It gets brighter for all of two seconds before a heavy door opens. Inside, the floor is smooth, the air stuffy.
Ten steps. Fifteen. Counting stops me from losing control and sobbing until the end. I want to see my dad one more time. Enzo will make sure he knows I’m here. That I’m alive. Maybe I can warn him. Somehow.
Someone snaps the zip tie around my wrists. But with my ankles bound, the freedom does me no good. I’m dragged until my back hits a pole, and my arms are wrenched behind me.
“No. Use the ropes,” Lincoln says sharply. “Less evidence, in the end.”
Balling my hands into fists, I try to make myself bigger—like West did for his self-defense class. Rough fibers drag over my skin, cinched so tight, I’m not sure my efforts will do any good.
They cut my legs free, then force me down onto my ass before they tie my ankles together, and pull off the hood.
A shadowy figure looms over me. Enzo. “Do you know where you are, Nathan?”
Gagged, I can’t tell him to go fuck himself.
Of course I don’t know where I am, shithead. Your goons put a hood over my head and threw me in the truck of a car.
“This is one of your father’s warehouses.” Enzo sweeps his hand in a wide arc, and I squint into the distance. Hundreds of boxes are stacked against concrete walls. Bourbon. Gin. Vodka. “He forced me out of the liquor business five years ago. Would you like to know how?”
I don’t give a flying fuck.
“He burned my inventory to the ground.” Excitement brightens his eyes as Lincoln hands him a bottle of vodka. Enzo cracks the seal and takes a swig. “I’d offer you some, but…” He shrugs, leans down, and taps the bottle to the tape over my lips.
All around the building, men rip into the boxes, open a bottle or two, and pour the contents over the cardboard. But it’s not until Enzo upends the vodka all over my legs that I realize what he’s planning.
“No. You can’t. Just shoot me!”
My pleas dissolve into muffled grunts. Enzo grabs my chin and squeezes hard enough, tears spring to my eyes. “My wife and daughter burned to death. My liquor business burned to death. You and your father will do the same.”
I jerk against the ropes, desperate for any slack, any way to get myself free. Until Benny jogs over, pulls a gun from under his jacket, and presses it to my collar bone. “We’re ready boss.”
“If he moves, shoot him in the kneecaps,” Enzo says. “Lincoln? Start the car. I want to be on the ridge overlooking the warehouse in plenty of time to watch Angelo arrive. I’ll be out in five minutes.”
The younger DeLuca passes his father a cell phone. “I want to see that son of a bitch when you tell him where we are.”
“No. Start the car. I am still the head of this family, and I will not have my son challenge me!” Enzo’s hand flies, the slap echoing off the concrete walls.
Shock gives way to anger, but when Benny stands up straighter, Lincoln drops his head. “I’ll be in the car.”
Enzo gives him a terse nod, then unlocks the phone. “Time to call your father, Nathan. I’m sure he’ll be dying to see you again.”
Raelynn
The two blessed hours I slept were enough to take the edge off my exhaustion, but getting up again almost broke me.
I’ve checked my phone a dozen times in the past five minutes, and it’s still only 7:45 p.m. Limping out to the main room, I find West and Ryker with a French Press pot of coffee between them. “Any chance y’all have a cup to spare? Or a lidocaine shot? Or both?”
West looks me up and down. “What did Connor say on the plane?”
“Five miles of bad road in the middle of nowhere,” Ry says.
“I ain’t lookin’ to win a beauty pageant. You gonna help a girl out? Or not?”
Ryker lumbers to his feet and retrieves one of the collapsible mugs from a duffel bag on the floor while West snags his med kit.
“Drop your pants and sit.” The SEAL hooks his foot around a chair and tugs it closer.
My left leg is a mass of blue and purple bruises—one in the distinct shape of Diego’s shoe. Disapproval and concern war in West’s eyes. “Promise me you’ll stay in the van unless one of us calls for assistance.”
