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“No shit, Nikki. I can see he found you.” My eyes rolled. “What I want to know is how. You know what? It doesn’t even matter. Now we need to work on getting out of here…”

Nikki whipped her head to the side to look at me. “No, bitch. Not Mario,” she fired back. “My ex-husband found me.”

“Espera, ¿Qué dijiste? What did you say? Ex-husband?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Well, he might not be my ex? I might still be married to him. I couldn’t exactly mail him the divorce papers, you know?” She paused for a moment. “Then again, my father essentially sold me to the asshole, so who knows if I was ever legally married…”

“What kind of telenovela am I living in right now? Okay, we’ll get back to that bomb you just dropped, but what does it have to do with you being here?” I asked.

“Oh, right. There was a note at my safe house from my ex. And when I was trying to figure out where else to go, Mario showed up. Threw me into your upstairs office, and now here we are,” she replied.

I turned my head to look her in the eyes.

“Nikki, I’m going to get you out of here. But you’re going to have to follow my lead. And you’re going to leave me when an opening arises.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but I shut her down.

“No, Nikki. You have to leave me behind and find Gunner and Dex. Listen, babe, I love you, and you’re fierce and a fighter. But not a literal fighter.”

“Yeah, but I can shoot,” she protested. “Your drill sergeant ass made me practice until I could shoot off a grouping. Consistently.”

I smiled at the memory of making her run through shooting drills repeatedly until she did them correctly. But I knew Nikki, and she probably hadn’t shot in months.

“Babe, I love you. But I’ll be worried about your ass the whole time. So, when you get the chance, you leave me. Okay?”

Tears welled in her eyes. The thing about people who’d been through some shit in their lives was that we tended to be able to see things how they were, not how we wished them to be. She knew as well as I did that the chances of us both getting out weren’t great.

“Stop, Ryan. We’re going to get out. Gunner will come for you; that man is crazy about you. He won’t let this happen,” Nikki said, not ready to face the facts.

I gave her a somber smile.

“He doesn’t know where we are, Nikki. I left the burner so he couldn’t trace me. Mario threatened to sell you if I didn’t come alone, and he had people on the inside. I left some clues for Gunner so he didn’t think I had betrayed him and left him in the middle of the night. But I had to make sure he wouldn’t find me too quickly. I won’t risk him or you,” I said quietly.

Nikki hung her head, giving me a single nod. A sniffle sounded from her side of the room. But there was a look of determination when her eyes met mine.

“Got it. Fuck up these cocksuckers and then take the opening,” she said.

The corners of my lips pulled upward, but the door opened before I could comment. I wished I could’ve given Nikki more details, but honestly, the plan was fluid at this point. We’d have to react on the fly and pray to Santa Muerte that it worked.

The asshole who’d whispered in my ear walked through the door.

Well, fuck yeah. This made getting Nikki out so much easier.

I kept my face neutral as I flexed my shoulders and repositioned my hands under my shirt with the tops flat against my back, keeping my movements discreet.

“Well, well, well. Look at the new toys I get to play with. Well, toy.” He walked over to Nikki and tucked a strand of her blond locks behind her ear. A nasty snarl left her lips.

He tsked at her. “It’s too bad your ass is already spoken for; some big wig with the Russian mob.” His words drew a small gasp from my friend. The noise made the asshole’s smile widen.

“So it’s true. We have a case of a runaway bride. Maybe I should sample the goods and tell him how they are. I mean, he can’t be expecting a virgin anymore, right? Not since you became a whore.” He leaned forward, inhaling the scent of Nikki’s hair. She gagged at the proximity of the vile creature.

The fucker was dead.

My hands inched up my back, sliding under my sports bra. The feeling of cold metal met my fingers when I reached the blade stored in the band. Fuckers figured since I came in guns blazing, I only had one weapon. They didn’t bother checking. Working for Mario made them lazy and weak. Traits I’d been banking on. Thank Santa Muerte, I was right.

The moment I grasped the blade, I cut through the zip tie. Uncaring that I was going through the material of my shirt or that I may catch some skin in the process. There were about to be a lot of cuts and scrapes, so I might as well start mentally blocking them out now.

“Hey, asshole. Leave her alone,” I called out.