CHAPTER TWELVE

Jade

Jacques throws me down on the ground, barking orders at the darkly-clad men in the abandoned triple decker. We’re on the top floor of the derelict building. The blindfold he’s torn off rests around my neck like a noose, while the ball gag is still in its place in my mouth, along with the cuffs on my wrists.

Jacques Laverne is no Marine veteran. He’s a criminal. He abducted me and he left Cas for dead—Cas!

My frantic thoughts screech to a halt at his name, and the memory of how I left him, bleeding and barely conscious in our suite. How Jacques left him. He left his friend to die. I’m quick to make the correction, turning my baleful glare up at the guilty party.

He has the balls to smile at me. Crouching to my level, he cups my chin, his grip growing painful when I try to rip free and rid myself of his slimy touch. “Don’t, Jade. I have no desire to harm you. I was speaking the truth when I said as much to Cas.”

I glower at him, hating how Cas’s name lingers on his tongue. He had no right to talk about Cas, the friend he’d left behind.

As if he read my thoughts, Jacques clucks his tongue. “He was my friend.”

I’m aware of how he uses the past tense, and what he means.

“I’m sure he’d want me to take good care of you, and I’m keeping that promise…for his sake.”

I make an angry, short noise around the ball gag.

He cocks his head, and then he reaches forward, ignoring how I flinch from his big, calloused palms. He frees the gag from my dry, stretched lips, my tongue stroking over their abused surface.

“Better?” he asks.

“Don’t fucking touch me.” I attempt to scoot from him, but Jacques takes a punishing grasp of my upper arms.

“I need to know I have your cooperation, Jade. Only then will I let you leave here alive. Perhaps even in time for Cas’s funeral.”

I shake my head, horrified. “No,” I whisper, the first of my hot tears trailing my cheeks. “No!” I cry, sobbing once and then folding in on myself when Jacques releases me and stands swiftly. He’s answering someone, a sharp feminine voice.

“You found him then? Good. Everything’s going according to plan,” he’s saying. “We’ll be all the richer for it, Steph.”

My legs are drawn to my aching chest, my head resting on my knees. I turn up my face, taking in the tall, curvy woman in Jacques’s embrace. They’re kissing openly, their lips smashed together, their eyes closed to the world around them, the audience witnessing their affectionate gesture.

“Later,” Jacques whispers an oath then, his hand adjusting the front of his pants.

This Steph woman laughs huskily, her long, dark purple nails lightly scraping over his visible tent, and a second later, his erection in her palm through the material of his dark slacks. She snaps her head to me, her seductive smile spreading. “Want me to claw your eyes out, stupid girl?”

Jacques glances my way. “Leave her.” His tone is noncommittal. It makes me wonder if he truly means to free me if I cooperate as his captive. “She’s my problem, babe.”

She flashes me straight, white teeth, her threat still hanging in the air. “Whatever you say, gimpy lover of mine.”

Jacques grunts when she gives his groin a squeeze and she leaves, her boots thudding out of earshot.

“So,” Jacques cocks his head at me, “how long have you known Cas? Were you fucking him and limp-dick Wagner at the same time…?”

I duck my head and close my eyes at his cruel laughter. I don’t lift it again until I’m opening my sleep-grainy eyes. Jacques’s voice drifts to me. He’s in the room, and I’m no longer on the floor. Someone moved me to a springy mattress. I must have fallen asleep.

Starting up, I find resistance. My right wrist is cuffed to the bed as I can make out from the red evening light pouring in through the bay window behind the bed. What time is it? I couldn’t tell under the blindfold when Jacques transported me here from the hotel. Has a whole day gone by? A week? Or has it only been hours of this captive torture?

Jacques’s voice breaches my questions.

It grows closer meaning he’s approaching this room. “She’s fine.” He sees me awake as he fills the threshold, and he enters the room from the dark hall. “I’m looking at her right now, Iz.”

Isaiah’s on the phone!

I maneuver myself off the bed and onto the floor, my right arm awkwardly hanging up where I’m connected to the iron headboard.

Jacques holds out the phone, and Isaiah’s voice fills the room. “How do I know you haven’t killed her?”

“Still don’t believe me?” Jacques walks over to me. “Say ‘hello,’ Jade.”

I bite my lip, glaring at him.

In a flash, he grabs a fistful of my hair in his painful grip. “Say ‘hello,’” he repeats, his teeth bared, his eyes dull and cold.

“Hello?!” I say, yelling and sobbing when he gives my hair a sharp tug.

“See?” He has the phone to his ear again, his hand falling away. He’s no longer crouching in front of me, his back facing me as he strides to the door. There he swivels and leans on the doorjamb, assuming his earlier position. “She’s alive.”

There’s a lengthy pause, and I fill it with my heavy breathing. Whatever peace I’d momentary found in my dreamless sleep, it’s gone. It definitely leaves when Jacques speaks again.

“Casimiro,” he says, his gaze finding mine. “Only a cockroach like you would survive. Kandahar couldn’t kill you either.” He shakes his head, ignoring my flopping mouth and widening eyes. It takes a moment, but I scream his name.

“Cas!”

Jacques winces, his eyes narrowing. With a stiff jaw, he steps out into the hall and whistles. He gestures with a sharp, two-fingered signal and we’re joined by one of his thugs.

This guy steps up, his heavy boots falling upon me. He roughly replaces the gag, my struggles barely waylaying him. Once it’s fitted, he stomps back to his corner, his rifle propped in front of him, gloved finger on the trigger.

“Yeah. That’s your girl,” he drawls into the phone. “She’s alive and kicking. I kept my promise. Now that you’re alive, I won’t need a middleman.” After a long pause, he grins. “I want you, remember? Alone. Just you and me. I couldn’t very well trust you to come along at the hotel, so here’s where to meet up with us.” Jacques rattles off the name of a familiar park.

“Oh, and don’t bother tracking this number. It’s a burner. I’m sure by now you’ve got signals pinging off a bunch of cell towers.” Jacques looks to me.

“And if you invite anyone else—police included—I’ll kill her, Cas. I don’t even care about going to jail. You alone. No one else, or her blood will be on your hands.” He chuckles, the sound more cold than evil. For the latter, he’d actually need to display human emotions. Jacques is a robot.

And that robotic detachment of his might kill me in the end.