Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
“Hi.”
I sat up, everything spinning. “Careful,” she warned. “The drugs they pump into us linger.”
I pushed my hair off my face. “Who are you?”
“Annabelle Lewis.”
“What are you doing here?”
Her bottom lip quivered. “Same as you. They took me.”
“From where?”
“I had just arrived at the bus station. I was heading to the hotel, and they grabbed me and dragged me into an alley. I woke up here.” She paused. “Two weeks ago. Or maybe more. I can’t keep track.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “It’s always dark here.”
I shivered.
“You’re Una.”
I narrowed my eyes, shifting away. “How did you know that?”
“I was here. In the corner where I like to sit. I don’t think they can see me there, but even if they can, it’s as far as my chain stretches.”
“Oh.”
She met my eyes, hers glazed with tears. “I heard what he said. That younger, dark-haired one. I thought I was scared before, but now that I know what’s happening, I’m more terrified than I’ve ever been in my life.”
I studied her in the dimness. I could see she was about my age. Long blond hair that I was sure at one point was lovely and wavy. Now, it was a dirty, ratty mess. Her skin was grubby, her cheeks raw from wiping them when she cried, no doubt. She was thin and looked exhausted.
“The same way you’ll look soon,” a little voice in my head whispered.
My chest ached with repressed tears, but I refused to let them out.
“Are there others?” I asked, wondering if we could work together and somehow surprise whatever guards they had checking on us.
“Yes. But they’re down that way. And if we try to talk, they come in and hurt us.” She turned her face, and I saw how swollen her cheek was. I could make out the bruises, even in the dull light. “I think there are six of us being held.”
“How many men are there?”
“I’m not sure.” She shuddered. “The one who wears the red sneakers is the worst.”
“Do you know where we are?”
She shook her head. “No.”
I tugged on the iron bar around my ankle, feeling along the chain to the end. It was screwed into the cement of the wall, and the only way I could loosen it was with a tool.
“There is nothing,” she whispered. “I looked. I tried.”
“Finn will find me,” I stated firmly. “He’ll rescue me and you. The other girls too.”
“I hope he gets here soon. I heard them say we’re gone next week.”
“How long was I out?” I asked, wondering how much time had elapsed.
“He gave you a heavy dose. I’d say a day.”
A week. Finn could find me in a week. Right?
“It was supposed to be sooner,” she confided. “But I heard them say the Russians were delaying things.”
I frowned and she shrugged. “I pretend to be asleep a lot if I hear someone coming. He, the younger one with the ugly shoes, is always staring at me, and I hate it.”
“Juan,” I told her.
“Well, Juan talks a lot. He and the other redhead just stand there and try to outdo each other. They forget I’m there at times.”
“The other redhead is my brother.”
She gaped at me. “And he’s part of this?” She grabbed my hand. “Oh, Una. I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
“He—Juan—keeps telling me I’ll be his. I hate him.”
I squeezed her hand. “We have to try to help each other.”
“Do you really think your Finn will find you?”
“Yes.”
“I hope you’re right,” she replied as she sighed out a shaky breath, pulling her knees to her chest and laying her head on her hands.
I looked around the dark, damp space, sending up a prayer.
“Please, Finn. Please.”
FINN
I was going crazy. I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat. I paced, spent hours with Niall and Aldo chasing down leads. More hours on the phone and in front of the computer.
I tugged my hands through my hair. It had been forty-eight hours since Una disappeared. I had no idea where she was. If she was okay.
My imagination ran rampant when I thought about it too much.
Was she scared? Hurt? Crying for me? What horrors was she enduring?
Would I ever see her again?
I was ready to storm the racetrack, infiltrate the building we were certain was a hidden lab, and force Lopez to talk, but it was Roman who stopped me.
“If we go in there and blow up his lab and not find Una, Finn,” he said, his voice steady, “you will have signed her death warrant.”
His words made me stop.
“You need to stay calm. She needs Finn O’Reilly right now. Syndicate man. Not her lover.”
Two hours later, Luca Costas walked in, adding more power to our search. But it seemed fruitless. Lopez hadn’t moved off the property. Brian hadn’t shown up that we’d been able to see. Una’s purse and phone had been left behind in her apartment. We’d discovered Tom in the garbage room, dumped into a wide, lidded garbage bin. He’d been shot but was miraculously not dead. Brian was as inept with a gun as he was with his brain. The bullet had grazed Tom’s head but buried itself into the wall of the garbage room. He was furious and upset when he came to in the hospital, but he was unable to give us much detail.