Page 42 of Ruthless Riches
11
Alexis
My eyelids fluttered open.Darkness surrounded me, and there was a nervous twisting sensation in my guts. I must’ve had a nightmare.
Wincing, I slowly turned my head. “My neck is killing me,” I mumbled. “I think I slept at a bad angle.”
Nate didn’t reply. He was probably fast asleep.
As the fog of exhaustion slowly lifted, several questions floated into my mind. What time did we get home last night? When did I go to sleep? Did I shower first, or did I fall into bed with a full face of makeup?
Why the hell didn’t I remember any of it?
I rubbed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to rid myself of the groggy confusion. Suddenly, my memories of the previous evening returned in a cold, brutal deluge, sending my mind spinning in desperate circles.
The Butcher.He drugged me in the Playhouse parking lot. Nate, too. Was he here with me? Where was I, anyway?
I blinked rapidly and looked around, trying my best to gauge my surroundings as terror bloomed in my agonized brain. It was so dark that I could barely see a thing. My other senses were still functional, though. The air around me was warm and dry, and there was a strong smell of mold licking at my nostrils, along with some other foul scent. Dead mice, maybe.
I sat up, balancing on shaky arms. My eyes finally began to adjust to the gloom, and I realized I was on a tufted velvet lounge seat with a thin blanket flung over my legs. The space around the lounge was curved in a semi-circular shape. Thick bars lined the straight edge of the semi-circle.
My heart began to race, faster and faster. On trembling legs, I got up and stepped over to the bars. They appeared to be made of iron, and judging by the rust on them, they were quite old. Not old enough to break when I shook them, though.
The left portion of the bars formed a narrow cell door, and a chain had been wound around the edge of it, connected to the bars next to it and secured with a padlock. Clearly, the old lock was broken, so my captor had taken other measures to ensure that I couldn’t escape.
I pressed my nose right up to the bars and squinted into the gloom outside the tiny cell. A lone candle flickered on a sconce several yards away, illuminating the space just enough for me to make out a few details.
I was in a tunnel, about ten feet wide and eight feet high with a vaulted stone ceiling. The floor was tiled in a Roman-style mosaic pattern. A series of arched niches were carved into the sides of the tunnel, about the same size as the one I was in, and they were all lined with bars as well. They appeared to be empty.
I was alone down here.
My face prickled with the numbness of terror as I realized where ‘here’ was—the Satan’s Penthouse tunnels. They were real, and they were exactly like the old stories said they were, down to the mosaic tiles.
The story about the rest areas being converted into cells was also true, as evidenced by my current confinement. The wealthy woman and the pregnant maid from the story might’ve been fictitious, but at some stage, well over a hundred years ago, someone who knew about this place turned it into a prison.
Now the Butcher was using it for the same purpose.
I tried to draw breath for a scream, but nothing came. My mouth and throat were too dry, and my tongue felt thick and impossibly heavy. I quickly realized there was no point screaming anyway. No one would hear me.
I returned to the dusty old lounge and slumped onto it, mind flooding with panicked questions. If Nate wasn’t down here with me, where was he? Did the Butcher kill him, or did he simply leave him lying in the parking lot after he drugged him?
I dearly hoped it was the latter, but I was terrified the former could be true.
I leapt to my feet again as something occurred to me. I could only see the cells on the opposite side of the tunnel, but there could be others next to mine that I couldn’t see. Nate might be in one of those.
I stepped up to the bars. “Nate,” I croaked, voice barely audible despite the oppressive silence around me. I sucked in a deep breath, cleared my throat, and tried again. “Nate! Are you down here?”
There was no reply.
I banged my hands on the bars, causing a loud, metallic racket to echo through the tunnel. “Nate!”
Still nothing but silence.
I persevered and banged on the bars again. “Hello?” I called out. “Is anyone else down here?”
I kept trying for another few minutes, but there was no response. I was definitely alone in this place.
I sat down again, heart thudding. Then I looked around my cell to see what I had apart from the lounge seat and blanket. There was a stainless steel bucket near one end with a roll of toilet paper next to it. A bottle of water lay on the floor a few feet away from that.
