Page 16 of Devil's Luck

He’s right. I am not powerless here. I can find a way to get myself free.

My eyes zone in on the desk in front of me. What are the chances of there being something in one of those drawers that can help me break out of these ropes? I guess I won’t know unless I scoot myself closer and find out.

Leaning forward, biting my lip to stifle a whimper as the ropes scrape against my wrists, I plant my feet flat on the floor and lift my butt to see if the chair will move. It does! Adjusting my weight just a bit, I get the chair closer to the desk, inch by agonizing inch with each hop.

Now to figure out how to open the drawers.

I wiggle my wrists and ankles again but they still won’t budge. I wonder if I can bite through the rope? No, the strands are too tightly woven. Shit.

Inspiration hits and I remember a movie I watched on Netflix not too long ago. I was bored and nothing else was catching my interest, so I just clicked on a random new release and listened to it as background noise while I scrolled through my Instagram.

A woman was tied up, hands behind her back, in the trunk of a car. She escaped by straightening her fingers while cupping her palm, pressing as much of her pinkie to her thumb as she could, to make the circumference of her hand smaller. She was able to wiggle and shimmy one hand free, then the other, and pop the trunk and run when the car stopped.

I try the same pinkie to thumb technique with my left hand, since I’ve heard your nondominant hand is smaller than theother, and feel a little bit of give in the rope. Trying again, using the sweat from my palm to aid in sliding along the chair’s armrest, I pull my arm back and somehow it starts to work. My wrists are going to be sore after this whole ordeal, but if that is the worst injury I sustain, I’m okay with it.

Yes! One hand free!

I pull the first desk drawer open and hit the jackpot—a box cutter! Using this with my left hand is going to be tricky, so I don’t accidently cut myself in the process, but if I take a few deep breaths and go slow, I should be good. My fingers wrap around the slim handle of a box cutter—sharp and desperate, just like me—and get to work.

With a slow and smart movements, I begin slicing at the rope around my right wrist. I know I said I’d stay calm, but my heart is pounding wildly in my chest because I can’t believe this is working.

Each scrape against the tight fibers sends a tingle up my arm, but also a rush of adrenaline surges through me. I imagine being home in Fergus’s arms, and the thought alone ignites a tiny spark of hope.

I get a more reliable grip and, after several breaths filled with gusto and anticipation, the fibers burst apart, falling loose. I unravel the rope and finally have both hands free. Using my now free right hand, I get to work on the ropes around my ankles. Within what I imagine is a few minutes, but feels like hours, all the ropes are gone.

My heart jumps when a short thumping sound echoes in the distance—I freeze for a moment, listening intently. The room goes still again, and my breath catches in my throat. I need to move.

Now free, I cautiously rise to my feet, the chair creaking under the sudden shift of weight. I hear the scuffle some sort and the deep timber of voices nearby. The short thumping sound happens again, but this time it’s closer and much louder, echoing like it’s in a large empty room.

That was a gunshot!

My instincts scream at me to remain hidden, so I crouch behind the desk, clenching the box cutter tightly against my chest. I can’t believe I did it, I’m going to escape this hellhole. Now if only someone would stop using it as a place to have target practice, I would be much happier.

But what if it’s Fergus out there? I don’t know how he would have found me, but at this point, all I can do is hope it is. And if it’s not, then I’m just as much on my own now as I was two minutes ago. But hey, I got myself this far . . . I can do this!

Adrenaline courses through me, and I bite down on my lip to keep from hyperventilating while I plan my next move. If I can get to the door, and open it just enough to squeeze through unnoticed, I can plan what to do next when I get out there, wherever there is. I take a deep breath, forcing myself into a calm mindset and tell myself—one step at a time.

Not allowing myself even a second to panic, every instinct telling me to act fast, I scan the room again. My eyes dart around in a desperate search for another way out. The one door is the only way.

CHAPTER EIGHT

FERGUS

The house is too quiet without Nola here.

I never spent much time in the living room before she moved in, usually choosing to camp out in my office, or stumbling inthe front door too tired to do anything but sleep and heading straight for bed, but I seem to have found myself here now that she’s not home. With Nola at work, and the mess from last night’s shipment interception finally cleaned up, I have some time to kill while I wait for her call to pick her up from work.

Growing up in this house, it wasn’t always a happy place. My parents never really liked each other, both products themselves of arranged marriages, they barely tolerating each other just enough to have my brother and I, but not much else. Any time we spent with one parent was separate from the other.

Ma died when I was twelve and Tadhg was ten, just after we moved here to Houston from Galway, Ireland. The doctors said it was a heart attack, but Nana says it was a broken heart because she missed home.

Da died just over three years ago now. He was an innocent bystander, but was gunned down in a drive-by shooting. As the leader of the O’Carroll Mafia himself at the time, the threat of death was never far away, but he really was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and took a bullet not even meant for him.

Staring over at the fish tank in the wall, I wonder if Nola wants to redecorate or do any renovations now that this is her home too? Other than a few cosmetic updates as they were needed, nothing major has been done to the main living areas or the kitchen since I was in my late teens, so we might be due for a little sprucing up—as long as she doesn’t try to put pink wallpaper in my office, I don’t care if she wants to rip the walls down to the studs and start from scratch.

Nola has been at her office for six hours now, and I miss her like fucking crazy. Maybe tonight I can try again and convince her to quit. I never hear her do much but complain about the law firm, so maybe I can entice her to leave, then maybe work for one of my businesses.

Or what sounds like an even better idea is I can take a lesson from my little brother’s playbook and knock her up, marry her, and have her stay home to raise our own little family. While we’ve discussed how we both want to get married and have a few children, I didn’t realize how much I wanted it sooner than later until the last couple of weeks.

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