Page 84 of Lethal Abduction

Please don’t let it be that my parents have discovered I am here.

It’s the only coherent thought I have as I stumble along the concrete walkway overlooking the courtyard, three tiers below us. No matter what becomes of me in this place, I can’t stand the thought of my parents seeing me here. I especially can’t imagine them trying to save me.

I don’t deserve saving.

The guard opens a heavy door and leads me out of the prison center, then down a deserted corridor. He halts at a closed door, looking in both directions before he opens it. He holds a finger to his lips.

“Entrar,” he hisses, shoving me inside.

The door closes behind me with a click, but I notice he doesn’t lock it.

The room is small and bare, lit by a lone light bulb hanging from the ceiling. There’s a desk at the center of it with two plain metal chairs on either side. A man is sitting in one of them, a bag resting on the floor beside him. His dress is casual, but unmistakably elegant: silk shirt, tailored trousers, Italian shoes.

Cartel,I think dully.Oh well.

There are worse deaths. I knew someone was going to come for me, sooner or later.

“Please,” the man says, in accented but courteous English, gesturing at the chair opposite. “Sit.”

I do, keeping my eyes trained firmly on the table.

“Cigarette?” He pushes a packet across the table.

I’d like to decline, but I’m not an idiot. Cigarettes are currency, and in here, currency is all that matters. I take one and slip it into my pocket.

The man laughs quietly. “Smoke it. I will leave you the packet.”

The man holds out his lighter, and I draw on the cigarette, almost fainting with pleasure at the nicotine rush.

“Señorita Chalmers.”

My head jerks up in surprise. It’s been so long since I’ve heard my name spoken aloud that it feels like it belongs to someone else.

“Ah.” The man’s smile widens. “Perhaps I should have introduced myself earlier. My name is Juan Cardeñas.”

The world spins around me.

This is how I die.

It seems strange, now that the moment is actually here.

I stare at him dumbly, my cigarette burning down in my hand.

“I’m not here to kill you, Abby.” He reads my mind easily, his smile not moving at all. “Quite the opposite, in fact. Although I am the reason you find yourself here.”

“You?” The word is barely audible, my voice weak and cracked from long months of staying silent. “You’re the one who had me arrested?”

“It was the easy option at the time.” He sits back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. “The police found your boyfriend dead on the floor of a Bogotá hostel and you cowering in a closet, too scared to even speak. I thought it was my son’s handiwork, of course. I was... unhappy, to say the least, to be left cleaning up after his mistakes.”

I shudder, trying not to see Nico’s lifeless body, the blood seeping across the floor.

Trying not to remember the complete lack of emotion on Jacey’s face as he pulled the trigger.

I’ve met many dangerous men in my life, both before and after that moment.

But Jacey is the only true psychopath I’ve ever known.

The blank emptiness in his eyes will haunt me until my dying day.

---