Page 4 of Seduction in Blood
I never caught the signal, but before I knew it, the muscle man, who'd moved behind me, grabbed my upper arms in a grip as tight as a vice. My knees buckled when he kicked my legs out but kept me upright with his own strength.
"We're going for a long drive. I hope you fed the cat." I wasn't sure what he meant. I didn't own a cat. Then, the tall woman bent her head near mine, and I didn't know whether she was going to whisper in my ear or kiss me. It was hard to tell. But all she did was take a deep breath as if she was smelling me.
"Down, Patrice." Sorrento's voice held a harsh edge, which didn't bolster my confidence.
Something stuck me in the neck—sharp and quick. I tried to move my arms, but they were still locked in a fierce grip. I struggled before my legs turned to rubber, the edges of my vision blurred, and I slipped into utter darkness.
ChapterThree
The first thingI noticed was the familiar feeling of being in a moving vehicle. I tried to remember what had happened, but everything was fuzzy. I hadn't been in a bar, so I wasn't hungover. Then, it all raced back. Sorrento waiting for us, then someone stabbing me in the neck. The asshole had drugged me.
I sat up and hit my head on something hard. It was pitch black, and I checked to see if I'd been blindfolded. My arms moved slowly with the remains of the drug. No blindfold. I stretched out my legs, but they hit a wall before I could fully extend them. Panic set in as I stretched out my arms. The last of the dizziness left me when I realized I was in a box. A vent on each wall my only source of air.
My heart thumped as I reached out to assess how much space I had. I could sit up as long as I bent my back. My arms couldn't fully extend, and I quickly found all four sides of the metal box—steel and most likely lined with silver.
A catch box.
Great.
Don't panic.
That wasn't as easy as it sounded, but Sorrento couldn't keep me in here forever. Not if he wanted his money.
My first task was to slow my breathing and think about what to tell Sorrento to regain my freedom. I'd heard of slave traders.Stop it.That kind of thinking wasn't going to calm my nerves. I closed my eyes to help me focus. The vehicle was still moving. I wasn't sure what kind of vehicle, but there wasn't any strong airflow, so I wasn't traveling in the bed of a truck. It must be a van—something that could hold the heavy metal box.
We were on an asphalt road. So, I wasn't being taken down some dirt road to be killed. He could have done that easily enough in the bedroom where they'd caught me. No. Sorrento had different plans. And he was teaching me a lesson by sticking me in a catch box.
I refocused on other sounds to get a sense of where I was, but it was useless. There was nothing but the rumbling from the road. I allowed my muscles to loosen as I swayed with the motion. I cleared my head of every thought, pushing away the fear as it continued to roll in. If I had no place to go and could only await my fate, I would borrow a lesson from an old friend and mentor, who had taught me meditation. I let her calming words penetrate my steel enclosure as I searched for inner peace.
When the vehicle slowed and made a turn, I was ready. I wasn't sure how long we'd traveled since I didn't know how long I'd been out from the drug. But I figured I'd been awake for more than an hour. Wherever we were going, I didn't think we were in Santiga Bay anymore. I stretched my legs as far as they would go, then rubbed them to force the circulation to return. The last thing I wanted when I got out of the box was to collapse like a broken puppet from stiff muscles.
The vehicle stopped, and mumbled voices drew me closer to the air vents. Probably a checkpoint or gate. The distant sound of rusty hinges confirmed one thing. Wherever we were going, we were there. An ugly thought pierced through my peace. What if we were at the harbor, and I was being loaded onto a ship?Stop it.I sniffed the air, trying to pick up smells. Fresh-cut grass. Please don't be a cemetery.
Panic returned at the thought of being buried alive before we came to a stop and the engine cut off. I blew out long, slow breaths as the vehicle rocked and two doors slammed shut. I checked my pockets for the umpteenth time. Still empty. All I had was my martial art skills and my wits to get me out of whatever was coming next.
Bright light hit me as the back door of the van rolled up. It took several seconds for my eyes to adjust. I was in some type of cargo carrier, and four of Sorrento's men hovered around the tailgate. I scanned the area behind them, trying to figure out where I might be, but all I saw were large green fields dotted with trees. The air was fresh outside the box—no scent of a harbor. The men just stood there. Waiting for instructions?
I considered asking them questions, but Sorrento's men didn't believe in small talk. I'd hold my tongue until I was in front of someone who mattered. Five minutes later, two of the men drew out long steel poles. They aimed them at the box, and I was grateful they looked too big to fit through the air vents. At least I wasn't going to be skewered. One possibility to scratch off the long list of dire things that could happen next.
The poles scraped along steel, and I realized the bars would be the handles to lift the box out. Two men jumped inside the van, and the box was pushed to the edge, where the other two men waited to grab the poles.
I rolled to the side, my head slamming into hard metal as the box was unceremoniously dropped to the ground.
"Careful with the merchandise." Sorrento's rough voice was oddly comforting until I had time to consider his words.
Merchandise?
My earlier thought about slave traders came back. Would he really sell me to get his money? They wouldn't get much for me. Certainly not as much as I owed him. Not by far.
The box was picked up again, and when we moved away from the van, I got a glimpse of a massive rock mansion. I couldn't see it all, but the building stretched forever before we disappeared into a tunnel. There hadn't been any fences or guard towers.
The dark tunnel didn't last long before the men moved through large doors and down a bright, richly furnished interior hallway. They continued through another door, one more hallway, and finally, an arched doorway that ended in a vast circular room. A single chair positioned on a dais sat on the far side of the room. A lone man waited as if on a throne waiting for subjects.
Even in my current predicament, I had to hold in a chuckle. This man thought highly of himself.
Two small men in business suits strolled in to stand on either side of the man in the chair, who appeared to be in his forties. A fit man, from what I could see. Sweat trickled down my back as we got closer. I'd seen that face one other time. Right before my old mentor had whispered a warning: "Don't ever find yourself on his bad side."
It seemed I was going to find out what that statement from five long years ago meant.
