Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 126580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Ashton took me to a back room, shoved me inside, motioning for the bathroom. “Wash up. Shower. Do whatever. Toss your clothes in the hallway and put on new ones.”
They were going to wash out any wire I might’ve had on me.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that’s what their suspicion was, but it stung for some reason. Still. I did as he instructed. I had nothing to hide, and twenty minutes later, I headed back downstairs with a sweatshirt, sweatpants, and cozy socks on.
No one was in the kitchen. The living room. I checked outside and spotted another vehicle, along with two other guys who were also ex-military. They looked it, both taking me in taking them in, but they didn’t move my way.
Okay then.
I went back inside, and this time, one of the guys was coming up from the basement. He saw me and whistled. “She’s here.”
“Bring her down.” That was Ashton.
He gave me a nod, jerking his head toward the stairs. “This way.”
I didn’t move, eyeing the stairs.
I hadn’t been scared going with Ashton in the beginning or riding with them out of the city, but now a whole different form of trepidation was filling me up. I didn’t like basements.
Dead bodies tended to accumulate in basements.
I didn’t want to be the dead body this time.
“He’s not going to kill you.”
“Yeah?” I shot the guy a look. “You’re well versed in situations like these?”
“Unfortunately, yes. This is an interrogation with padded handcuffs. If that helps?”
It didn’t. Going at me soft didn’t mean the end wouldn’t result in the way I feared.
“Is Trace here?”
“You really think he would let him come?”
I gave this guy another look because he was feeling super comfortable in his responses, but his expression was bland. Neutral.
Ashton had come up the stairs. “Come on. Sooner this is done, sooner we can move on to more pressing matters.”
The dread just lined all of my organs, moving down my legs, into my toes, up through my chest. It went down my arms, my hands, my fingers, and it was circling up to my shoulders. There was no good feeling anymore, but I moved forward, my legs feeling like lead.
I stopped when I saw the room and began backing up. “Nope. This is not going to happen.”
Ashton’s hand came to my arm as he stepped to my side. The other guy took my other arm, and I was dragged/lifted to a single chair in the middle of the entire basement. The walls, the floors, the ceiling were all covered in plastic.
“Jesus Christ, Ashton. Are you serious?”
They shoved me down and held my arms as the third guy zip-tied me to the chair. My ankles were zipped next.
I should’ve fought. I was 98 percent sure that I wouldn’t have been able to overpower them, but I should’ve tried. I just followed orders, sat down, and let them tie me up. But I knew why.
Hope.
In the back of my mind, I thought that if I fought them, that would immediately put me into the enemy category. Ashton might not even interrogate me. They’d kill me or simply let me go, but inform Trace that I had . . . I didn’t even know. I had no idea what they thought right now. This was as much my interrogation as theirs.
I had to remember that.
But damn. I still should’ve fought.
“You’re going to kill me, Ashton? This is a bit of an overreaction because I didn’t give you a little bit of warning for the raids.”
He came to stand in front of me, and it was like I’d never seen the real Ashton. Slowly, as he watched me, I saw a layer of him strip away. There were no more grins. No dark teasing. No smirks. No kindness. No patience. (Not that I saw much of those, but they’d been there when he interacted with Trace.) All that was gone.
In his place was someone who liked cruelty.
I saw the dark delight. Ashton just let some evil into the basement, and that evil was him.
“You’re going to torture me.”
“You’re not here because you didn’t tell us about a raid. That was the excuse. You’re here because we have a mole, and it’s my job to find out if it’s you.”
Then he started.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
JESS
I was carried out hours later. They took me upstairs, tossed me on one of the beds, and left. I knew without checking that the window was bolted shut and the door was locked. There was a bathroom I could use, but I was shivering, and my insides were twisted inside out.
He’d not touched me, but the questions and the tone Ashton had used.
If he could’ve killed me, he would’ve.
I would never forget the look on his face before they threw a sheet over my head, tipped me back, and poured water down my throat.