Finding Faye (K&S Securities 1)

He nods and motions back toward the hall. “Let's go get our women.”

I can’t disagree with that. We check our weapons, making sure they are ready to be used after the altercation, and together we proceed down the oddly silent hall and upstairs, approaching the room that is supposed to contain my whole world...I hope.

My Glock finds its way into my hand again as we prepare to enter the apartment.

Xavier tests the knob, but it’s locked. He lifts a booted foot, preparing to kick when a muffled scream obliterates the uncanny silence surrounding us. The sound almost knocks me to my knees.

It's Faye. She screamed my name, and she is below me somewhere. Not behind this door. Thank God for thin walls. In a newer building I never would have heard her.

I have to find her now. I wasn’t able to stop them from taking her, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let anything else happen to her. Not when I’m finally close enough to stop it.

My eyes meet Xavier’s and words aren’t necessary. He claps a hand to my shoulder with a hard squeeze before I turn and sprint back down the hall to the stairs. I hear the wooden door splinter under Xavier’s boot behind me as I barrel into the stairwell, my heavy footsteps echoing around me.

He has to save his girl. I'm going to save mine. Or die trying.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Faye

“Where is what?” I whisper, scalding tears flowing over my throbbing cheek. I think I might be a little in shock because that probably should have hurt more. I can taste blood in my mouth where my teeth cut in when his hand made contact with my face.

It's been years since someone smacked me like that, and it is every bit as shitty as I remember it.

At least when Brad hit me I knew he didn't intend to kill me—he was just trying to prove that he was the boss of me.

This man, on the other hand, I have no doubt that he has every intention of killing me.

I feel sick to the stomach. Scared. More than scared. Knowing that my only value to this man right now is because he thinks I have something he wants. It is, undoubtedly, the worst feeling in the world.

I would happily go back to those first long weeks alone. As frightened as I was then, it was nothing compared to the soul-deep terror I feel right now. I don’t want to die. Not yet, not when I just found the missing half of myself.

“I know you took it that night,” he tells me, his voice quivering with intensity or insanity, maybe a combination of both. He bends toward me, bringing his face level with mine. He is almost conversational, like there is nothing out of the ordinary for him to be interrogating a woman bound to a chair.

This freaks me out almost more than anything else. Maybe kidnapping and torture is his thing. I can’t stop my eyes from darting back over to his collection of tools gleaming in the morning light. Saliva floods my mouth and I swallow hard trying to control my urge to vomit. I’m not nearly as tough as I try to tell myself I am.

His eyes shine black in the dim light of the room. I can't bear to look at them, so I lower my chin to my chest and let my hair fall in a curtain around my face. It doesn’t stop me from feeling his eyes on me.

Shaking my head, I force my gaze past him and take in the rest of the room. It is in the same state of disarray as the one Ana and I were being held in. It's hard to tell if this shithole is going to be renovated or demolished. I hope they tear it to the ground.

“All I took that night was some clothes and my money,” I tell him, but he doesn't believe me. His lip curls up in a nasty sneer and he picks something off his table of horrors, turning it over in his hands. I refuse to look.

“I can make you tell me what I want to hear,” he threatens, and I'm sure he's right. It probably wouldn’t even take much to get me to talk, but I'm not lying. I have zero clue what he is talking about.

As much as I'm fighting them, tears keep slipping down my face. He catches one on his finger and brings it to his mouth.

“Scared tears taste the best,” he tells me, a crooked grin distorting his mouth. I'm sure he's had the opportunity to taste plenty of those.

I have to try to give him something. Anything to distract him from hurting me. To give Travis time to come for me. If he’s coming… When he’s coming.

“Maybe if you tell me what you are looking for, I might remember if I have ever seen it,” I plead, knowing he's going to hurt me soon. Whatever he’s holding is sharp. I can see him testing the point against his thumb. I think it’s an ice pick, but I don’t want to look. I don’t want to know.

“The fucking ledger, you stupid little bitch,” he whispers low in his throat as his meaty hand grasps my injured shoulder, the fingers digging in as he puts the sharp point against my cheek, tracing a line down my throat.

My breath stutters to a stop and I swallow the pained cry begging to be released as he adds pressure to my injury. I am afraid that if I even breathe wrong he will slip the cold metal into my flesh. If I survive today I have no doubt that my shoulder is going to hurt for a long time.

“I never saw a ledger.”