Page 46 of A Captive Situation

Their voices were loud, passing. Footsteps sounded going up the stairs.

She replied, but I couldn’t catch it. Small blessings.

Their voices drifted, but I could hear him. “He’s not going to be happy, but this place could—” A door opened. The sounds of the club grew loud, then were muffled as the door must’ve closed.

I slipped out.

They’d left the lights on. I figured that’d get caught so I needed to move fast.

A second later, the door burst open.

I got to the room just beyond the stairway when heavy footsteps pounded down the stairs. “Jesus Christ, what did they d—” He got to the bottom when I moved in behind him, my gun pressed to his neck.

He froze.

I warned, “Don’t move.”

His hands went up, his entire body tense. At my words, he looked back. “Jake?”

It was Crispin Worthing. Overall douchebag. Meathead. Muscle-builder type that oozed sliminess. I detested him and his brother. Crispin and Penn. They were also my cousins.

Justin had been the fucking happy social butterfly golden boy. He spent time with them, but that’d been just who he was. He was good, and because he was so good, sometimes he only saw the good in others. I never knew why he bothered. I didn’t think there was any good in this dumbass or his brother. What Justin didn’t know, but I did, was that these two were enforcers for their father. He sent them out to intimidate, beat up, or execute who he said on his orders.

I shoved him forward, barking, “Move.”

“What?”

I raised the gun to his head. “I saidmove.”

His eyes were wide, staring at me with confusion before he began walking. “What are you doing, man? You have something to talk to the family about? You’re the head—”

“Shut the fuck up.” I shoved him forward.

“Hey, man. You don’t have—” He’d edged farther into the room, but his entire body tightened dramatically as a calculating expression came over his face.

He was going to try something so I reacted first, kicking him out from the back of his knees. “You never did learn how to fight someone who could fight back, did you, Crispin?”

He dropped. “Wha—ooh! What thefuck, Jake?”

I rounded on him, delivering a swift kick underneath his chin. It threw him backward, and when he didn’t move right away, I knew I’dwinded him. I taunted him, “You and Penn. You’re both nothing except overgrown bullies. You probably think you’re so tough and badass, right? At the top of the food chain, except you’ve never gone against someone who could actually fight you. Look at you now.”

He tried sitting up, only to fall over.

He coughed, shaking his head, but he started to crawl away.

I let him go, enjoying this sight.

If it wasn’t him, if it wasn’t his brother, or his father, it was someone else in the family who’d sold me out. So yeah. I was going to relish this big hulking cousin of mine crawling to get away from me. The only problem was that I couldn’t let him get too far away. Where he went, his almost twin-like brother was sure to follow.

Putting my toe to his shoulder, I tipped him over.

“With the war against Walden and West, how did you and your fuck-buddy survive? Hmmm. You’re both beyond stupid.” I grunted as I stood over him when he went down. Rearing back, I punched down. Then I used the back of my gun to knock him out. It worked. I wouldn’t have long until he regained consciousness so I moved fast, hurrying upstairs to lock the door. My hand was smarting, but that’d been worth it too. I wasn’t sure when Penn would come looking for his brother, but I knew that he would.

I needed to move fast.

Searching through the basement, I hauled his ass into a room in the back, then up into a chair.

I cursed, panting a little. He was heavy. By the time I’d finished securing him, the music from upstairs burst down into the basement.

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