Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
We don’t have time for anything.
Voices echo outside the warehouse room—low, masculine, laughing like they’re already counting whatever money they’re planning to make off us.
I go cold.
Tiffany watches me, eyes steel. “We’re not waiting for them to sell us,” she says. “We’re getting the hell out of here.”
“How?” I whisper, gesturing to my restraints. “They tied us like—”
“Like amateurs,” she cuts in. “Which works in our favor.”
She shifts her weight, lifting her leg awkwardly to show me her boot. The tip of a small metal multitool peeks out of the side seam.
“You keep that?” I breathe in sheer amazement.
“You think growing up with my dad, he didn’t teach me a thing or two?” she whispers. “This is my emergency baby blade.”
“You have an emergency blade?”
“Several. But right now we’re grateful for the small one.” She twists her ankle again, trying to maneuver it out far enough to grab.
Footsteps thud closer.
Tiffany freezes. Then drops her leg.
The door to the warehouse room opens.
Ericc strides in, adjusting his cuffs like he’s arriving at a brunch reservation instead of a human trafficking exchange. His men follow behind—one carrying duct tape, another holding a portable radio.
“Afternoon, ladies,” Eric sings.
I flinch.
Tiffany snarls under her breath.
Eric ignores her. He crouches in front of me, tipping my chin up with two fingers. “You’re looking better. I was worried the sedative hit you too hard.”
“Worried?” I spit. “You do this and worried is all you have to say?”
He sighs like I’m the one being unreasonable.
“You always were emotional, Holley. It’s exhausting.”
Tiffany jerks her restraints. “Get away from her, you sick bastard.”
He turns toward her slowly. “And you—little Hellion. You’re going to fetch a nice price. I’ve got buyers who love fire.”
She spits at him again.
He dodges it this time.
He smiles.
The kind of smile that makes my stomach twist.
“We leave in twenty minutes,” he says. “Be ready.”
He gestures to one of the men. “Tape their mouths.”
The man steps toward Tiffany first.
“Don’t,” she says sharply. “Don’t touch me.”
He reaches anyway.
And Tiffany’s knee snaps up where she managed to sneak and break the ties on her ankles—slamming him square in the groin.
He drops with a guttural cry.
Eric swears. “Enough.”
He steps toward her himself.
Something in me snaps.
“Touch her and I swear—”
“What?” he interrupts with a laugh. “You’ll kill me? Holley, stop pretending you’ve ever had that kind of spine.”
He grabs my jaw again.
And I feel it then—
Something deep.
Something old.
Something I thought he had broken.
A spark of self that refuses to die.
“She’s tougher than you,” I hiss. “So am I.”
His eyes darken. Anger, pure and cold.
“You got nothing here, Holley. No leverage. If I didn’t want the money so bad, I’d make you feel my wrath. Make yourselves presentable,” he dismisses me , stepping back toward the door. “Our transport arrives shortly.”
He leaves without looking at us again.
The door slams.
We wait.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Fifteen.
Footsteps fade.
Then silence.
Tiffany exhales shakily. “I hope I shattered that asshole’s balls.”
I nearly laugh. It comes out a rough breath. “I think you did.”
“Good,” she mutters. “Now let’s get out of here.”
She shifts her foot again, and this time the blade drops into her hand with a soft metallic clink.
She grins. “Bingo.”
I watch her maneuver the tiny blade toward the zip tie binding her wrists. It’s agonizingly slow—her wrist angle is awful, the blade tiny, her fingers shaking.
I listen to every drip of water, every echoing footstep outside.
Every second is a countdown.
“Hurry,” I whisper.
“Working on it.”
The plastic begins to saw. She bites her lip, pushing through the pain.
Then—
A snap.
Her wrists break free.
She lets out a shaky breath. “Okay. Now you.”
She scoots toward me on her knees, cutting quickly, efficiently.
My wrists spring apart.
I could cry from relief. I don’t.
I lean forward so she can reach my ankle restraints.
“Listen,” she whispers. “Once we’re free, we need distance first. Don’t run for the door—they’ll expect that. We need a shadowed route.”
“Back wall,” I say immediately. “I saw a maintenance ladder there.”
“Good,” she nods. “We climb.”
Just as we both are getting to our feet we hear it. The distant roar of something shakes the walls.
I freeze.
Tiffany freezes.
The roar grows louder.
Not thunder.
Engines.
Motorcycles.
A lot of them.
Tiffany’s eyes widen. “Oh, shit.”
I swallow. “Is that—?”
“Yeah,” she whispers, a wild, feral grin spreading across her face. “That’s them.”
My heart lurches painfully.
Tony.
He found us.
Before I dare let hope settle, the warehouse trembles with the force of multiple engines pulling up outside—a whole fleet.
Shouts erupt.
Footsteps pound.
Doors slam.
Chaos blooms through the building.
Tiffany works faster leading us to the back wall and window where we saw the shadow of a ladder. “They’re here. Pop’s here. We need to move now before Eric uses us as shields.”
Fear grips me again. “What if they get inside first?”
“Then we get behind cover,” she says. “We don’t make ourselves targets.”
Another engine revs.
Then another.
A deep, unmistakable voice bellows outside:
“You fucked with the Hellions mother fucker. You picked the wrong one.”
Tony.
My chest breaks open.