Oliver muttered. I half expected sirens and red flashing lights to alert everyone in the estate where we were when he entered a series of numbers on a keypad—but the gate swung open easily and we passed through.
Then we were ducking behind ornate pillars of marble, grateful for the shoddy lighting, moving up more stairs, hearts beating and sweating bullets.
“Why are all the windows painted black?” I asked, feeling desperate somehow for any clue to the time of day.
“I dunno. This is new.”
Dodging cameras and hugging the walls, every door we passed was locked, every window completely sealed and covered. When we came to yet another gate—beyond it a corridor with a thick worn carpet leading to a leather couch—I knew exactly where we were.
“Kaya’s room?” I said.
Oliver nodded. “No key required. It’s the only room with a digital code like the gates.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, isn’t this the first place they’ll search?”
Oliver was through the gate and locking it back in place. “You heard that guard, they’ve already checked everywhere. It will be fine.”
I wasn’t sure if Oliver was thinking straight. I had the feeling that he was so used to being here it was giving him a false sense of security. With all the technology Henry had—gates in the halls, cameras, digital codes—you’d think he would h
ave some sort of trap laid. I mean, wouldn’t they expect Oliver to use the codes? Wouldn’t they have changed them?
“You’ve got a guy in security on your side,” I said.
“I think so,” Oliver replied, distracted, heading toward Kaya’s room.
He’s done this a thousand times, I thought as I watched him quickly punch in a set of numbers and push open the door. He strode into the room and all at once his shoulders folded, breath catching with a gasp. A handful of shells and pretty stones had caught his eye, and he picked them up off a bench where they had been set down next to a pink jacket. He closed his eyes.
“They were, are… hers?” I asked.
My voice seemed to startle him. “Yeah. Every time we went for a run, she had to fill her pockets. I gave her heck the last time. Told her it was unnecessary. But she saw beauty in things that I never did.” Oliver set the shells and stones down, carefully, and a rush of turmoil overtook his features. He strolled into the middle of the room where the faintest scent of men’s cologne lingered, and a half-full bottle of scotch was parked in front of a fireplace.
It was easy to forget that Oliver loved Kaya as much as I did. Easy to forget that he was suffering from heart ache. You don’t just fall out of love with someone because they don’t want you anymore, you just find a way to deal with it—I wasn’t sure if Oliver had dealt with it.
“We need to find Stephan,” I said, hoping to keep him focused. “It doesn’t sound like he is on Henry’s Christmas card list. Me neither since he’s requested I be chopped into pieces. But, bonus for you, at least you’re wanted alive.”
“Yeah. Well, we both know why that is,” Oliver grumbled. “He wants to use me to manipulate Kaya again. He still thinks he has control over my mind. He still needs me to get her—”
He didn’t say the word pregnant because it caught in his throat and held there. We had gotten to know each other, Oliver and I, but that was one thing that was not discussed. Ever. The thought of his hands on her, exploring the most private details of her body, knowing her the way I so desperately wanted to… made me completely crazy.
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