Page 104 of Devious Madness

A swipe of his finger and a bright flash blinds me, momentarily raining sparkles into my vision.

“Whatever he has that you think belongs to you, is his now.” I roll my shoulder; the strain is distracting. “Do me a favor and undo the cuffs? I mean, I’m not going anywhere, right? I assume you have that garage door thingy locked.”

He stares at me, like he’s unsure what he should be doing.

“You’re not even scared.” Now he sounds disappointed.

“Yeah, weird, right?” I laugh. If I wasn’t so sure Rurik is on his way right now to save me from these idiots, maybe I would be.

“Oh.” A twisted grin tugs at the edges of his mouth. “You think he’s coming here? You think he’s going to save you? He’s not.”

He makes a show of walking over to the wall and banging on the metal. “Nothing can be tracked in here. Even if we hadn’t left your cellphone behind, this is a dead zone. You’re in a shipping container. In a shipping yard full of shipping containers. The easiest way to save you is to hand over the iPad he stole.”

“The iPad? This is all because of a stupid iPad?” It occurs to me, one of these assholes shot at Rurik. And they probably killed the guy he’d been going to meet.

He takes predatory steps toward me until he’s standing over me. I have to crane my neck back to look up at him, which only feeds into his inflated ego.

Placing his hands on my shoulders, he leans into me until whatever garlic monstrosity he ate for lunch is washing all over my face with his breath.

“For your sake, I hope he’s reasonable.”

“I have to ask. Before you kidnapped his fiancée, did you think to maybe ask him for the iPad back?”

His face blanks for a moment before he quickly puts back on his egotistical mask.

“Do you even know who he is?”

A twitch of his eye answers. He has no idea who he’s dealing with.

“I told you, we should have tried to buy it back,” one of the dynamic duo whines. “If you had just waited until he delivered it to dad before you lost your temper, this wouldn’t be happening!”

I’m not sure he’s really cut out for this business. If he keeps dropping all the family drama like this, none of them are going to last long.

“Do you know how much information is on that thing? He’s not going to hand it over without good reason,” Garlic Breath throws over his shoulder.

“We should have tried. Dammit, Mario, you didn’t tell us she was his fucking fiancé. She’s not just some girl he’s fucking.”

“This is better. After we get the iPad and dispose of Rurik, we’ll turn her over to Marco and wipe the debt clean with him. Maybe even make something off the deal.”

“That’s your plan?” I laugh. It’s not even remotely funny, but still, I can’t help myself. “If Rurik doesn’t kill you, which is a universe-sized IF, Marco probably will. All of this for a fucking iPad that you could probably just log into from your account and download the information, but instead you’re going to get yourselves killed.”

Seriously, why make everything so complicated? Technology isn’t that hard to grasp.

Mario grabs my face, squeezing until my lips press sohard into my teeth the metallic taste of my own blood hits my tongue.

“You better hope he’s willing to cooperate. I have no fucking problems sending this container for shipment with a dead body inside.” When he lets me go, he jerks my face, twisting my neck.

“If you were smart, you’d just let me go now. Take me back blindfolded, I won’t know where we are. I don’t know who you are, not really. You might have some time to get out of town. Save yourself.” I’m being generous.

“You’re not going anywhere until we get that iPad.”

“Did you really not back up the information to the cloud?” It’s almost a serious question, but I can’t prevent my little smile.

He’s trying to hide it, but he’s practically seething. After long moments stretch by, he snaps at his brothers. “Get me another syringe.”

“You’re going to put me to sleep again?” It’s not the sleep so much that bothers me—that’s better than talking with these idiots—but the killer headache that’s coming my way when I wake up isn’t so attractive.

Mario grabs hold of the neckline of my blouse. “Not to sleep. Don’t worry, you’ll be awake for everything we’re going to do to you if you don’t shut your smug mouth up.”

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