Page 110 of Little Blue

What is happening?

“Take her inside. Tie her up in the holding room.”

The man behind me dips his head. “Do we get to play with her?”

Boris’ eyes flick to me, but other than that, no emotion crosses his eyes. “Not yet.”

“Play?” The cold from outside is beginning to seep into my bones. What are they talking about? “Boris, what is happening?”

Boris says nothing as he begins to move toward the warehouse, but I’m starting to come around to my new and terrible reality.

I’ve been kidnapped. Again.

But this time, my kidnapper doesn’t have feelings for me.

And I know for a fact, as I’m shoved through a yawning warehouse where a distant and terrible echo of a man’s tortured scream reverberates off the walls, that I’m not going to be subject to the same beautiful treatment I’d had under Ilya’s care.

When I stumble, I earn a knee to my spine that has me sucking in a cold, sharp breath of air. Pain explodes in my spine. It’s everything I can do to keep myself upright.

I wonder, if I fought—would I be able to somehow get to the car? And then drive the car through the gates to my escape?

I doubt it—and it doesn’t really matter, because I’m too afraid to try. Never mind the pain in my back. If I tried to run, I can only imagine how much worse it would be.

Then I hear it. A loud pop.

The man’s scream is abruptly cut off.

My brain goes utterly blank for two terrible seconds. And then I lose my shit.

That had been a gun. Someone had shot the screaming man. And the screaming man stopped screaming.

I don’t realize I’m screaming until Boris snaps. “Shut her up.”

I’m swung around viciously. My footsteps fumble on the poured concrete floor before I’m righted. And then I’m knocked off-balance yet again by a fist to the side of my face. The hit is so hard, so violent and shocking, my ears ring. Nausea swirls as pain explodes. Then black stars dot my vision. As my vision blurs, those little black dots swell until there’s nothing but the black.

I sink into it, an unwilling prisoner yet again.

Forty-Four

Ilya

“How much have we moved this quarter through Void?”

Misha grins like he always grins when I mention the chain of clubs I’d named after my own nickname among the men of shadows. I opened the first club nearly ten years ago now and have six in total with another set to open in Las Vegas later this year.

Misha sits back in his chair. “Just under fifteen million.”

I consider. “We can do more.”

“We can.”

Misha’s business phone chimes and he slides it from his pocket. I watch as his entire demeanor changes. His body stiffens, his face growing hard. All traces of Misha’s ever-present play are gone, and nothing but the brutal warrior I know, and love, remain.

“What is it?”

His eyes lift to mine. They are filled with horror.

His mouth opens. Then it closes.

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