Page 17 of Savior

I’ve found some information I’m running down on where I think she might be. If it’s true, it will be hard to get her back.

Get her back?!

What do you mean, get her back?

My heart hammersin my chest as the little bubbles pop up as he’s typing back to me.

We’ll talk in person.

I growl,throwing my phone onto the coffee table. It’s the nature of working with Ardesia Ricci. He’s weary of any paper trail, even digital. He leaves his footprint nowhere the cops can make stick to him.

I close my eyes and see Sloane. She’s bound and gagged, men standing over her. I snarl and stand, putting my hands on my head as I pace through the room.

I have to stop this.

I don’t know her any more than I knew Ray. Sure, we were friends growing up, but we grew apart. No matter how I wanted to bring him into the light, he crept into the darkness. And even though I’ve recently stepped into the seedy parts of New York at night, I don’t think I’ve seen half of it.

When my phone goes off again, I nearly fall over myself to get to it. But it’s only an email that there’s a meeting for the budget next week for the church with the board.

I laugh at myself, lying on my back. “Get it together, Luca. Damn.”

CHAPTER SIX

SLOANE

Dread climbs through my body like a poisonous spider. The ride here was terrifying. And my one weapon, the one thing I have when all else fails, my smart mouth, has been gagged. Even when life is kicking my ass, my ability to process it out loud as words, even venomous ones, keeps me going.

I’m being carried; that’s all I know. My blindfold is tightly bound around my head, and my hands are hog-tied to my ankles behind me.

“That’s good enough,” Matteo orders his men, and I’m dropped unceremoniously onto the floor.

Acid burns in the back of my throat.

Light filters through my lids as my blindfold falls away, and I open them to scan my eyes over a crouching Matteo before me.

If I ever see Myra again, I’m going to beat her ass. I never go out. I’m not a part of the night scene. And the one time I had this happened?

I’ve been kidnapped, trafficked into some strange mafia ring, and then sold to the highest bidder.

“You’re much more docile when you’re tied up and gagged,” Matteo observes, smiling with a vacant look in his eyes.

Here I thought I’d be able to get away from the fucking dungeon and have an opportunity to get free, and yet, the first thing this man does is bind and gag me.

Fuck you.

It rings through my head like an errant wind.

“Alas, I can’t keep you bound forever if you’re going to settle in here.”

Settle in? Is he fucking insane?

The first chance I get, I’m getting out of here.

Hell, every chance I get, I’m running.

Until he kills me.

I didn’t survive this damned long to be someone’s prisoner.

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