Footsteps thumped in the stairwell he’d come up minutes earlier. And more voices. It wasn’t just one person, but three. Reese’s hands grew slick with sweat and he readjusted his grip on the knife, then crouched behind the tilted front door and waited. If the kidnappers had circled behind him, his days among the living were likely over. Reese clenched his teeth. He hoped Cami and Amber would understand—he couldn’t abandon Jo to those animals and if he died trying to save her…well…he prayed someone might do the same for his family.
Voices drifted in through the open door, louder and clearer with every passing second.“…tell if he came up here?”
“Ssssh! You want him to hear us?”
Reese closed his eyes and swallowed. His senses went into overdrive. He felt each bead of sweat crawl down his face. They left a track of nerves that tingled in rhythm to mark the sweat droplet’s passage toward his chin.
“There—the door,” someone hissed, just outside the apartment. They’d made it to the fourth-floor landing. “That’s where he went.”
“You ready?” asked a deep voice. The man sounded big. Reese narrowed his eyes, ready to fight for his life. His patience with the new world had run out. If the new reality was kill-or-be-killed, so be it. No more hesitation—more than just his life was on the line.
The first person through the door went to the right and angled for the open windows. He was a short, skinny man, about the size of a teenager, with long, greasy hair and a pair of muddy jeans that looked a size too large. The second one through the door—larger and with dark skin and a thick neck—watched the first, but went straight ahead. Still, Reese waited.
Number three made it through the door and Reese tilted the blade of his knife just so. A bright beam of light lit up the far side of the studio. The third man froze in his tracks, just a few feet from Reese, mesmerized by the sudden appearance of the light on the far wall.
“Hey,” he called out in warning. “What’s—“
Reese pounced. He leapt to his feet behind the last man into the apartment and brought the blade up and around his throat, poised over the man’s Adam’s apple. “Don’t move,” he whispered as the metal touched flesh and his captive went rigid.
“Urkh!” he managed to grunt, before Reese pulled the blade a fraction of an inch tighter and he froze. “Uh…guys?” he muttered. “Little help, here?”
“Anybody moves and I cut this guy’s head off,” Reese snarled. He made sure to keep his body behind the hostage in case the other two were armed with more than a knife. “Understand?”
The other two men turned, and Reese got another shock. The first one through the door wasn’t a man at all, but a young woman. Mud-streaked and filthy, it was obvious when she turned around that she wasn’t a he. She took a step forward, her face contorted by what Reese could only assume as a mixture of anger and fear, and only stopped when the larger black man put a gentle hand on her shoulder and stopped her forward movement.
“You heard what the man said,” he muttered, his voice like bottled thunder.
“If you hurt him…I swear to God…” she growled in one of the thickest Boston accents Reese had ever heard. Her hands bunched into fists at her side as she visibly shook with impotent rage.
“Easy now,” her big companion murmured. He raised both hands slowly. “Nobody wants any trouble, friend.”
“Friend?” Reese mocked. “You followed me—you’re with them.” He turned and put his back against the wall, and the movement dragged his captive as a shield. The man gasped as the blade scraped the delicate skin under his jaw but kept his hands up and moved with Reese as best he could under the circumstances. Reese made sure to use the man’s body to hide the fact that he only had one good arm and hoped the ruse would last long enough for him to make his escape. He was only a few feet from the door…
“Them?” scoffed the girl. “You drunk, or just stupid? No way we’re with them.”
“Carla…” pleaded the man with the knife to his throat.
The big man took a cautious step forward and kept a meaty arm in front of Carla. “It’s okay, buddy…no one wants to hurt you. And I promise you, we’re not with them.”
“Oh yeah?” Reese sneered. He peered over his captive’s shoulder. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“How do we trust you?” Carla spat.
The big man lowered his arms. “Because he’s not from Boston. Listen to him—you from the south somewhere…am I right?”
“That doesn’t mean anything, Semmi—they got those Mexican guys with ‘em,” Carla argued. “They’re from the south, right?”
“MS-13,” the man corrected, as he glanced over his shoulder at Carla. “And this guy’s no enforcer. Look at him, he’s got a busted arm for cryin’ out loud.” He looked at Reese. “Let’s start this over—my name is Semmi, this is my friend Carla, and that’s her dad, Harry,” he said with a nod of his head toward Reese’s prisoner.
“Nice to meet ya,” the man whispered.
“I can’t trust you,” Reese said, but the adrenaline rush he’d felt course through his body when he’d first heard them enter the building faded almost as fast as it had hit. His arm suddenly felt like lead and the knife in his hand became too heavy to hold. Exhaustion took its toll and Reese knew
