Page 15 of Oh, Hell No

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he studied me. I was probably blushing because of my thoughts, but this was where living in dim lighting came in handy—he wouldn’t be able to tell.

“Someone checked the location of your phone,” he told me.

All other thoughts were zapped from my brain as several emotions and thoughts rushed in. Fear for Perry, anxiety over what he’d do, if he was guilty, the small trace of hope that I was going to be freed. I didn’t know what to cling to and what to focus on. Perry needed me, but I couldn’t figure out a way to help him. Not if what Oz was claiming was true. I could save him fromour drunk, abusive mother, but the Feds and the…Mafia? I was still working through that one. Not sure what to believe there either.

“Do you know anyone who lives in Atlanta?” he asked me.

I started to shake my head, then paused. I’d heard Perry talking about introducing me to a business associate and friend of his. Sam, Samuel, Samson. It was Samson.

“You do,” Oz said without me saying a word. “Listen to me, Winslet. If you want to eat again in the near future and you want more than a small bottle of water a day, then you need to give me something.”

I nodded and gripped my hands together tightly. I was nervous. What if they went there and found this man and…and I don’t know. Would they kill him? Would I, in return, be a murderer because I’d told them a name of a man I had never met? Crap. I wasn’t sure I could live with myself.

Those slate-gray eyes of his bored into me, as if he could read my thoughts. Nervously, I licked my lips again. I had to say something. And if a phone had tried to find me from Atlanta…well, it had to be Perry. Right? He was there? Would he come here?

“Winslet.” There was a sharp warning in his tone that caused me to jump.

“Okay. I’m just…” I stopped and took a deep breath. “I know you have no problem abducting people, starving them, doing God knows what else. But I am struggling here. Because, yes, Perry has mentioned to me someone who lives in Atlanta. I’ve not met this man. I do not know him. And if I give you the name and you go and…well, string him up and torture him or whatever, that will be on me. I’ll have to live with myself over it.”

His brows drew together, and dang it, he even made a scowl sexy.

“You are being held in a basement, without a bathroom, andbeing starved.”

My eyes dropped to my plate, and I grabbed another berry in case it was about to be taken from me, then looked back up at him. “You just fed me,” I blurted, then winced.

That was probably not what I should have pointed out. He might not feed me again.

His jaw twitched, and he took a deep breath, as if he was trying to contain his temper. That said something about him, didn’t it? I mean, he could have jumped up and slammed me against the wall, put a knife to my throat or a gun to my head, and demanded I talk. But he was sitting there, trying not to get angry.

“Tell me what you fucking know,” he said through clenched teeth.

My body tingled a little from the snarl in his tone, and I began to wonder if perhaps captivity was making me insane. I shouldn’t feel any kind of thrill from this man.

Fear, hate? Yes. Thrill, tingles? Heck no.

It was because I hadn’t had sex in so long. That was it. The abstinence and lack of a man in general were getting to me. When I got out of here and no longer smelled like a sewer, then I’d possibly agree to a date with Toby, the eighth-grade teacher at MCS. He’d asked me out twice already, and I had told him I was coming out of a long relationship and needed time.

“Winslet.” Oz’s voice snapped me out of my scattered thoughts.

“Sam…Samson,” I told him.

I really hoped Samson was a bad guy. Maybe he was who had gotten Perry into this. Someone had to have because my brother didn’t sit around and plan things like this. He had to have had help.

“Samson isn’t a rare name, darlin’. Gonna need a last name,” he pushed.

I was trying to remember it. If he’d stop looking at me sointensely, I could focus. But with his winkled brow, slightly flared nostrils, narrowed-eyes thing he did well, it was all very distracting. I closed my eyes. That would help. If I couldn’t see him, then his godlike image would not distract me.

Samson…Samson…UGH! Why didn’t I listen more closely?

Because you thought your brother was trying to set you up on a date.

Perry had been worried about my not dating after Alec. He’d said I focused on work too much. My classroom was my life, and he didn’t think it was healthy.

A click sound had me opening my eyes again. If there had been tingles moments before, they had all frozen solid. I stared at the barrel of a gun that was pointed at me.

Holy shit. My chest began to rise and fall rapidly as my breathing became quick. He was going to kill me after all. Feed me, then end me. Oh God.

“I need a fucking last name.” Oz’s voice dropped even deeper as he glared at me.

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