I mean, sure, I shared my Netflix login with my mother, but she didn’t count. Did she?
Another memory hit me. Damn it.
What about Mandy?
Did I really act bitchy one time and fate decided I deserve to be kidnapped? Yes, I told my coworker Mandy Shafter that her new haircut gave her giraffe neck. It was mean. Rude. Nasty.
But well-deserved.
She walked around for three whole years calling people fat or reminding them how horrible they looked if they came to work tired or with eye bags. You can’t always help eye bags. We were nurses! I’d been tired for years. She didn’t need to remind me how horrible I looked every morning before I had my coffee.
But really? A kidnapping? That seemed harsh.
“Imogen?” Cyrus said my name softly and ripped my thoughts back to the present kidnapping. “I…”
“Who did this to us, Cyrus?”
He stared at me for a second, as if he needed the time to gather his thoughts and decide what to tell me. “I can’t be certain, but have you heard of The Grandmaster?”
I shook my head. “Who?”
“He’s a mob boss in Chicago. Are you sure you’ve never heard of him?” he asked so casually it sounded as if he talked about mob bosses every day.
Another head shake. The only mobsters I recognized were the ones from the Godfather movies and Al Capone.
“I didn’t think so,” he said. “He claims one of his employees has gone rogue. I’m assuming he wants my brother to do side work for him, but I have no idea why they’d take a nurse from North Carolina.”
His words rang with truth but didn’t bring the relief I expected. They left me wondering how long I’d survive.
“What are we going to do?” I asked, hoping he’d have an amazing plan of escape already prepared, and we were just waiting for me to wake up before putting it into action.
CHAPTER 2
CYRUS
“We wait.”
I spotted the expectation in her eyes as soon as she asked the question. A splash of hopefulness.
As if she expected me to break out a package of dental floss from my back pocket and guide us out of our situation.
We were in a shipping crate and I was the face of my operation with my twin Corbin, not the brains. Plus, dental floss never worked against metal. And our jail cell wouldn’t crack easily. Someone modified the shipping crate in a sick design created to keep us inside but without the fear of running out of air. One whole side of the crate had a hole cut into it. Thick metal bars stuck so close together my finger barely fit through the holes created our literal cell wall. Someone aced welding in shop class.
I wasn’t Superman or MacGyver, so we were screwed.
Before they dropped Imogen with her pile of black hair and beautiful eyes into the shipping crate, I had two days to consider what they normally hauled in this specially designed prison. It wasn’t Amazon packages.
Just as I noticed the hopefulness in her question, I also recognized the minute she realized I didn’t have a plan and freaked.
“Wait?” she asked, her voice getting high. If it wasn’t so dry, it would’ve probably been a screech.
I wished I had something for her—water for her to drink or food to snack on. No one had been to check on her since they threw her on the cold, hard floor. I’d already finished drinking the Glacier Bay water bottle they chucked in the cell the day before. I crushed the plastic bottle in my boredom and shoved it through the bars.
If I’d known I’d have a beautiful cellmate joining me, then I would have saved the water for her.
Now we were both out of water, and if we didn’t eat or drink soon, we’d only continue to grow weaker.
I scooted to the other side of the shipping container and placed my back up against the wall. The container wasn’t large, and if we both stuck our feet out, we’d only have a foot or so between us. Earlier I made myself uncomfortable by sitting in the middle of the floor with Imogen’s head in my lap. But I couldn’t imagine leaving her lying on the cold ground and I didn’t want to drag her to the corner.
