Page 88 of Deception & Desire

And then, just as I think I can’t take it anymore—when the fight starts to drain from me—I hear a voice.

“Mia!”

The voice is familiar, the deep rumble of it something I’ve heard countless times before. I thrash against my restraints so that I can see my savior approaching.

“Max,” I gasp, my chest heaving. “Help!”

But the man approaches slowly, unhurried by the situation. At first, I thought he might be weighing up my would-be-kidnappers. But they don’t go for him either.

Instead, he leans over me, a curious expression on his face. “You’re a hard woman to kidnap, Mrs. Natali.”

The shock of his words is undermined by the pure adrenaline running through my veins. “Who the fuck do you think you are? Let me go!”

He pulls something from his pocket. I brace for a knife, but it’s something altogether more sinister. A syringe.

“The kind of man who isn’t going to take any chances with a firecracker like you,” he says as he flicks the thin, glass tool and levels it to my neck.

I try to squirm away, but it’s no use. There are two sets of hands holding me still when a third shoves the needle under my skin and plunges its contents into my bloodstream.

He has the audacity to look smug as he steps away. The world around us is already distorting and fading behind him.

“The Cartel don’t keep prisoners for long. I’m sure you’ll be reunited with your dear husband soon.”

Max’s voice is the last thing I hear.

The blackness pulls me under, and I can’t fight it anymore. My last thought is of Leon—praying to whatever gods will listen that he’s still alive.

My head throbsas I wake up, a dull, persistent ache that bleeds into my thoughts.

It takes a few moments for my mind to catch up, for the haze of unconsciousness to lift enough for me to recognize my surroundings. Cold stone walls. A dim light overhead. The metallic smell of rust in the air.

I inhale sharply, panic rising like a tidal wave in my chest.

I’m in a holding cell.

My wrists are bound tightly to the arms of a chair, the rough ropes biting into my skin. My body aches—head, shoulders, and stomach—they’re all sore like I’ve been dragged across the earth.

Every instinct screams at me to move, to escape, but I can’t. My limbs feel heavy, sluggish, trapped, likely a side effect of whatever they drugged me with back at the…

And then, it hits me.

Leon.

My breath catches in my throat, and my heart drops. I can barely force the thought through my mind—is he alive?

I remember his body crumpling, blood spreading across the casino floor.

No.

I force the thought away, pushing it down, unwilling to believe it. I can’t think like that. I can’t. He’s not gone. He can’t be.

Tears well in my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. Not now. I need to think up a plan to get out of here.

The ropes bite into my skin as I shift in my chair, trying to find an angle of weakness. But whoever tied me up knew exactly what they were doing.

Nausea curls in my stomach. Max. Had Max done this?

Oh, I’m going to fucking kill him. Slowly, painfully. The way he deserves, that traitor.

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