Page 19 of Captive Prize

Thankfully, three bottles of tequila and a few rounds of whatever poison they were smoking had most of them half dead on their feet.

“Tell me something,” I said, clapping the back of the man next to me as I poured another shot. “Why follow the ice queen?”

He yawned and blinked. “Because she has the money. For now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our boss needs capital. He told us to play along. Once he has her cash, we off the bitch and be done with it.”

“After we take turns breaking her in first,” another man added with a sick grin.

He wasn’t joking.

He said it like he was talking about a stolen car—like she wasn’t even human.

I tightened my grip on the bottle but kept my voice casual. “And you’re cool with taking orders from a woman?”

“Fuck no.” The first guy snorted. “She wants to boss me around, she better be on her knees with dinner in the oven.”

They laughed. Like it was normal.

Like any of it was funny.

“She thinks she’s in charge, but we only listen to Mateo. He plays along, but we do whatever the real boss says. Sometimes we follow her orders. Sometimes we just... have our own fun.”

His voice drifted off. I looked over and realized he was staring—mesmerized—at the cracked paint on the wall.

Jesus. This guy didn’t have two brain cells to rub together.

“They look like lightning,” he said, giggling like a high-pitched hyena.

I needed him focused.

“Hey.” I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “What do you mean you don’t always do what she says?”

He blinked and came back to me. “Like, she said grab the Russian, but do it quiet. Wanted it to look like he ran. No witnesses.”

“She didn’t want the girl?”

“Nope. Said he had to be alone. That’s smart, right? Keep the Ivanovs confused.”

“But he wasn’t alone.”

“Mateo got tired of waiting. Lied to her. We snatched the big guy and left the bitch.”

“You think that was a mistake?” I asked, watching his expression shift.

“Yeah,” he said, glassy-eyed. “Would’ve been better to keep her. A little reward. Tie her up, take turns fucking the bitch. Way more fun than leaving her for the wolves.”

My stomach turned.

Not because I was shocked; I wasn’t.

But because this was the kind of filth we were dealing with. Not soldiers. Not mafia.

Predators in sweat-stained clothes, pretending to be men.

He kept rambling, his speech gradually slowing. “There was another guy, though. We didn’t plan for him. Don’t know who the fuck he was. Barely made it…out myself. If I find him…”

---