Page 37 of Call Sign: King
“No matter. It will just make watching you beg to be killed that much more fun.”
His words were chilling, even in the stale summer heat of the van’s interior.
Time to go fishing for information.
“Why don’t you tell me what your ransom demands are? I can make you a very rich man.”
“I have money.”
Strike one.
“Surely, there’s something you need. Something you want. I can get it for you.”
“Lady, you’re already giving me the only wish I’ve spent the last four years dreaming of.”
“I don’t know what I have to do with any of this.”
“Don’t insult me. I know you’re a good actress, but even you aren’t good enough to lie to me right now. It’s taken me years of waiting… watching… healing. I’d grown impatient, but now my plan is finally in motion.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she tried again.
Her kidnapper grew agitated, flailing his hand in her direction as he shouted. “Your lies will not save you. At one time, I called him my friend, so even in just a few days — watching from afar — I can see how important you are to Nicolai.
“He always loved risk, but even I would not have predicted he’d be brave enough to fall in love with an international celebrity. The man truly has balls of steel. I very much look forward to crushing him.”
Khloe’s brain scrambled for the right response to the madman. As she tried to navigate the conversation, she noticed the deep scars on the hands and wrists of her kidnapper.
“I don’t think you know him as well as you think you do,” she replied.
“I know all I need to know!” he screamed, finally losing his temper. “He killed my entire family. We are now a shell of what we once were because of him.”
“Does that mean you’re planning to kill me as your revenge?”
An ugly smile painted the man’s face. “Eventually, if you’re lucky. Until then, I plan to spend the next four years torturing Nicolai by sending him photos and videos of your daily pain and suffering. You are my trophy for winning this game he and I started long ago. If he’s lucky, every few months I’ll slice off a finger or a toe and mail you back to him, one body part at a time, until you’re begging me to end you.”
Uncontrollable shivers wracked her entire body. All these years she’d thought Ryder had been exaggerating when he talked about how dangerous his old enemies were.
What a way to find out how wrong she’d been.
The driver yelled something in Russian and took the man’s attention from her. As he turned his head to face forward, she saw more deep scars running down his neck. Had Ryder left those injuries?
It was impossible to understand the heated exchange the three men in the van were having. Every once in a while, she picked out a word she thought she understood. Words like police, airplane, and death.
Unfortunately, she didn’t get the impression they were currently being chased. Why wasn’t Ryder’s team finding her GPS signal? Even if they couldn’t catch up themselves, wouldn’t they have shared her location with the police by now?
It felt like an eternity had passed since she’d watched Ricky and Trevor get shot. Forcing herself to think realistically, she suspected it had been more like thirty minutes. That should have been enough time for them to have the Toronto police intercept the van. Where were they taking her?
As if the driver heard her unspoken question, she felt the vehicle slowing down for the first time in a long time.
They’d been on a highway. Maybe there was a roadblock?
After a few long minutes, her hope that he’d been slowing down to avoid a police barricade was crushed when the van started forward again. They’d just run into traffic.
Khloe suspected they were trying to get her out of town. Desperate to slow them down, trying to give the BSO team time to catch up, Khloe tried to reengage her kidnapper.
“He’s going to find me, you know. And when he does, he’ll kill you.”
“Lady… he killed me long ago. I’m already dead inside. There is nothing else he can take from me.” Turning to his henchman, he added. “Be ready. As soon as we get to the airport, I’ll want to get boarded and in the air within five minutes.”
