Page 11 of Love Set Free

His voice has a hint of an accent and my brain scrambles to try to grasp onto it to try to figure out what sort of accent it could be. Anything that could provide me with a clue–any sort of clue–about this man who is part of the group behind my kidnapping. I’m sure the authorities–if I make it out of this and get the opportunity to speak to any sort of government authorities–will welcome any information at all that I can give them. My mind wants to assume the faint accent in his voice is Germanic in origin, but I’m not sure if that’s what it actually is or if I’m just going off the stereotypical psychopathic neo-Nazi vibe he’s throwing off.

“Your assistance, Mr. Wilding. Don’t you want to know what that will entail?”

The dry, subtly sarcastic question makes me realize that I’ve been zoning out. Probably dangerously and unwisely so. Now is not the time for my brain to be as sludgy and gloopy as the meals they’ve been feeding me.

I have the sense that my response is only a formality. Undoubtedly, this guy is going to tell me just what sort of “assistance” he wants from me no matter what I said, or else why had they even gone through the effort of tying me up, blindfolding me, and escorting me to this secondary location.

“Of course,” I reply. “I’m sure I’ll be happy to help.”

“Hmm. That will remain to be seen.”

I have a lifetime of training in how to smile and appear polite to people, no matter what my actual feelings toward them are. It’s usually second nature to me. But right now, I can’t even summon the wherewithal to put on any sort of face other than how I’m actually feeling–mistrustful and afraid.

But just like with my words, the man sitting across from me doesn’t seem to care what sort of expression I’m showing. Not a single flicker of emotion disturbs the impervious nonchalance of his face or the mellow casualness of his voice as he continues, “We took great care and time, my compatriots and I, in laying the groundwork of our present endeavor, long before you even came to be our guest. That the initial phase of our plan ran just like clockwork came as no surprise. So, you can imagine my...upset...when an unexpected snag occurred.”

The faintest tinge of his recalled upset does manage to bleed through his otherwise impassive tone. And it causes one of the other people in the room–one of those so-called “compatriots”–to minutely move in place and twitch as he stands near the wall on the opposite side of the room.

It’s probably in my best interest to keep my attention focused solely on the man sitting across the table from me—whether he is in fact the one in charge of this kidnapping, or just taking point on this meeting, his whole aura screams that he’s dangerous and by his own admission things aren’t going exactly to plan.

But at the same time, I want to take the opportunity, while I have it, to learn all I can about the other players that have a hand in my current situation. So, trying to not be too obvious about it, I let my eyes meander about the room, taking in the other occupants.

In addition to the blond, scary dude across from me and the blandly generic, nondescript Latino man I’ve seen day in and day out, who is currently standing somewhere behind me and presumably blocking off the route that we took to get to this room, I spot two other people.

One is a man, perhaps just an inch or two above average height, with dark eyes and brown hair cut in a sort of style that wouldn’t look amiss on some boy band member, with the top strands kept long enough to casually flop teasingly in front of his eyes. He looks young—at least, younger than the blond-haired man and my Latino captor. And myself, for that matter. In his early 20s, maybe?

The one detail of his appearance that I make sure to take note of are the tattoos covering the backs of both his hands. They’re hard to make out clearly, due to the distance between us and the dimness of the light in this room. However, they appear to consist of heavily jagged lines. Sharp flames perhaps? Or fangs? Maybe they’re the images of his favorite knives. Who knows. But with the ways he’s standing—his arms crossed across his chest and his hands resting on each opposing bicep—it isn’t hard to see that the tattoos continue upward from the backs of hishands. The black lines snake underneath the ridden-up cuffs of the black dress shirt he’s wearing.

The other person I spy in the room is the lone female of this group of four kidnappers. I’d probably put her age somewhere around the same as that of the Latino man—early 30s. Or she could’ve been about my own age—in her late 20s. Either way, she has another thing in common with my day-in-and-day-out captor—she also looks as though she’s Latino or Latina. But unlike her masculine Latino counterpart, this woman is in no way physically unremarkable or nondescript.

She’s tall for a woman—much taller than the Latino man and even an inch or two taller than the other kidnapper she’s standing next to. She’s also, quite frankly, fucking ripped. My own personal trainer would be proud of the firm and defined muscle tone of her arms and shoulders. And I have a feeling that her lack of visible body fat is due to a strict workout regime and stringent diet; unlike mine which can be attributed to the sparse and shitty food I’ve been surviving on for nearly a week. Honestly, if the whole kidnapping racket winds up not working out for her, I’d say she could easily make the jump to modeling. She has perfectly symmetrical features, with wide, tawny brown eyes framed by perfectly arched eyebrows, high cheekbones, a lush, slightly too large mouth, and ridiculously blemish-free, medium golden-brown skin. To top it all off, she has a long, shimmering fall of hair that has been dyed blonde—an incredibly light shade of blonde that looks incredibly striking with the rest of her coloring and is, perhaps, only a touch darker than the platinum blond of this kidnapping ring’s spokesperson.

“You don’t look concerned, Mr. Wilding, as I am that there has been a snag. Why is that, Mr. Wilding?”

Oh, shit. Head-kidnapper-guy has caught on to the fact that my attention wandered off him. That... Oh, shit. Yeah. My eyessnap back to meet his, and this, right now, is him not even attempting to look anything other than coldly annoyed.

“I…I…I don’t… I’m…I’m… Of course, I’m, uh, concerned. I just… The thing is… I don’t, er…”

My nervous rambling and aborted attempts to verbally appease him at least seem to amuse him, if his quirked eyebrow and slight tilt of his head are anything to go on.

At any rate, he must decide that his subtly threatening chastisement could take a backseat to getting the assistance he said he needed from me to get past whatever the issue is with my kidnapping. “You see, the problem is,” he states, his voice silky and matter of fact, “that we’ve yet to hear back from your father via the phone number we provided to him with our terms of ransom. And that just won’t do.”

His expectant look has me hurriedly mumbling sounds of agreement.

“Now, it’s possible that the ongoing silence is an indicator that your father doesn’t care if he gets you back. Particularly, safely and in one piece.”

I shake my head no. Not only because the cold bastard almost looks pleased at the idea that he might have an excuse to put an end to my physical wholeness, but also because it wasn’t true. While he might, on occasion, get vexed with me, I’ve never doubted Dad’s love. And I know he would do anything and everything to ensure my safe return.

Blond Guy seems to share my doubt as he smoothly continues, “More likely, though, our messages to him have gotten waylaid to some executive assistant’s inbox, where they’ll finally come across it in who the hell knows when and then we’ll finally get some traction on the next phase of our plan.” His pale blue eyes narrow and laser into me. “I’m sure you can imagine that my colleagues and I would prefer to avoid any more unnecessarydelays. As would you, I imagine, despite the luxuriousness and comfort of your accommodations with us.”

It’s not terribly difficult to make the connection that the assistance he brought me here to provide has something to do with ensuring that their demands reach the right set of eyes or ears.

“What do you need me to do?” I ask, as calmly and evenly as I can.

The small, pleased smile on his face almost,almost, thaws Blond Guy’s cold façade.

“It is always a treat when one of our…guests…acts sensibly. No need to make this harder than it needs to be.”

I do consider myself to be sensible and practical. I’d most definitely rather not be here and not have been kidnapped, but the situation is what it is. It’s in everyone’s best interests--particularly mine--to get the ransom demands met. The sooner I’m out of this spartan shithole and back to my comfortable and safe home, the better.

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