I kept back far enough that the man couldn’t see me. Another block and he started to climb the steps to a building and went inside. I waited for a few more minutes just to be sure he wasn’t coming back out, and then I quickly moved to follow. I shrugged the lapels of my jacket up around my neck and scrunched low so that my face was obscured as I passed by the building. Then I looked at the number above the entrance and burned it into my memory.
I glanced at my watch. It was just after 4 pm. I decided to wait for it to get dark and see what further instructions came my way. Then I was going to get Lex back, no matter what I had to do to make sure that happened. There was no way I was going to let those bastards keep her any longer than that. Plus, I owed them for what they had done to her.
They were going to pay for fucking with Ice Malone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - ALEXA
I looked up when Bill strolled back into the room. I didn’t know how long he had been gone. I was having a hard time keeping track of time. He had a backpack with him that he threw on the floor. Then he dug inside. He came out with a manila envelope and a wrapped deli sandwich. My stomach growled again, and he laughed. It was an ugly sound.
“Lucky girl. This is for you,” he said. He pulled out his switchblade. “If I undo those bindings, do you promise to be a good girl?”
I nodded. He threw the sandwich into my lap, and I moved my thighs to hold it so it wouldn’t slip off my lap. I felt the release of my wrists as he slid the knife through the duct tape, and I let out a low exhale of relief. I pulled my wrists to my front and started to massage them even as I painfully removed the duct tape from my skin. My arms had gone numb before I even woke up and feeling the blood pumping again lit a fire in the nerve endings in my hands and fingers.
“Eat,” Bill said in a tone that told me it wouldn’t be a good idea to procrastinate. I picked up the sandwich gingerly and unwrapped it. It was ham and cheese. I bit into it and couldn’t stop the small sigh from escaping my lips. It felt as if it had been forever since I had eaten.
“So far, so good, Princess,” Bill said. He pulled his own sandwich out of the backpack. He picked up the envelope that he had thrown on the floor and opened it. Then he stepped closer to me so that I could see inside of it. “One hundred grand. Not a bad day’s work but not quite enough to spring you free. That’s tomorrow, so now we wait.”
I felt my heart begin to race. Shayne didn’t have a hundred grand in cash left. I had no idea what he was going to do, and I had no way to let him know that despite what Bill said, he wasn’t going to let me go. Now that I had seen his face, he couldn’t do that.
“So you will let me go tomorrow?” I asked in a low voice.
Bill smirked. “Of course, Princess. That’s the deal, right?”
I kept eating my sandwich, even though it tasted like ash in my mouth. I had to come up with a plan. “I need to go to the bathroom,” I announced. That was actually the truth. But I also needed to see if I could find anything that I could use or a way to escape along the way.
Bill looked undecided as he took a bite of his sandwich. Then he gave a heavy sigh. He walked over to the seat and knelt down next to me as he slashed away the duct tape around my ankles. I yelped as he ripped the tape roughly away from my skin. He smirked up at me, and I tried to make myself as small as I could against the chair again. He licked his lips as he stared blatantly at my chest. Then he took my elbow and yanked me to my feet.
I wanted to protest, but as the blood rushed back to my legs, Bill’s grip was the only thing that kept me upright. I limped as he pulled me along behind him across the apartment through the kitchen to the door in the corner. He opened it. Inside was the smallest bathroom I had ever seen in my life. There was barely enough room to turn around inside of it with the small sink, toilet, and tub.
“You’ve got five minutes,” he growled. Then he closed the door behind him. I stared at the bathroom. There was a small window above the tub, and I crawled into it as quietly as possible. I wasn’t tall enough to reach the window.
Letting out a frustrated breath, I realized that I had better use the bathroom for its original purpose before he came back. Quickly taking care of that need of my body, I tried to pry open the medicine cabinet. It bounced open with a creak, and I whipped around to see if Bill would come bursting through the door. When he didn’t, I did a quick scan of the inside. There was nothing but a bottle of aspirin, a toothbrush, and a deodorant stick, which Bill clearly wasn’t using. I got the sense that the apartment wasn’t a place that was regularly used, which made me wonder if Bill and his buddy did this kind of thing often.