Page 26 of Stolen Faith

“It’s illegal to pay ransom to terrorists,” Izabel said.

“Wait, wait, so if we were kidnapped by terrorists, and your parents paid the ransom, they could be in trouble?”

“Yes.”

Rowan shifted, chains clinking. “Ever heard the phrase ‘we don’t negotiate with terrorists?’”

“Yes.”

“That phrase was created in reference to ransom negotiations,” Izabel said with a nod to Rowan.

“If we’re kidnapped by terrorists…what? We’re screwed?” Brennon asked.

“No. We just don’t report it to the authorities, and the K&R insurance might not kick in, so the ransom won’t be reimbursed.”

“Your parents…were going to get reimbursed for the ransom?” Brennon almost laughed, but it was too surreal.

“If it’s paid to criminals, and if they report it, yes.”

“You grew up knowing stuff like this, thinking about it?”

“It’s scary, but necessary to know.” Izabel sounded almost defensive.

Growing up rich was definitely not as much fun as it sounded. Then Brennon considered his own future kids. Given who their mother was, they were going to grow up like Izabel, not him, and he frowned as he considered his children being raised with bodyguards and taking lessons in kidnapping.

As the boy who’d spent most waking hours outside—only coming in for food—acting out made-up stories with the other kids in the neighborhood and riding his bike all over the damn place with his friends like the Goonies, the idea that his children might not be able to enjoy those same freedoms didn’t sit well with him.

There was a long silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts.

“So we wait,” Rowan said quietly, after a few minutes.

Izabel cleared her throat. “This will be over soon.”

Brennon winced, because if this were a movie script, Izabel’s words would all but guarantee that everything was about to get a lot worse.

They kept Juliette hooded between the ambulance and the second prison. When the hood was removed, the dichotomy between this location and the last one was enough to give her whiplash.

Instead of an elegant, if denuded, room, this time Juliette was confronted by log-cabin walls. Actual logs. A single dim candelabra fixture on the wall had a dusty flame-shaped bulb. The yellow-orange light was barely bright enough to fill the room, leaving the corners in shadow.

Where the hell were they?

The man in the ambulance had kept her drugged for most of the trip, so she had no sense of how much time had passed. It seemed like it had been both a matter of minutes, but also days.

A different black-clad man with his face covered had unchained her ankles and brought her first into the room, then into the small bathroom, where he removed the hood and uncuffed her arms. She’d still been too loopy from the drugs to care that he watched her pee, and when she emerged, Devon was there.

Relief nearly brought her to her knees when she saw him. If they’d been separated…

Devon was no longer in a hospital bed or on a gurney. He was seated in a wingback armchair with the ugliest floral-pattern fabric she’d ever seen. It somehow matched the log cabin perfectly.

His hands were cuffed, a long chain looped under the bottom of the chair connecting them. A man knelt at his feet, attaching ankle cuffs, which in turn were connected to the scuffed claw feet of the chair. Devon’s chin was on his chest, eyes closed.

Juliette’s black-clad man forced her to sit on the floor, then chained her ankles and wrists. A short six-inch chain connected her ankle and wrist cuffs, forcing her to bend forward, chest against her thighs. She tried to motion for him to remove the gag, but he ignored her. At some point in the trip, the ambulance guy had taken her gag off to give her some water but forced it right back into her mouth. The spit-soaked fabric felt slimy, and she would have given a year of her life for a drink of ice water.

Once the men left, leaving her and Devon alone in the room, she took a minute to let a few tears fall, then pulled it together and assessed, the drug fog now almost gone. She also twisted, trying to get her hand up enough to pull the gag from her mouth or rub it off against her shoulder, but she couldn’t get it free.

She checked Devon’s restraints again. All he had to do was lift the chair and slide the chains free.

Except he couldn’t lift the chair. He wasn’t even conscious. Was he breathing? Yes, he was. She tried to inch closer, but she was so tired. Juliette gave up, leaning on the wall, drifting in and out of a restless sleep.

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