Page 15 of Knight

"Bathroom," I croak when the glass is empty.

He studies me for a long moment. "Try anything stupid and you won't like what happens."

The key clicks in the first cuff. Blood rushes back into my fingers, bringing needles of pain. When both hands are free,I almost sob from the agony of bringing them forward. My shoulders scream in protest.

"Up."

I try. My legs are numb, useless. I slide back down the wall, pins and needles shooting through my feet.

He watches my pathetic attempts without offering help. "You have thirty seconds to stand or the cuffs go back on, and you can sit in your own piss."

Somehow I make it upright, hanging onto the radiator like a drunk. The few steps to the toilet might as well be miles. He keeps the gun trained on me as I stumble forward, legs threatening to give out with each step.

"I can't ..." The words catch in my raw throat. "Not with you watching."

"You can, and you will." His voice is flat. "Unless you'd prefer to sit in your own mess for the next twelve hours."

Humiliation burns through me as I fumble with my jeans. My fingers barely work. Everything hurts. But it's either this or ... I can't even think about the alternative.

He stands there, clinical and cold, like I'm an unwanted dog he’s taken out to be clean. I fix my eyes on the wall, trying to pretend I'm anywhere else as I relieve myself.

"Done?"

I nod, not trusting my voice.

"Back to the radiator."

“I need to wash my hands.”

“Ten seconds.”

My legs shake with each step to the sink, and then back to the radiator. The cuffs click back into place, somehow tighter than before. The brief freedom only makes the restraint more unbearable.

The door closes and then I'm alone again with the lights and the pain and the shame of being stripped of even basic human dignity.

What happened to Knight? Where is the man who understood about Michael, who made me laugh even when everything was falling apart? Is he dead?

I lean my head against the wall, too exhausted to even cry.

Something is very wrong here. And I'm trapped in the middle of it with no way out.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Knight

I hadto set aside my investigation for twenty-four hours while I did a job for Bishop. I even forgot I had a woman locked in my bathroom for a while … until Eden went to use it. It was only as she reached for the door that I remembered, but by then it was too late.

Well, maybeforgotis too strong a word, but I set it to one side in favor of getting answers Bishop needed before returning to my own mystery.

Thankfully, Bishop doesn’t believe in demanding to know every detail of the jobs I run, and expects me to be able to handle them the same way he handles his, so I was able to brush him off with bullshit and distractions. But once he leaves, the need for answers returns with a vengeance.

I go back into my workspace, where the laptop, powered down and isolated from any networks, sits in my Faraday box.

How did she get those access codes?

The fall shattered the screen, but the hard drive should be intact. Every breach has a signature. Every intrusion leaves traces.

The bathroom sensors ping—the third micro-movement in the past hour. A shift in position, an attempt to easethe pressure from the cuffs. She's uncomfortable. Every tiny movement she makes tells me that. She might even be scared. Knowing her emotional state matters because fear makes people unpredictable—and unpredictability is dangerous.

---