Page 25 of The Lasso Master

She was bound, wrists cuffed behind her back with thick steel restraints that bit into the bones when she shifted. Ankles too. The way her legs were folded beneath her made them ache.

The cold beneath her confirmed she was on a concrete floor. Bare. Hard. She could hear others breathing nearby. Soft whimpers. A low sob. The occasional clang of metal against metal.

Auction tags hung from every cage in the room, swaying gently like grim flags. She couldn’t make out the details yet, but the sounds told her everything she needed to know. Therustle of chains. The cold, mechanical beep of scanners. A girl crying softly two cages down. The sound of dehumanization was unmistakable.

Someone had fastened a tag to her throat like a badge of ownership.

27.

Panic tried to claw its way up her spine, but she shoved it down, clenching her jaw until her teeth ached. She couldn’t afford to panic. She forced her breath even, sharp and shallow. If she was going to survive this, she needed a plan. Fast.

Every instinct screamed at her to find the pattern, to find the gaps. What were the routines? Who was watching? How tight were the rotations?

She'd been trained for worse. Used for worse. But this time, she wasn’t alone—not really.

Reed would come. He had to.

“Pretty thing,” someone said outside her cell. “Going on the block tonight.”

12

REED

It had taken most of the day.

The techs at Silver Spur had hammered at Harper's encryption like it was a fortress under siege. Layers of deception, decoys, false pathways, corrupted files. She’d buried her trail like someone expecting to be followed—but only by someone who knew her mind.

By dusk, they were down to one final lock.

"We’re in everything else," one of the techs said, swiping his palm across a monitor. "But this last gate needs a password. And none of the phrases you gave us worked. We've run it through our usual algorithms and nothing is working."

Reed leaned forward, staring at the blinking cursor. It pulsed like a heartbeat.

Then it hit him.

Not a date. Not a job code. Something more intimate. Something she’d only ever called him with that wicked little smile.

"Boss Man," he said.

The screen flashed. Accepted.

The room went still as the final data file unfolded before them.

It was all there: names, locations, encrypted logs of artifacts, private messages, and—tucked in the metadata—a single destination marked with a timestamp: a single, dead-dropped message hidden in a junk fileVILLA CALDERON. 9 PM.

Harper had left the door open and tied it up with a damn red ribbon. A lump formed in Reed’s throat, uninvited and hard. For a man used to violence and code, it gutted him more than any bullet ever had. That ribbon wasn’t just her trust—it was her heart, fragile and outstretched, handed to him with all her jagged edges exposed.

That wasn’t mischief. That was her.

She wanted him to find this. Not just anyone. Him. It was her last thread, her trust woven from code and hope.

And now she was gone. Out there alone, walking into hell without backup, without him.

"Come on, little thief," he muttered, fingers flying over the keyboard. "Talk to me. Where the hell did you run to?"

It wasn’t just a location.

It was a warning. A challenge. A confession tucked between lines of code. A whisper across the distance, carried not by voice but by intent. It was Harper saying, in the only way she could, that she was in danger—and she was counting on him to find her... to save her.

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