I stopped struggling, but I knew I was in trouble. The voice in my ear wasn’t the same voice on the phone, and that confirmed my worst fears. There had been multiple intruders.
And as far as I knew, they had already killed my father.
“What do you want?” I murmured against the man’s palm.
My assailant snickered. “I’m going to slowly remove my hand. But, if you make a sound at all? I give the command.”
Fuck, there was absolutely more than one of them, and I knew I was in trouble. Much more trouble than I knew how to handle. But, he stayed true to his word. When I didn’t make a sound, he released me, and I whipped around as quickly as I could to get a good look at the man who thought he could lay his hands on my family and get away with it. And, for the smallest of moments, I was struck by how…
Jesus, I thought criminals were supposed to look like shit for their mugshots.
“What do you want?” I managed to choke out.
The lean, chiseled man, with his blonde hair and icy blue eyes, gave me the most crooked smile I’d ever seen as his rolled-up leather jacket sleeves boasted of muscles bulging from his forearms.
Ah, there’s the criminal.
“We want what is owed to us,” he said as he clasped his hands behind his back.
I raked my gaze down his form. “I don’t know who you guys are or what you want, but it’s imperative that you let my father go. He’s sick.”
“A desperate plea. How quaint.”
I pointed toward the kitchen. “See all of those orange bottles stacked up by the fridge?”
The man didn’t even flinch. “I did when we first walked in.”
His words turned my gut. “He needs those meds. I come over just about every morning to make sure he’s taken them, so I know that he hasn’t had them yet. He’ll die if he doesn’t get them, so where is he? Where did you take him? Because I’m telling you, I don’t have the strength to bury another parent and--.”
“I thought I told you to shut her up.”
The gruff voice that had mocked me over the phone sounded behind me and I gasped. I whipped around, quick as lightening, and I watched as a behemoth shadow lumbered down the darkened hallway. My eyes widened as I took a few steps back. I had to crane my neck back to keep the man’s shadowed head in view as he approached me. Where the hell had he been hiding?
I mean, I cleared all my corners just like Gordon had once taught me. So, where the fuck had he been hiding?
“I don’t know who you are or what you want, but my father, he needs his--.”
The sliver of light pouring through the kitchen window caught his shadowed body and my breath got ripped from my lungs. The behemoth’s steel gray eyes held me hostage as the weathered, jagged scar across his face weakened my knees. I felt my back fall against something hard. I slid my hands around, trying to find anything to help. A weapon, or a picture. A doorknob, or a window. Something to get me out.
Something to keep me alive.
“You,” I glowered.
The man hovered over me with his gigantic shadow, shrouding me away from view. And as he lifted his hand into the air, he snapped his fingers.
Before the slender man with the oceanic eyes wrapped me back up.
“No! Please! Where have you taken m--.”
He clapped his hand back over my mouth, but that didn’t stop me from talking.
“My fiancée is on the way!” I shrieked. “I called 9-1-1! They’ll be here before you know it, you son of a bitch!”
I kicked my legs up and slammed my heel into what I figured were his balls. But instead, I had slammed my heel into his thigh.
Causing the man with the metal eyes to grin. “Feisty.”
He looked me up and down, seemingly devouring me with his hungry stare before he pinned me with his glare.
