Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 124077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 620(@200wpm)___ 496(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 620(@200wpm)___ 496(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Cody. Lisa. Orlov has my babies. Don’t call the police. Come alone. If you tell anyone, they die.
The words from his texts circled endlessly through her brain while her heart slammed against her ribs hard enough to hurt, and all she could think was that she had to get to her children before Viktor Orlov lost patience and did something terrible to them.
Her mother had been beside herself when Terra left the house, crying so hard she could barely speak as she clutched her phone in one hand and Terra’s arm in the other. Lucy had begged her not to go alone, begged her to call the police despite Orlov’s warning, but Terra hadn’t been willing to take the chance.
The message had been very clear—Come alone. No police. No tricks. If you disobey me, one of your children dies.
Terra could still see those words glowing on the screen and the accompanying photograph of Cody and Lisa huddled together in the back of a strange car, both of them crying. How could she possibly gamble with their lives? How could any mother?
“Please, God,” Terra whispered as she drove. “Please keep them safe. Please don’t let him hurt my babies.”
She didn’t even know what she was promising anymore. Anything. Everything. If God wanted her to spend the rest of her life volunteering at church or give away half her money or never swear again, she would do it. If Orlov wanted her body, he could have it. If he wanted her to go away with him somewhere, she would go. If he wanted her to kneel at his feet and tell him he owned her, she would say the words even if they made her sick. There was nothing he could demand that mattered more than Cody and Lisa coming home alive.
Terra shot through a stop sign without realizing it until a horn blared from her left and a dark SUV slammed on its brakes. She jerked the wheel hard, barely missing the other vehicle, and the driver leaned on his horn while someone shouted something at her through an open window.
Terra hardly heard him. She pressed harder on the accelerator and kept going, her ancient Honda protesting with a high whine as she pushed it far beyond the speeds she normally dared to drive.
Seminole Heights wasn’t far from downtown. Normally Terra could make the trip in fifteen minutes depending on traffic, but today every red light seemed deliberately designed to torture her and every car in front of her appeared to be moving at a crawl.
She swerved around a delivery truck, shot through a yellow light just as it turned red, and nearly clipped a parked car when she took a corner too quickly onto one of the narrow one-way streets downtown.
Horns blared behind her and somewhere a pedestrian shouted, but Terra barely registered any of it. Her entire world had narrowed to the glowing map on her phone and the little blue line leading her toward the place Orlov had told her to meet him.
Then her phone buzzed, and Terra’s heart nearly stopped.
For one horrifying instant she couldn’t make herself touch it.
Please don’t let it be another picture, she thought wildly. Please don’t let him have hurt one of them. Oh God, please protect my babies!
The phone buzzed again from where she had wedged it into the cup holder, and she knew she couldn’t ignore it any more. She snatched it up without checking the screen and pressed it to her ear while still steering with one hand.
“I’m coming as fast as I can, Orlov,” she blurted. Her voice sounded wild and breathless even to her own ears. “Please, don’t hurt them! I’ll give you anything you want. I mean it—anything. Just please—”
“Terra, it is me, Taurex.”
The deep, familiar voice surprised her so much she nearly drove into the curb. Terra’s foot jerked away from the accelerator as she stared through the windshield.
“Taurex?” she whispered.
“Yes, lovely one.”
For several seconds Terra couldn’t seem to breathe. Then she said,
“Taurex, I can’t talk right now. Orlov took them—he took Cody and Lisa! I have to get to them. I have to—”
“I know he took them,” Taurex said calmly. “But I have retrieved them. You do not need to worry about your children. I have them both safe in my apartment.”
Terra’s vision blurred so suddenly that she had to blink hard to clear it.
“What?” she gasped.
“They are safe,” Taurex repeated.
She shook her head, unable to make the words fit inside her brain.
“No. Wait. What do you mean you have them? How did you—where—Taurex, are you sure?”
“I am certain,” he said firmly.
“Are they hurt?” Terra demanded, her voice rising. “Did he hurt them? Are they bleeding? Did anybody touch them? Oh my God, Taurex, please tell me—”
“They are not injured,” he told her firmly. “They were frightened, and their wrists were bound, but I have examined them and I see no sign that anyone harmed them physically. They are with me now and they are safe.”