Page 11 of Ignite
With a flick of my wrist, the lock clicks. I rip the first drawer open, grab a handful of hard drives inside, and bolt down the towers of flashing electronics.
Shit. This is where I’m going to die. Why hasn’t he shot me already? Was he going to use a knife on me? I’d rather take a bullet than be stabbed again.
I spot an unmarked metal door ahead. It swings open before I reach it, a small man with cropped, light-brown hair and bright caramel eyes, holding a steaming cup of coffee. His eyes go wide as I barrel toward him.
“Uh, Cain?” the guy calls out.
“Move, Alaric!” Murderer shouts.
Alaric disappears behind the door, and I’m slammed against the metal surface by the murderer apparently named Cain. As in Cain Vincent. The fricken CEO.
An arm locks around my neck, another slamming into my hip to drop me to the ground.
I don’t even have time to cry out before my vision goes black.
CHAPTER FIVE
EZRA
My head is shrouded in fog when I finally peel my eyes open to a small, gray room flooded with sunlight.
Cain stands in front of me, his powerful form leaned against a closed door, arms folded to draw his navy suit jacket tight over the cut of his powerful arms.
Instinct has my body lurching to flee, but I’ve been zip-tied to a chair in the center of what looks like an office.Fuck zip-ties. Why are they so handy in so many situations?
I crane my neck, seeking something to cut me free. An empty desk is the only other piece of furniture in the room, tucked in the corner of two walls of windows overlooking East Bank.
Movement in the glass windows on either side of the door where Cain’s posted up snag my attention. Business people swap internal memos and converse like it’s a common occurrence to hold someone prisoner here. Thick silver letters hung on one of the walls tell me I’mstill at Sinro Enterprises, which gives me hope that I’m not about to be murdered just yet. Surely they don’t want the carpet stained with blood.
Eventually, my gaze returns to Cain. How long has he been watching me? Shouldn’t the CEO of a billion dollar company have more important things to do than babysit a low-life thief? Doesn’t he have people or whatever?
When he doesn’t speak, I can’t help but break the tense silence. “Did you have to choke me out?”
“Better than shooting you, no?” His smooth baritone wraps around me, and I fail to hold back a shiver, my body reacting in a most unusual way. His eyes narrow. “Though that option is still on the table.”
The flash of madness in his hard gaze tells me this guy has killed tons of people. Those deaths are practically carved into every lethal edge of his body.
Cain begins to pace around my chair in slow, predatory strides. “Who are you?”
And the interrogation begins.
My pulse quickens. Maybe I could tip my chair over and use the pointy legs to shatter a window. Seems reckless, though. We’re pretty fucking high up, and I’ve never had the desire to become a human pancake.
Cain reappears in front of me, brown eyes searing into me like hellfire. I wriggle in the chair as my heart skips a beat.
“What’s first? A finger or a tooth?” I taunt.
Despite my attitude, panic looms at the edges of my mind. I hear Cain’s low voice demanding answers, but his words are nothing more than a fading rumble in my ears as I start to mentally spiral out.
I grit my teeth.Not the time, Ezra.
A firm, calloused hand slides around my throat, choking me back to reality. Strangely enough, warm blood rushes low in my body. I shift in the chair again.
Woah. Do I… do I like this? Since when have I ever not cringed away from a human’s touch that wasn’t Jakey’s?
Again, he demands, “Who are you?”
His fingers constrict tighter around my neck. Without thinking, I tip my head back to expose more of it for him. Fuck. The pain he’s giving me only seems to be confusing my body, strangling the panic seeking weakness in my brain. I don’t think I want him to stop.
