Page 26 of KAI Tortured

“Doing it right now.” Logan runs to the intercom station and Kai and I join him. Whoever’s buzzing, they’re in a hurry.

“Don’t you have someone at reception?” Kai asks, looking confused. I am too, as I know Logan’s men are there.

“Fuck. This is worrying,” Logan says, waiting impatiently for the video to turn on.

The moment it’s up on the little screen, we all stare at it as if spellbound, even Uncle Jon. Someone who looks exactly like Maisy is pressing the button in a panic, and judging by the contortion of her face, she’s crying. No, screaming. We hear no sound, yet I can tell bullets are being fired past her, ending up embedded in the wall behind her.

Logan pushes the intercom button and the sound of the mayhem downstairs is broadcast directly into the penthouse, including Maisy’s terrified voice.

“Open the elevator! Please, open it!” she pleads over the gunfire as more bullets fly past her head.

Logan activates the elevator doors and she runs inside. Lucky for her, the doors shut just before two goons reach her, though they try in vain to open them by force.

We’re watching the screen like it’s a movie, the intensity making me momentarily forget to breathe. “What the fuck is happening downstairs?” I ask quietly.

The men focus all their strength on opening the elevator, but not a minute passes before they’re mowed down by a machine gun. I see some of the bullets ricochetting off the metal doors.

Logan switches the camera angle, and I see that it’s one of my men with the machine gun. When the view swaps back to the elevator, the dead bogeys are now being dragged away by their feet.

“Is everything okay down there?” Uncle Jon is talking to someone on his cell. “Right. Okay. Thank you.”

“Well?” Logan asks.

“It’s the girl. She ran inside the tower with the Slavs shooting at her. She’s lucky we’re prepping for a war or she’d have died trying to get up here.”

“Was that really her?” Kai asks, like he doesn’t trust what he saw.

“It looked like her,” I say.

Logan paces up and down in front of the elevator, nervously waiting for it to reach the top floor, to reach us.

Finally, the door pings and slowly begins to open. Too slow, if you ask me. The three of us draw our guns, aim at the elevator, and wait.

“How the fuck did she manage to escape the Slavs?” Uncle Jon mutters.

“Uncle Jon!” Logan snarls.

Jon holds his hands up and takes a few steps backward. “I’m just saying.” He turns and goes back to his office.

I’m ready to rain hell on whoever’s inside, but I find myself blindly pointing my gun at… Maisy. Or a girl who looks exactly like her. Her hair’s just about touching her shoulders, shorter than before; her clothes are torn, she has cuts and bruises all over her, and she’s smeared with blood, dried blood, mostly on her arms. In stunned silence, I glance at Kai, then Logan, then back at her.

She stares at us with wide, dark eyes, her chest heaving, just like that day we first met her, until her eyes roll back in her head and she faints, falling at our feet.

“Maisy!” I crouch to check her pulse. “Fuck!”

“Maisy, stay with us.” Logan checks under her eyelids, but I don’t know what he’s checking for.

I lift her into my arms and carry her to the living room. I lay her gently on the couch and we stand over her for a few moments, the three of us sharing a quiet pause.

“Is this a déjà vu moment or am I losing my mind?” Kai murmurs.

She’s been through hell; it looks like a lot of the blood is from her arm.

“How the fuck did she get away?” Logan asks.

“Let’s figure that out when she wakes up,” I say as I take a good look at Maisy. Her sleeveless black dress is torn up, and the bruises really are all over her body. She reeks, too, if I’m honest. Dammit, I hate that she looks hurt, and innocent, lying here unconscious. I bet she’s not. She can’t be. I know I said she belongs to us, and she does, but a Slav is still a Slav. And she better have a really good explanation for how she got away from there. We tried several times to get her back, and failed. Most likely because we had to assign the job to men who were not willing to die for her. Assholes.

“Call your men, Kai. Logan, get Uncle Jon to tell everyone to be on high alert. I’ll call the Cartes to come here and stay on guard until we know what we’re doing. And we better think of something fast. They won’t stop until they get Maisy.”

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