Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 124574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 623(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 623(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
Hearing her voice hurt. Made me miss her more.
“Rosie, this is my twelve hundred and fifty-fourth message,” I said, jostling my laptop into my handbag while resting my phone between my shoulder and ear so I could press the button for the elevator.
The dead air of the phone and the silence of the office bathed in twilight was more than a little creepy.
“And I’ll leave twelve hundred and fifty-four more until you call me back. Tell me where you are. I’ll come and pick you up from the Dominican Republic, Australia, even Wisconsin. Just let me know my best friend is okay, please. I need, you,” I whispered into my phone, my façade slipping as I held it to my ear, watching the lights of the elevator show their journey up to me.
A ding sounded, echoing through the air.
I sighed into the phone as the doors opened. “Just call me, okay? I—”
I was preparing to sign off with a death threat but instead I let out a gasp at the two men advancing from the elevator. Two men wearing bad suits. One smelled of Old Spice and had a familiar pair of shoes. The other’s ill-fitting suit was familiar.
Oh, and they held very big guns. Should’ve mentioned that first.
And I was just thinking how the nothingness was the places the movies cut out. It seemed we’d made it to the next part of the story, where it became interesting again.
I scuttled back, the phone tumbling from my ear and clattering to the ground with a resounding crash.
I instantly realized my mistake. Dumb movie heroine move, Lucy. Drop and most likely smash the only possibility you have of alerting the authorities of your situation. Well, if the style-challenged gentlemen didn’t immediately shoot me.
Old Spice raised the gun. “Now don’t do anything stupid like run, darlin’,” he instructed, voice nasally. “I’d hate to have to kill you before we get to play with you.” His eyes went downwards to my black skintight sheath dress and favorite patent leather Prada slingbacks in a way that dirtied my skin with its cruel promise.
I swallowed bile and stayed stationary as they approached me, fighting every instinct that told me to run. Logic told me I wouldn’t get far. It wasn’t because of the shoes; I could run a mile in those. It was the fact that our office was on the top floor, open-plan with cubicles in the middle, offices at the corners. The only escape was the elevator, which the gun-wielding gentlemen had just stepped out of, and the stairs to the left of the elevator, which the aforementioned gentlemen were standing in front of.
The architect of this building obviously didn’t consider this when designing the place.
He would be getting a strongly worded e-mail if I survived.
My thoughts went to those guns and the two men and precisely how they got up there.
Anyone could go up to the floor, but after-hours, you needed a keycard to get into the building and the parking garage. Though I was sure criminals on the payroll of a man who controlled a lot of the cocaine traffic between America and everywhere else had ways around such questionable and lax security measures as these.
What wasn’t questionable or lax was Keltan and Heath. Keltan had said he was coming when he called about an hour ago. Which should have placed him in the building… right about now.
No way would he let two gun-toting brutes in the elevator.
Not while he was breathing, anyway.
I tasted bile once more, itching to do something, to get out of there to make sure he was. Breathing, that was. If he wasn’t, nothing could save these assholes from my revenge.
If he wasn’t, nothing could save me.
“Not running. Smart, lovey,” Old Spice’s friend said, grabbing my hand roughly enough to make me cry out.
I quickly swallowed the pain when he grinned at the sound, revealing rows of yellowing, crooked and decaying teeth.
“Oh, I’m gonna enjoy more of that, lovely.” His British accent was thick, and the leer on his face kept it from being anything attractive.
I met his eyes. “Go fuck yourself.” I realized where I knew him from—the elevator that day with Wire.
My stomach dropped at how right Keltan had been at the threat. And how much of a bitch I’d been about it.
I hoped I had the chance to apologize to him for that. And breathe again.
Elevator guy squeezed even harder, pushing the cold barrel of the gun into my midsection as he dragged me into the elevator. “You American women may be more attractive, but your mouths are much dirtier,” he said blandly, his accent rough. Not at all like Prince Harry’s. Then again, I didn’t think Prince Harry would really need a gun to get a girl to get into an elevator with him.