He nods, satisfied. “Thor wasn’t such a good fucking pick, now was he?”
I won’t fess up to that, not because Liam’s here and he may not understand I’m playing Paul, but because that would be too much and I don’t want to make Paul suspicious.
Instead I go quiet. Blow out some breaths and shudder from the cold.
It takes somewhere around ten minutes before, muttering a string of foul curses, Paul gets out of his chair and yanks his coat off.
His coat smells like him, but I don’t make a face as he drapes it over my body to keep me warm.
I offer a tiny, reluctant smile. “Thank you.”
He mutters and walks back over to his chair, but I’m satisfied.
If I need Paul to help keep me alive, I’m pretty sure I can call on the little weasel.
Liam may have thought he was going to kill me, but you don’t save a woman from her abusive husband if you’re going to let her die anyway.
And you don’t give her blankets when she’s cold.
It’s a long night. What’s worse, there’s no light or dark, so no real sense of time in here. I don’t even know if it’s just been a night. The only way we can determine it must be morning is Paul leaving and the changing of the guard outside the door. I don’t know who it is, only that it isn’t Antonio.
Liam and I chat, but only monotonous stuff, none of the questions we both want answers to.
All we can do is wait, and we don’t even know for what.
More time passes.
The door eventually eases open and a stocky guy with a big nose lumbers in with a bottle of water. He regards Liam but doesn’t approach him. Instead, he comes over to me and unscrews the lid.
“Drink,” he says, tipping the bottle up to my lips.
Relief fills me and I greedily gulp down as much water as I can. It occurs to me that I should make sure I don’t drink more than half so Liam isn’t shortchanged.
Once he pulls the water away, he glances back at Liam again. “Wanna tell us where the shit is stashed?”
Liam doesn’t even glance at the guy.
Big Nose nods his head and moves the water bottle over me, dumping the other half all over my body. I cry out as the icy cold water hits my freezing cold skin and that successfully gets Liam’s attention. He still doesn’t speak, but cold fury takes up residence in the depths of his beautiful brown eyes.
Smirking, Big Nose tells me, “Stay warm, Principessa.”
Paul took his jacket when he left so I don’t even have that for cover. Cold rivulets of water drip down my side, soaking the mattress beneath me. Violent trembling wracks my body and my stupid teeth chatter no matter how hard I try to control it.
Several seconds pass before Liam asks, “How tight are your ropes?”
My wrists were already irritated from all the rubbing, and to be honest, I hadn’t even tried to get out of them. “Tight,” I tell him.
“Did you bring your car keys in?”
I turn my head and look down at the pile of discarded clothes. “Yeah. Don’t know if they grabbed them, but if not they should be down there.”
The chair moves with his efforts and I can only imagine the shape he must be in under that rope.
“Please don’t hurt yourself,” I said.
His deep, gravelly voice is taut with aggravation. “I’m fucking sick of this.”
So am I, but we need to be in the best shape we can when Ryder saves us. If Ryder saves us.