Excerpt
She smiled at him. “You tried to save me. That was incredibly kind of you.”
“Who the hell are you?”
Wow. That had been angry. She sniffed. “Um, I get that we are in a stressful situation.”
“We have been kidnapped.”
“So it would seem.” Her gaze left him and darted around the stables. Just horses were in there with them. No people, not yet. Which meant they had time to escape. She began yanking hard at her ropes even as her gaze darted upwards.
“Who the hell are you?” he repeated.
Her gaze jumped from the rafters back to his face. “Did you hit your head after you got punched? Like, did the blow take you down?” She frowned at him in worry. “I’m Simone. Simone Sailor. We’ve known each other for a few weeks.”
Another growl from him.
“Did that help?” she asked sweetly. “Remember me, now?”
That muscle in his jaw flexed again.
“How about you and I concentrate on escaping, shall we?” Apparently, she needed to keep the man focused. “You wouldn’t happen to have a knife hidden on your person, would you? Because a hidden knife would be awesome right now.”
He stared back at her.
She took his silence to mean…no knife. “Next option…” He wasn’t throwing out options. Why did all the work have to be on her? “Is this your first kidnapping?” she muttered. “Because I believe it is, and it shows.”
“What?”
“We have to escape. Bad things are going to happen when Alexei returns.” Simone nibbled on her lower lip. “Did he happen to say anything to you after he dumped us in here?”
“Yeah.”
She waited.
Nothing.
Once more, she looked toward the rafters. This time, she was desperately trying to find patience. Unfortunately, Simone discovered none. “What did he tell you?” Why did she have to pry everything out of this man?
“Said that when he came back, he’d force us to answer all of his questions. His questions. And Frederick’s questions. Told me that he couldn’t wait to see how much pain we could take before we broke.”
Oh, no. Her horrified stare bounced down to Ryan once more.
“He predicted you couldn’t handle a lot of pain.”
Goosebumps rose on her skin. “I handle pain just fine, for the record.” Her wrists twisted, hard, against the ropes. She could feel the rough hemp biting into her skin. “I just don’t particularly like pain. That’s a normal response, by the way. Most people do not go through life just loving pain.”
“He’s coming back to torture us, Simone.”
“Yes, I heard you, Ryan!” More hair fell into her face. She tossed her head, trying to knock it back out of the way. “Look, I’m really sorry that you got dragged into this mess. Not like I intended for it to happen.”
“What did you do?”
She huffed out a breath. “Are you even trying to get out of the ropes? Because it doesn’t look like you are.”
“Appearances are deceiving.”
“What?”
A loud squeak. And a creak. And…
Her head snapped to the right.
The stable doors were opening. She was not free. Not. Good. Because time appeared to have run out. Alexei stormed forward, a smug smile on his face. A smile that vanished when he realized just how close Simone and Ryan were sitting to one another. Snarling, Alexei lunged forward. He grabbed the back of her chair. Simone screamed.
And Ryan bellowed, “Hurt her and I will fucking kill you!”
