Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91990 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91990 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
I’m not sure what’s going on, but this many suits and guns is never a good combination.
“I’m saying you’re a very powerful woman who genuinely has no self-preservation skills. It’s like you want to die, and you refuse to ask for help to save your life,” Drake hisses at Maya as we scramble in behind one of the massive spotlights shining down like a beacon toward a doorway.
The concrete floor below is visible, and there are certainly a lot of bloodstains creasing all the cracks.
Chains with hook ends hang like bad movie props to only add to the frustrating scene at hand.
“How is anyone going to help us out of this without dying? I don’t value my life above my boyfriend’s life. What else am I going to do? Call in a tactical team without any knowledge of what sort of firepower they have down there? That’s going to turn my people against me after carelessly getting myself into this position in the first place. Sarah will get out of this. She’s like a cockroach, and cockroaches survive everything. It’s like a cardinal rule of thumb or something,” Maya argues in a heated whisper. “After everyone is gone, we’ll calmly call for safe retrieval.”
Drake snatches her phone out of her pocket, quietly scuffling with her until he has her pinned. She’s not even struggling when lifts it…and…
“No battery,” I tell him when he quietly curses it.
The idle chatter and laughter from below is all loud enough to mask any small sounds we make up here.
He glares at Maya, who gives him an unapologetic shrug. “I threw it out the window when we started driving,” she confesses. “I expected you to try this before now.”
“And mine was in the fucking clown van that blew up,” Drake gripes, slipping down beside me as he leans against the spotlight’s massive mount. “I’m going to die a man in my prime without even getting my dick sucked by the women who keep unrepentantly dragging me to my demise.”
“If you survive, you’ll have some interesting stories to tell,” I tell him like I’m a silver-lining expert.
“I don’t tell interesting stories. Telling secretive stories is what gets simpleminded fools killed,” Drake bites out.
A rustling of hushed whispers erupts as an almost palpable silence permeates the room. With much more caution, I silently peer back over the edge, watching as the men below spread wider in the room, all the groups putting more and more distance between them.
Drake startles next to me when a loud alarm wails, but since none of the men look overly concerned, I just simply watch. The alarm cuts off, and motion stirs.
Maya jerks on the other side of me, as a heavy rattle, clank, click, click, clack sounds out all at once. The hooks with chains start moving, ending the sound of the alarm that I now realize was meant to warn people to get out of the way of the moving hook-chain conveyor thingy.
The men below have all trained their attention on the doorway in front of them where the chains are moving in from in more abundance.
My breath catches in my throat when one particular chain moves through the shadows and comes through the doorway, because a very familiar, possibly murderous, blonde comes through it with smiling eyes.
I have no idea if she’s smiling or not, because she’s wearing one of those masks similar to what Hannibal Lector had to wear.
“I’m not sure how I feel about her anymore,” Drake announces in a hushed tone.
Her hands are bound and chained far above her head, moving with the hook-chain. The hook is looped through the chains on her waist, that also wrap all the way down her legs, cocooning her in thick, metal confinement.
Her hair sways forward when the chains stop moving abruptly.
Silence descends, making it so quiet that you can hear my sharp breaths coming out in timid, short bursts.
Every man below us seems to move their hands to their weapons all at once, like they’re preparing for her to escape and start killing them.
“These guys are mid-level flunkies sent for product retrieval. This is an auction,” Maya finally says on a quiet breath. “She’s the merchandise.”
“What?” Drake whispers so softly that I have to pat Maya’s shoulder and repeat his question in her ear.
She gestures around. “They’re just the purse sent to view authenticity and bring home the trophy.”
“Sarah’s a trophy?” I ask in confusion.
“She’s singlehandedly dispatched full teams of highly trained mercenaries. When she worked for her father as the perfect brainwashed weapon, she made him a far more powerful man than he already was. Strategy kills are her expertise. She doesn’t just cut the head off of a snake—she removes all the other organs first to weaken the snake—”
“Ironic how she chose to love a man with the nickname Snake,” Drake states in dry sarcasm.