The pepper spray I kicked on my way in snapped my mouth shut. Her massive blue leather purse lay tipped on its side, half its contents spilled onto the floor, including her cell phone.
Panic rode me as I checked every room, knowing what I would find. The place was too quiet, too vacant, too devoid of fucking life for her to be here.
I stood in the middle of her living room, shaking with emotions I refused to identify.
What the fuck did I do now?
With only one option coming to mind, I locked the door and headed out, calling the club as I raced down the stairs.
Mercy was missing, and my gut told me we didn’t have long to find her.
19
Mercy
PAIN RIPPED ME from sleep.
My eyes flung open despite the woodpecker currently feasting on my brain. Everything was dark. I was sitting in a chair with my feet on the ground, and I couldn’t move because my wrists and ankles had been restrained.
I stifled a scream for help, choking on it. Drawing more attention to myself was a horrible idea. Someone had taken and tied me up, and the stiffness in my neck and shoulders promised I’d been in this position for a while. That was okay. I was alive, and whatever this was, I could survive it. I’d spent my entire childhood navigating dangerous situations. I just needed to focus.
Who took me?
Memories of the party at the club flooded back. So much leather. Presents everywhere. Julia and I talked. Landon leered at some club girl who led him upstairs for sex.
And he fucking let her.
I needed to be okay with that, but anger and hurt flared, making me want to punch his stupid face. Though Landon wasn’t the reason I was in this mess.
Another face flashed in my head.
Luke. Holding a gun to my face.
I shook myself and focused on the here and now. My ass was asleep, and my arms and legs were cramping. I tried to stretch, but the zip ties made all but the slightest movements impossible.
“Mercy?”
“Ben?” I asked, my voice a squeak of shock as I searched through the darkness.
He let out a sob, and I tracked his location, squinting until I could make out the shadows of his form.
“What’s going on, Benny? Where are we?” I rubbed the zip ties on my wrists against the chair's metal, hoping to generate enough friction to weaken the plastic. It would take forever, but I had to try something.
“I’m so fucking sorry I got you involved in this shit.”
“That’s not exactly the kind of helpful information I need right now.” I thought I heard a sound outside the door, so I froze and waited for a second before whispering, “What shit are you talking about? I need to know what we’re dealing with.”
He sniffled. “I would have ended up in the system without you.”
Was he drunk?
Or did he have so little faith that we could get out of this? “We’ll talk about that later. Right now, I need to know what the fuck’s going on. How’s Luke involved?”
Ben shook his head. “The less you know, the better the chance is of him letting you go.”
A shiver tore up my spine. Luke’s messages had shown cracks in the version of him I thought I knew, but the manic delight I’d seen in his eyes before he’d knocked me out told me he’d slipped completely off the rails.
I had to get us out of here. “Stop being so melodramatic and help me.”
