Page 14 of Taken By the Convicts
“Rock, Jayce. Nothing here but rocks.”
“It’s hard to spot in good weather. Give me a minute.” Jayce looked for the triangular overhang he used as his landmark. There. . . an immense snowdrift right below.
Jayce began digging with his hands. The light snow gave way and he found the access panel and held up the tattoo on his wrist.
The snap of a door unlocking was music to his ears. He kicked away the remaining snow, enough to clear the door and pull. The door finally sprang open. He rushed inside with Ivan close on his heels.
“Nice,” Ivan said, a rare compliment from the soldier. “Why not hide in here from Matthews?”
“I just acquired the space,” Jayce said.
“How?”
“I could give you all my trade secrets, and you’d still fuck up the trade,” Jayce said, except he would never divulge his methods, which generally speaking included hacking into Thorne’s computer and leveraging information against the guards. The bunker had been a stroke of sheer luck, however. He’d been researching the underground tunnels, looking for ways of diverting the heating conduits to his present quarters, when he’d come across the blueprints for several bunkers across the planet. This was the closest. Programming his ID was the easy part, as was erasing the manager’s access. The bunker was fully secure from everyone on Veenith.
Ivan put the woman down and descended the steps. Her eyes shot toward the door.
“Need the proper access,” Jayce said, holding up his tattooed wrist and pointing to the ID plate. “To get in or out. You’re not going anywhere. Get moving,” he said, turning her toward the steps.
She bit her lip, but complied, going down the stairs, following Ivan. Compliant. Good. He didn’t want to have to gag her to get her cooperation, but he would if he had to.
The three of them moved through the bunker. Jayce had already memorized the layout from the blueprints, but seeing the structure in person allowed him to breathe easier. The place was in great shape. Heat warmed the floors and floated upward from the planet’s thermal springs. The kitchen appeared to be functional, though it lacked food. He’d have to work on that next. Jayce turned the faucet. Clear water spewed from the pipes. A man could live down here for months, longer, as long as he had food stored up. There was even a freezer. Perfect. A few large game such as hogath and casp could keep the three of them fed for months.
“You, in there,” Ivan said, as he shoved the woman into the middle bedroom. The bunker held six bedrooms, three on each side of the long corridor. Ivan slammed the door shut.
The corridor split at the end. The right led to the washroom and the left to additional storage.
“I’ll take this room,” Jayce said, taking the one next to the woman’s. The light flicked on, revealing a bed, dresser, and a small desk. The bed had a mattress, but nothing else. Bedding was easy enough to procure.
“Find me something to lock her in,” Ivan ordered.
Jayce sighed and headed to the storage room. The light flicked on as he entered the space. Shit, the room was half the size of the entire bunker and filled with neatly labeled boxes stored on floor-to-ceiling shelves. Six rows of shelves in all, with a large space in the back with tarps over boxes. He’d explore all the nuances later. Right now, he needed to keep Ivan content and find something to lock the woman in. Not that it mattered, she couldn’t escape the bunker. Jayce had only coded his tattoo. He’d have to code Ivan’s tattoo the first chance he had to sneak back into Thorne’s office.
He rifled through a few boxes labeled ‘tools’ until he found what they needed. A thumbprint coded lock. After he adjusted the settings and entered his thumbprint, he headed back to the room. “Here, register your thumbprint.”
Ivan pressed his thumb to the plate. “You don’t disappoint, Jayce. I’ll give you that.”
Another compliment. Wow, two in one day, no. . . ayear.Jayce affixed the lock to the outside of the door, pressed his thumb, and waited as both sides of the lock heated to two hundred degrees and welded to the metal door and doorframe. As soon as the plate cooled, he pressed his thumb, and the lock opened. He pushed the door open.
The woman stood in the empty room, her back pressed to the wall and her arms clutching Ivan’s coat to her frame. She looked terrified.
“You threw her in an empty room. Why not one with a bed?” Jayce asked. Something had shifted in him at the sight of her in an empty room without a window. Despite the clean metals walls and pristine cement floor, Jayce pictured decaying walls, a dirt floor, and rats scurrying about. Seeing that fear in her—fear that wasn’t because of Hawke, but him—deflated his cock.
“She doesn’t deserve comfort,” Ivan said, his voice once again void of emotion.
“Why?” she asked, lifting beautiful eyes, except she looked at Ivan, not Jayce. He felt a pang of jealousy at that moment, which was ridiculous considering she was his now.Theirs, technically. He didn’t need to compete with Ivan, not for her. But that look she gave Ivan, the emotion there, it was as if Ivan mattered. But Jayce. . . Hell, she’d glossed over him.
That wouldn’t do. Not at all.
“You don’t get to ask the questions here,” Ivan said.
She stepped forward, confronting Ivan. Rather bold of her considering the scowl on Ivan’s face. But she didn’t know Ivan, not like Jayce did. And right now, Jayce wasn’t exactly in the mood to save her from Ivan’s wrath, not with how she’d ignored Jayce as if he didn’t exist.
“I think I can ask whatever I want,” she said, looking more courageous with each step. “You’re going to fuck me no matter what I do or say, so I might as well speak my mind. It’s the only way to deal with bullies.”
Ivan wrapped his hand around her throat and slammed her against the wall and pinned her there. “I can do a lot more than fuck you. Do you like pain, doctor?”
The way Ivan spat out the word ‘doctor’, Jayce suddenly understood why Ivan wanted the woman. He had a grudge against The Company and what they’d done to him and his men. Ivan would break her over and over until he satisfied his thirst for revenge.
