Fallen Empire (Dirty Empire)

If I had to guess, I’d say this guy could survive out here on his own for months without ever making a run for supplies.

My gut tenses. How long will I survive out here?

“Get goin’.” He shoves me forward and I stumble, the desert scalding beneath my bare feet. The tie on my robe has loosened, leaving the two sides hanging open and myself exposed. I’m too frightened to be embarrassed. Still, I’m thankful he’s behind me as he goads me forward, up the metal steps and through the door that he reaches around me to open. He left it unlocked. I guess there was no need to secure it, what with our remote location and the barbed wire.

The air inside the trailer is stifling, the windows all sealed, the blinds closed to shut out the sun—or the outside world from the dark things happening inside. It’s sparsely decorated and old, but tidy, and overwhelmingly clean. My nose furls at the overpowering scent of bleach.

“Move,” he barks.

I stagger in the only direction I can—past the faded brown La-Z-Boy and television, through the kitchen that boasts ivory appliances and a 1950’s style metal-and-melamine dinette set, along a narrow corridor of faux-wood-paneled walls and closet doors. Two doors are situated at the end. The one on the right has multiple locks on the outside.

I tense as he reaches around me to open the door to that room. With a slap against the light switch just inside, he herds me into a tiny space lit by one naked bulb and empty save for a bucket in a corner and a mattress lying on the floor. The only window in the room has been boarded up with a sheet of plywood, sealing it shut.

Not that I hadn’t already guessed it, but this guy has prepared for me.

Fingers dig into my forearm behind my back, and I automatically squirm against his grip.

“Hold still or I’ll cut you,” he warns.

I wince as he tugs on my arms, but then the tension around my wrists loosens, the binding removed. I curl my arms around my body, pulling the sides of my robe closed as I shift away from him, into the corner.

Finally, I dare turn to face my captor for the first time since he took me.

My breath catches. It’s not the scar running from his temple to his jaw that makes me flinch, though that injury looks like it comes with a horrific tale. Everything about his face—from his hollowed cheeks to his sunken eyes to the thin, flat line of his mouth—is cold and hostile. He’s wiry thin, his hair cropped short and graying at the temples. I’d put him in his late forties.

In his left grip is the knife he used to free my wrists—a long, curved blade that looks primed to gut a person. Those flinty gray eyes drag over the length of me, but the usual hunger I see lingering in men’s gazes when they ogle me is absent. That almost scares me more.

He makes no move forward.

What does he plan on doing to me?

I swallow against my burgeoning fear and lift my chin, feigning confidence. “If you know who Gabriel Easton is, then you know how much money he has and how much he’d pay to get me back, unharmed.” I hope that’s all this is about. Gabriel’s proven he’s willing to pay to keep me around and happy. He’s thrown obscene amounts of money at everyone—the guards at Fulcort to allow me access to my father; Jason DeHavilland, the lawyer who’s convinced he can get my father’s conviction overturned; even the drug rehab center where I work, to ensure they can afford to keep paying my salary. Surely, Gabriel will pay this guy whatever he wants.

One corner of the man’s thin lips kicks up. “Probably not as much as his father is paying me to keep you here.”

My eyes flash wide with surprise. This guy works for Vlad Easton? Gabriel’s father is behind my kidnapping?

His dark chuckle fills the small, stuffy room. “Welcome to the family, darlin’. Haven’t you realized just how fucked up they all are yet?”

“Why is Gabriel’s father paying you to keep me here?”

“Because Vlad figured out what string to pull to get his son to do what he wants him to.”

Realization hits me. Gabriel’s father has been pressing him to take over the family’s criminal enterprise, something both Gabriel and Caleb are desperate to get away from, if what Gabriel told me was true. “He won’t do it.”

“For your sake, you better hope his tune changes.” The man lifts the blade in his hand and tests the curved hook at the end with the pad of his thumb. A bright spot of crimson blooms on his skin. He doesn’t so much as flinch at the self-inflicted wound. “But for my sake, I hope you’re right.”