Page 92 of Iron Willed Warrior

But I wasn’t going to help him, either. I wouldn’t leave him any phones or car keys. Lance could fend for himself. If he bled out, that was his problem.

Manning was still on his knees. “Get up,” I said. I keptthe gun on him as he stood. He cast a single glance at O’Hanlon, who’d stopped moving.

“How long did Ryker have this planned?” I asked.

“Dude, I don’t know. Since yesterday, maybe? Look, I’ll drop you off where they’ve got Brianna, and then I want to get the hell out of here. I’m done. But are you sure your girl is worth it? Because these Stillwater people are not playing around.”

“She’s wortheverything.”

Whatever fierce light he saw burning in my eyes, it convinced him. Manning wiped the sweat from his face, then said, “It’s about twenty miles from here. Out in the middle-of-nowhere desert.”

“The solar plant,” I muttered.

His brow wrinkled. “How’d you know that?”

“Don’t worry about it. Now, here’s what we’re going to do.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Brynn

Ryker pulledthe bag away from my head. I blinked at the sudden brightness. He snapped a metal cuff onto one of my ankles before I’d even registered the movement. Then he yanked the tape away from my mouth.

“Scream all you want now. Nobody will hear you.”

Gah. That had been…unpleasant.

I rubbed at the raw skin around my mouth. My hands were still bound with the plastic tie, but Ryker hadn’t put them behind me. At least there was that.

I was sitting on a cot in a room with no windows. Cinderblock walls, low ceiling. There was a basic kitchenette across from me. A sliding door leading into a small bathroom. The place was just a step up from a prison cell. No cameras, at least none that I could see.

I bent my legs, and the metal cuff on my ankle pulled. The cuff was attached to a thin chain. The other side of the chain connected to the metal frame of the cot.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“This is the start of your new life. Time to get used to it.”

I held back my sneer.Really?He needed to work on hispsychological tactics, because all he was doing was pissing me off.

It had been hours since we’d left the resort. Someone had bundled me with thick fabric, maybe curtains and tablecloths, then packed me up like cargo into a waiting van. We’d driven somewhere, followed by a transfer to another vehicle. I’d heard Ryker’s voice through all of it. Not Westwick or the others, so I had no idea where they were.

I hadn’t heard Cole’s voice either. I couldn’t think about him right now. Couldn’t risk falling apart if he was truly gone.

I’d fought like hell earlier, and it hadn’t gotten me very far. I had to come up with an actual strategy. This might be a prison cell, but it looked lived in. There had to be something here I could use.

I looked up at Ryker. He had red scratches on his face. Scratches I remembered giving him. “You have a little something here,” I said, pointing at my own face like a mirror. “Looks like it hurt.”

Ryker came at me, pushing me roughly by the shoulder. My back landed against the thin mattress. He towered over me. “I told you there were plenty of ways I could cause you pain without leaving a mark.”

Ryker jabbed his thumb between my ribs, aiming for a pressure point. My breath stuttered, and my vision swam. The pain drove away my ability to think.

“Enough of that,” Garon Westwick said.

Ryker pulled back. Westwick stood there in the open doorway. I hadn’t heard him come inside. I sucked air into my lungs, shaking off the intense pain in my rib cage.

I tried to get a glimpse of what was outside the door, but all I could see was another cinderblock wall. A hallway, maybe. And the profile of a guard in black tactical clothes with a rifle across his chest.

“Keys?” Westwick held out his palm, and Ryker set a ring there, metal jangling. “Leave us,” the head of Stillwater said.

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