Down hallways and down staircases I go, clutching my balisong in my hand, ready to plunge it deep into the chest of any man who might stand in my way. There are so many bedrooms, so many narrow corridors and so many fucking dark corners that I begin to doubt my plan. How the hell am I going to search this place without waking anyone up? It’s like hunting for a needle in a haystack.
I head downstairs, following my gut. If I were Fernando… Wow. That’s a horrifying thought. If I were Fernando, I hopefully wouldn’t be hosting such fucked up sex parties, and I hopefully wouldn’t be kidnapping men and women and forcing them to do unspeakable things to each other for other people’s entertainment. If I were, though, if I were the most deplorable kind of person imaginable, I suspect I’d be keeping my captives under the house, as opposed to in any of the luxurious, comfortable rooms on the top floor. The basement, if there is one in this giant, soulless building, won’t have any windows, which means less chance of escape. And basements are nearly always easy to soundproof, so no faint, desperate cries for help would be heard anywhere else in the house. Seems prudent to me.
I’m on the ground floor, when I hear a muffled scraping sound behind me. At first I think it’s my imagination, heightened by the stress of the situation, but then I hear the sound of quiet, even breathing and I know I’m being watched. Harrison? Maybe Ocho? God knows how many people Fernando has in his employ; it could be any one of those fuckers. I duck to the right, slipping into a shadowed doorway. I have no idea where the door leads, and I don’t find out. I press my back against the wall, opening and closing the door loudly enough that whoever is hanging back in the hallway will think I have walked through, and then I wait.
One, two, three, four, five…
A slender shadow stretches up along the other side of the doorframe, and then suddenly a figure is standing there, dressed all in black, with a huge, menacing knife in their hand. Scratch that—it’s not a knife. It’s a motherfucking machete, and it’s about to come down on my head. I react, blocking the blow, sending the blade clattering from my attacker’s hand.
“Shit,” he swears under his breath. I grab hold of him by the throat, slamming him into the wall, lifting him a clear foot off the ground as I pin him to the wall.
“Shit’s right, motherfucker. You’re in it up to your neck now.” I pull back my arm, ready to hammer the point of my own flick knife into his throat, when I see freckles, a fuck load of them, and I squint a little closer into the darkness.
“Natalia?”
“Let me…go!” She kicks and scratches, using her fingernails, digging them into my skin. I barely feel a thing, but in the same vein I know she’s leaving a mark on me.
“Quit it,” I snap. “Damn it, Natalia. Be fucking quiet!” That’s a stupid thing to demand of her, I’m sure—she’s going to be yelling for her father the moment I set her down—but I demand it anyway. Then again…I’m not squeezing her throat hard enough to prevent her from screaming, and she hasn’t done it yet. What does that mean? Why isn’t she making more noise than she is right now? I clamp a hand over her mouth, pressing my body against hers so my chest is pinning her to the wall and not my hand wrapped around her throat.
I can feel her tits crushed up against my chest, and it’s almost enough to make my dick hard, especially since she’s still clawing and scratching at me like a hellcat. “Let me go, cabron! I need…I need to fucking talk to you.”
“About what?”
“My father.”
“So talk. You can do that just fine right here. Is he planning on killing me?”
“Yes. But then he’s planning on killing everyone here at some point or another, so…don’t take it personally.”
“That might be difficult. I like being alive.”
“Then you should leave here. Right now. And don’t come back. Forget about the drugs. Forget about Plato. Get on your bike and go. Don’t look back.”
That’s probably very sound advice, but I’ve been on this road for so long now. I have no idea how to turn away from it. I haven’t got the faintest clue where I would go if I walked away from this lead. “I can’t do that, Natalia. I have to see this thing through.”
She huffs, pulling at the hand I have wrapped around her neck, trying to force me to release my hold. I have more strength in my little finger than she does in both arms, though, so she doesn’t get very far. She gives up, allowing her arms to fall slack. “You’re not as smart as you think you are,” she tells me. “You think I don’t know why you’re really here?”
I scan her face, looking for some sign that she’s grasping at straws, simply trying to get me to back off, but all I find is wildfire burning in her eyes. She’s defiant and angry. If looks could kill, I’d already be six feet under. “What do you mean, why I’m really here?” I demand.
“I knew as soon as I laid eyes on you, Cade. She told me you’d come for her one day, and I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe for one second anybody would ever be so stupid.”