“A patch?”
Ravi looks over my shoulder at Paco who spoke.
“Yeah, something with flames.”
My entire body seizes and I hear Paco’s soft curse behind me before he asks, “Was there a name on the logo?”
“All I can remember is that it started with an A.”
Sophia
Dust kicks up as the bikes round the building, heading toward the rear.
Then I notice the car that brought us here is no longer out front. Neither are the two guys.
I pull the tape up a little higher, hoping to see more outside, but there’s no sign of any life. I hear a groan and turn to see Mandy blinking her eyes. I rush over and drop to my knees beside her.
“Hey…are you okay? Mandy?”
She seems a little disoriented but eventually her eyes seem to focus on me.
“Wha…”
I try to make out the rest of her words but her slur is so thick I can’t distinguish anything she says.
“It’s okay,” I say stupidly.
Of course it’s not okay. It’s not okay at all.
I sink down on my butt, frustration threatening to overwhelm me, and once again I try to wrench my hands apart. It’s no use; I can’t get any movement. I remember once seeing a video of a girl using her shoelace to get out of zip ties binding her wrists. Unfortunately, I’m wearing sandals and even if I had a shoelace, I can’t remember how she did it.
I can’t believe they just drove by. Maybe I should’ve tried to break the window, gotten their attention. Hell, I’m starting to doubt that was even Tse at all.
The room slowly turns brighter as outside the sun climbs higher in the sky. Waiting for something to happen is driving me crazy. What if I could break the window? With my hands tied behind my back I can’t hold on to anything. I’d have to jump and there’s no chance in hell I’d come out of that in one piece.
A faint scraping sound draws my attention and I turn my head slightly to hear better.
There it is again. Is someone here? Maybe they didn’t leave.
The thought has barely formed when I hear distinct footsteps coming up the stairs, and in the next instant I’m on my feet.
“In here!” I make my way to the door and kick it as hard as I can. “We’re in here!”
Suddenly I can’t hear anything anymore and press my ear against the surface. There’s rustle of fabric, then a soft jingle and the scratch of metal on metal as someone slides a key in the door.
It takes me only a second to clue in it’s not likely someone who is here to rescue us has a key ready. I’m already backing away when the door opens.
“Hola, Mamacita.”
I press myself into a corner as he saunters into the room, barely glancing at Mandy, his focus on me. The other guys scared me with their anger, but much more terrifying is the smile on Tse’s former friend’s face. I thought I had this figured out, but now I’m more confused than ever.
“What do you want with us?”
He looks down at Mandy.
“Nothing with her. She was a means to an end and now she’s useless.” Then his eyes slowly track up my body and I start to shiver. “Now you’re a means to an end.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He chuckles and leans in, sniffing me. It turns my stomach.
“You’re the prize, hermosa. Already your fear smells like victory.”
“I d-don’t understand,” I stutter, the shaking making it hard to speak.
Manny steps back and starts pacing the room.
“You will. Once my brother shows up, you will.”
He almost spits out the word, brother, like it leaves a filthy taste in his mouth.
“Are you talking about Tse?”
I’ve got to keep him talking, distracted from whatever he has planned. I watch him pace the room and every time he moves away from the open door, I look at the hallway beyond. But there’s no way I could get to the door before he’d catch up with me.
“Did he tell you we grew up together?”
He glances over and I nod.
“In foster care.”
He snorts derisively and closes the distance. “I’d hardly call that care. Did he tell you our so-called foster father liked boys?”
Oh, Jesus.
He sees the shock on my face and smiles.
“Yeah. She liked the extra money and turned a deaf ear. But I heard; the beatings and the…”
He shakes his head, as if to clear it, before he leans so close I can feel his heavy breath on my skin.
“Ben promised to protect me but he didn’t. Then he told me he’d always have my back. That was a lie too.”
I’m having trouble breathing, the monstrosities he describes sending bile up my throat. Then the horror turns to fear when it dawns on me: this is revenge. I’m bait and he…he’s going to kill him.
“He was just a kid too. He’s a good man, please don’t hurt him.”
He braces a hand on the wall beside my head and his body crowds mine. I feel like a caged animal.
“Waited years for a chance to pay him back. Killing him was never enough. Death doesn’t scare him. But I knew the moment I saw him with you in that parking lot—that look on his face—you meant something to him. I could’ve taken you then, but as luck would have it, we’d just set up a new distribution line that involved the Arrow’s Edge restaurant.”
He barks out a laugh.
“That was a thing of beauty. Stickin’ it to those fucking bastards and they didn’t have a clue.”
I shudder when I feel his free hand run up the side of my body, squeezing my hip before moving it higher.
“We had a good thing going for a while, but this is even better. We’ll be killing two birds with one stone.”
When his hand reaches the swell of my breast, I whimper as he kneads it roughly.
“No one left to tie us to
