The man cruelly watching them seemed familiar, yet Lena couldn’t remember where she had seen him before.
“Right on time. Moon said he could get you to take a drink. I shouldn’t have doubted him; he always gets the whores to do whatever he wants.”
Lena looked at her husband, seeing the same puzzled frown on him that she had on her face.
“Do something,” she whispered, petrified, scrunching behind Aaron as much as she could to hide from the cruel eyes boring holes through them.
“There’s nothing he can do.”
Peeking over Aaron’s shoulder, she saw a gun pointed at them.
“You should have listened to Slate’s advice and laid low. Fortunately for me, I knew sooner or later a few of his sick rats would want to come out and see what they could scavenge.”
“If you know Slate, then you know we have money. We can pay any amount you want to release us and help us get away from the man who took us,” Aaron bargained.
Cruel laughter filled the room. “You’re asking for my help? That’s fucking hilarious.”
“There’s nothing funny about this. Is this a joke?” Her husband managed to get to his feet.
Left exposed, Lena got to her feet to hide behind him again.
“No joke. And there’s no amount of money in the world that would entice me to help you. You want out of here, you’re going to have to dig yourself out.”
“Oh God! I remember who he is ….” Lena grabbed her husband’s waist to pull him back to her, waiting for the sound of a bullet to go off.
Aaron turned around to look at her. “Who?”
A tsking sound drew his eyes back to the door.
“I’m disappointed you have forgotten me so easily,” the man mocked. “I remember everything about you, Brad. You, too, Cami. How could I ever forget the performance you gave for me? I’m so disappointed.”
As he tsked them again, Aaron looked horror-stricken. He turned his head to see his wife nodding hers in acknowledgment.
“You’ll never know how nice it’s been renewing our friendship, but I don’t have all night to keep you company.”
“Don’t leave …,” Pleadingly, she started begging. “It was Aaron’s idea. I had to go along with it, or he threatened to give me to Slate. I swear—”
“You lying bitch!” Her husband jerked away from her. “It was all your idea! This mess is all your fault, too!”
A shrill whistle had them both looking at the fearsome man who was watching them.
Amber eyes were the only part of the man that she remembered from the night she and Aaron tricked him into believing they had been kidnapped and were at Slate’s mercy. He had tried to help them and, in return, they had spent the rest of the night raping and torturing him until he hadn’t even been able to scream.
“He’s going to kill us.” Going to the wall, she hunkered down into a tight ball, praying it would be quick.
“Aw … No, I’m not.”
Lena started shaking, too scared to believe him.
Aaron did.
“How much do you want? You have to go or take me to an ATM—”
“I’ve already had my laugh for the day, so I’m going to make this short and sweet. You want to live? You’re going to have to earn that right.
“I dug two holes. One will have a key to the door; the other will have a gun. The gun will have one bullet. If you find the key first, you can open the door and will be free to go. If you find the gun … then it becomes a little tricky. Only one person is leaving this room alive. I’ll leave it to you to decide which one. I don’t give a fuck who does. No, wait, I take that back. I’m rooting for you, Brad. From my experience, she’s a real bitch. Good luck!” Scornfully, he went out the metal door, locking it behind him.
Aaron ran to the door and started pulling on the handle. When that didn’t work, he started shouting to get out, banging his fists on the unyielding metal.
“What are we going to do?”
Lena was already frantically digging, scooping up handfuls of dirt while her husband whined at her, as if she could magically wave a magic wand and get them the fuck out of here.
Clawing through the dirt she saw Aaron drop to his hands and knees to start digging. If he found the gun first, she was as good as dead. The coward knew she wouldn’t hesitate to snuff him out to save her own life.
Killing her husband wouldn’t even faze her, she didn’t have a conscience on the other murders she had committed.
The stupid suckers she’d killed who responded to their ads got what they deserved. The only reason she hadn’t killed Aaron was his usefulness at helping her steal what they could load into their cars while their victims lay dead.