Page 31 of A Captive Situation

“Do you understand me?”

“I understand you’re a selfish prick. I understand that,” I spat at him.

I was seething inside.

Fuck this. Fuck him. Fuck everything. “I have stuff to do! Things. Lists. A bucket list that ...” That I would not be finishing now.

He ignored my glaring and began untying me. “I’m assuming you need the bathroom again.”

“Yes. That’s on the list too,” I snapped at him. As soon as I was free, he scooped me up from the bed. I began squirming to get free. I reallyreallyhad to go, but Jake only held me tighter and walked me into a bathroom that was connected to the bedroom. He lifted the lid, sat me down, and reached for my jeans.

I began hitting him. “Oh no. No way. I’m not that hard-up for sex.”

Not anymore.

“I’m trying to help you. Your hands were tied in the same position for hours.”

“And who tied them? Fuck you.” I shoved at him, trying to get him away from me, ignoring the feeling of needles coursing through my arms and hands.

He stopped, but lifted his head, his face two inches from me, and he scowled. “You want to piss your pants? Have at it.” He stalked out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

As soon as he was gone and as soon as there was a barrier between us, I let it down.

There was a wall that I erected inside of me, around my heart. I’d need to keep everything locked up inside if I was going to get out of this alive because no matter how much I thought my life was over before, it was nothing to this situation.

It was almost laughable. To think I’d been so devastated about the two decades I gave to Beck and my best friend.

Funny. That didn’t have the same paralyzing pain it had a day ago.

Chapter Eleven

Jake

Everything was completely screwed.

I could hear Sawyer crying inside, but fuck.Fuck!

Because of my dipshit decision, she was involved. Kidnapping. Jesus Christ. If we survived—no, fuck that. We would. She and I together.

My phone began ringing, and looking at the screen, a hollow laugh ripped out of me. I hit accept and went to the kitchen, pouring myself a stiff drink. A very stiff drink.

“Walden. What gave you the idea I’d want to speak to you again?”

Ashton Walden laughed smoothly on the other end, but I expected nothing less from him. He was the head of the Walden Mafia, one of the two families in control of the city. The other was led by his best friend, and while I had hatred for Ashton’s best friend and the best friend’s woman, that was on a personal level. The same wasn’t so for Ashton himself. There was a sort of past with him that filled me with regret, self-loathing, and the odd mix of fondness. Another life and we might’ve been friends, but not this life.

Ashton said, “Want to meet up so I can take pictures of your dead body and collect two million?”

I was a dead man walking, on the phone with a Mafia head, and he was joking about my death contract. For some reason, that relaxed me. “Only if you promise to give your wife the money.”

He laughed. “I could never tell Molly. She’d be aghast that I might’ve benefited off your neck.”

“How about instead you tell me why there’s a hit put out on me? That’d be helpful.”

He got quiet. “You don’t know?”

I snorted. “About the hit? No. I have no fucking idea who’s behind it. My family? Your family? Trace’s? This came out of left field. Someone with a vendetta against me as a cop? Think if I put out a memo that I retired, they’ll take it down?”

“No, but I can tell you that if I wanted you dead, I’d be doing that torture shit personally. You know me. That’s mything.”

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