The Hit (Team Zulu 1)

“Let me talk to Justin.” I swallowed against the dryness in my throat. “I promise, I’ll find out what you want to know. But if you kill any of us, I swear to God you’ll never get your stuff back.”

He smoothed a hand down the front of his vest and straightened his cuffs, the picture of calm composure once more. “That almost sounded like a threat. You better hope your brother comes through, or else you’re all leaving here in trash bags.”

Goosebumps rose on my flesh. All this talk about our impending deaths was more than I could handle.

“Take her next door. If she gives you any problems, put her in her place.” Franky didn’t spare me a parting glance as he moved to his collection of books.

“Sure, boss,” Lou said from behind me. I’d almost forgotten he was there. He yanked me up by my forearm to haul me out.

The room next door was smaller than Franky’s office and bland in comparison. The only furnishings were a sofa against one wall, and two steel chairs bolted to the floor in the center of the room. There were no windows to ventilate the stench of disinfectant, and I wondered if the last person held in here had been leaking blood or piss.

Probably both.

Lou pushed me into a chair.

I hissed as he clamped cuffs around my wrists and looped a chain through the back support. “Ouch! Dammit, they don’t need to be so tight!”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “But I like it that way, so deal with it.”

“Asshole!” I spat the word with venom.

I saw the slap coming before it hit, but I had no way to brace myself. The firm clout to the side of my face would have sent me falling to the floor if Lou hadn’t cuffed me to the chair. My ears rang and cheek throbbed.

“I’ve wanted to do that since you woke up on the plane.” He leaned down to my eye level, his hands braced on the seat on either side of my thighs. “So, go on. Give me another reason to make you hurt.”

I stretched my jaw and licked the corner of my mouth, tasting blood. The effect was instant—I saw red.

I straightened my posture and lifted my chin. “If Shep and I get out of this alive, I’m going to tell him all about you. And then he’ll come for you. You know that, right?” My cool tone belied the anxiety simmering beneath. I wanted this bully to have a taste of fear. If he had any clue what Shep was capable of, he’d feel it.

“You think your psycho boyfriend is ever seeing daylight again?” His menacing stare unnerved me. “He’s being beaten to within an inch of his life as we speak. Only reason he’s not dead already is because Franky will want this to take a long time.” He rose so his hulking frame loomed over me. “Might go down there and have some fun, too. Come back up here with his blood on my knuckles. Show you what it looks like. Make you taste it. What do you think of that?”

That they were still hurting Shep felt like a knife to my gut. Franky had turned off the camera feed, but he hadn’t given the order for the beating to stop. Shep was the strongest person I knew, but how much more could he take?

My heart ached, and I’d never been more desperate or helpless in my life.