Page 20 of Savage Escape

Which meant there was absolutely nothing he could add to his Escape Plan inventory.

An Escape Plan that had yet to actually take a plan-like shape in his head. There was really nothing to it beyond, ‘Open Door’. The next step would be figuring out how to actually pick the lock. He could pilot a helicopter and disable all manner of explosive devices, but apparently, breaking out of a tiny room was beyond his capabilities.

Useless, he was fucking useless!

And frustrated.

And anxious.

Scared—scared shitless that she wasn’t coming back.

That thought set the man to pacing the ten-by-ten-foot cell again and gnawing on his bottom lip.

They’d taken her hours ago.

Escaping. That’s what he needed to concentrate on. He somehow had to get Caden on board with the whole living and escaping thing. She was getting out of this god-forsaken dungeon.

Period.

Nathan would drag her by the ankles, kicking and screaming if he had to.

Maybe he could knock her out and toss her over his shoulder... while he single-handedly took on the guards and all the security measures while simultaneously trying to find an out.

Yeah,thatwas a solid plan.

No, he needed her awake and functioning if they were ever going to make it out alive. She was the brains, or would be the brains of the escape. Not to mention half the brawn. But that would depend on how she fared this new round of torture. Another thought that gnawed at him. The longer they were imprisoned, the harder it was going to be to escape.

But she would survive. Caden Quinn always survived.

Ava Caden Collins, actually. It made him almost giddy to know it. To have all of her names. It was like Christmas.

And well, that was a nice bit of silver lining to all this torture and kidnapping.

The ex-detective in him had already plugged some pieces into the puzzle that was Caden Quinn, but he hadn’t really gone over what he’d learned yet. So the man went about organizing it over and over in order to ignore the fact that Caden was not yet back and the sun was climbing higher.

Name: Ava Caden Collins. Another excited chill ran down his spine at the fact that he finally had her real name.

Age: late twenties, early thirties, maybe?

Family: all deceased.

He was almost ninety percent sure she was from the States. Possibly spent some time in foster care. High school dropout. Was fluent in at least three languages that he knew of, plus he was pretty sure she was speaking Russian a day ago. So that made four. Notorious and skilled thief. Hyper-intelligent. It wasn’t dumb luck that enabled her to penetrate highly secure facilities and pilfer whatever she wanted.

Now that he had her actual name, he could probably find whatever she thought the government had on her.

At last, heavy footsteps sounded in the stillness. Nathan about jumped out of his skin. It took him two seconds to cross the room, sit against the wall with all his limbs in full display,and splayed his fingers in the air before him. He was the picture of compliance.

Nathan didn’t speak Russian, but it wasn’t hard to decipher, “stay still or die,” what with the guns trained on his head and all. He kept his hands up and tried not to visibly grimace when Quinn’s face caught her fall. The gun-toting duo exited as quickly as they entered.

“Anything fatal, Quinn?” She was on her hands and knees, long dark hair dragging on the concrete as she crawled to the far wall.

She didn’t have pants on, which was odd ‘cause she’d left with a blood-stained pair on her legs. Nathan wouldn’t let that implication take hold until he ascertained her state of health. Then he could go batshit crazy.

She reached the wall and flopped against it like she didn’t have a bone in her body. She wasn’t looking at him. She was mumbling, whispering words he couldn’t piece together to form anything intelligible. He couldn’t understand her. The sound of broken half-whispered sentences crawled into his ears and under his skin. It prickled all the little hairs on his arms and made his vision blurry.

“Quinn, talk to me!” It came out screechy and panicked, like he regressed a couple of decades and was his awkward pubescent teenage self again.

Her head jerked up at the sound of his voice, like she was just realizing he was in the room. Broken nose; blood tracked down her lips and dripped off her chin.

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