Page 59 of Knight Watch

Before she could react, she was pulled up by her arm. A door opened, and she saw Kingsley, bloody and battered but alive, tied to a chair in the middle of an empty room.

His head lifted when they entered, and his entire body tensed at seeing her. “Syd!”

Before she could answer, Raymond, pulled a gun and pointed it at his head. “Don’t play with me, niece. You have more to lose than I do. Where are the papers?”

Her eyes locked with Kingsley, both trying to convey everything that couldn’t be said out loud. “Let him leave and I’ll tell you.”

“No!” Kingsley’s body thrashed against the chair, but he wasn’t able to get free.

Forcing herself to look away from the love of her life, she turned to her uncle. “Let him go, and you can have the papers.” It was an empty promise that would get her killed, but she didn’t have a choice.

The smirk her uncle gave her made her shiver.

Troy laughed behind her. “I fear your husband can’t leave for the time being. He’s a little bit on the clock.”

Sydney turned to Kingsley, and the box under his chair with wires coming out from it. Her body moved before she realized, but Troy grabbed her hair again to hold her back.

Her uncle chuckled as he kneeled beside Kingsley. A few lights went on before shutting down again.

“We tried beating the answers out of your dear husband, but he’s a tight-lipped bastard. But I wonder, Sydney, does he know what happened between us all those years ago? How I made you a woman? Do you remember it, Sydney? How it felt? The pain, your screams? How Troy held you down while I took you?”

Tears began streaming down her face, and all she could do was close her eyes as memories assailed her. She could feel the bile rising in her throat knowing that Kingsley could hear her uncle’s sick words, knowing what a shock it would have been for him to hear it that way if she hadn’t had the courage to tell him what had happened.

“As beating your dear husband didn’t work, we thought that a little time-constrained incentive might work better. You have five minutes until this bomb goes off and tears him into shreds. Five minutes to decide if those papers are worth more than his life. Bang on the door once you’ve made a decision. You either hand over the documents or stay with him until the end. But either way, I win. I’ll find those papers no matter what and kill anyone from Alliance that stands in my way.” And with one last look, her uncle and his henchman closed the door on them, the click of the lock sealing their fate.

Sydney bolted toward Kingsley, but he shook his head. “Don’t touch me. I’m not sure what type of bomb it is. Find a way out of here. Check the door, try to take it down!”

Still, Sydney remained there and shook her head. “I’m not leaving you here to die, Kingsley Knight. Do you hear me?”

“I won’t let you sacrifice your life for me!”

They needed help, so she took Malco’s phone from her bra. From the number of messages she saw, it seemed that the team had discovered her escape pretty quickly. As she opened the screen, there was an incoming call. “Hello?”

Someone cursed in Spanish. “Sydney, it’s Malco. Where are you? We’re trying to track you through my phone, but we can’t get a clear signal. Are you in a basement or surrounded by concrete?”

“I don’t have time much time. Kingsley is attached to a bomb that’s going to blow in less than five minutes. I need help.”

More cursing came over the line and Malco ordered her to put him on speaker. “King, sit-rep.”

Kingsley tried to look, but his movements were so restricted she knew he couldn’t see anything. Sydney got to her belly and crawled as close as she could to the box under the chair.

“It’s a black box. I don’t see anything else.”

“How long do you have?”

“Four minutes remaining.”

The silence over the phone stretched until Sydney realized the phone had died. If the universe thought that adding another level of difficulty was amusing, she didn’t approve.

She looked up at Kingsley who nodded, his expression grave. “It’s you and me for this one, baby.”

Not about to be defeated, Sydney returned between his legs. “I’ll tell you what I see, you tell me what to do.”

“That’s crazy, you know nothing of bombs.”

“I know, but it’s all we’ve got left.”

Barely breathing, she gently moved one of the panels to the side and saw four colored wires and blinking lights. She wasn’t sure what she was looking at and her heart sank. If only the bomb had been made from old car parts. Those she knew and understood.