Page 103 of Her Guardian
I’m not sure if we’ll find any answers, but anything is better than sitting on my ass, worrying about what could be happening to the woman I love right now.
CHAPTER 38
Sarah
My head is pounding with a dull ache when I finally wake up.
I blink, trying to focus my vision, as I remember what happened. I was in the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria with Lea and Cadence. Rowan was there, along with Massimo’s security detail. Then Solitude showed up.
“Lea!” I call out, looking around, but still unable to see much.
“I’m over here,” she groans, her voice coming from my left. “I can barely move. It feels like I’m paralyzed.”
“They drugged us,” I deduce, finally seeing my best friend.
I move toward Lea, but something catches my leg. I look down and see that my right ankle is shackled to the floor. I pull on the chain and get enough slack to crawl over to Lea.
“Are you okay?” I whisper. “Baby okay?”
“I don’t know,” she groans, putting her hand on her stomach. “Where are we?”
“Good question,” I say, looking around.
We’re in some sort of cage. There are bars on all four sides. A door that is wrapped with a chain and secured with a heavy padlock. The floor is an iron grate, and while the light is too dim for me to tell what it is covering, I can tell there’s something below us.
The room looks like a bunker. The walls are metallic. No paint, no decoration, just brushed metal and bolts. It smells like rust, but there’s a chemical scent lingering in the air I can’t place.
I search the walls, looking for anything that will tell us where we are, and notice security monitors lining the far wall, but they’re turned off except for one. It shows our cage, and I’m able to find the video camera that is pointing at us based on the angle. The camera is mounted on a tall tripod, and the red light blinks ominously in the dimly lit room.
Wires snake across the floor, including some that are heavy cables, all pushed through the floor. I assume they’re attached to something, so I press my face to the grate, but still can’t tell what is lurking beneath us.
The only exit is a heavy door with a wheel-lock mechanism. Definitely looks like the sort of thing you’d see in a military bunker—possibly a submarine, but I don’t think we’re underwater.
“We’re in some kind of bunker,” I sigh, pulling at my chain and checking the one attached to Lea’s ankle.
“It was Solitude, wasn’t it?” Lea asks. “That’s who got us?”
“Yeah,” I confirm. “They were looking for you, but they scanned my face too. Somehow, they know I’m with Boyd. That’s why they grabbed me.”
“What about Cadence? And Rowan?” Lea grimaces and tries to sit up, so I help her. “The rest of the security detail?”
“I saw Cadence get shot with a dart, and they gave an order to kill everyone except for the Capo,” I say, squeezing Lea’s hand. “Said they wanted someone alive to tell Massimo what happened.”
A grinding noise sounds out and draws both of our attention to the door. The wheel turns and then the door opens, revealing a man dressed in the same black body armor and mask the guys at Waldorf Astoria were wearing. He’s alone, holding a device in his hand.
“You two bitches awake?” he snarls, his voice muffled by the helmet. He doesn’t have a Russian accent. I’m pretty sure he’s the one who pinned my arm to the floor at Waldorf Astoria. “Ah, yes, the star of the show has opened her eyes.”
He looks directly at Lea as he approaches the cage, and I try to move in front of her, but I don’t have enough chain. I pull against it angrily, staring the man down.
“And Sarah Parker. The podcaster,” he chuckles. “I’m curious to know how two lovely young women from Pine Grove got tangled up with the Morandi family.”
“We’re not telling you a damn thing,” I snap at him.
“No?” He presses a button on the device. “And here I thought the two of you would beg for your lives. Or at least beg for thebaby’slife.”
My breath catches in my throat as I hear something grinding below us. The lights get brighter, and I can finally see what underneath the iron grate. Except I’m still not sure what I’m looking at. There are cylinders, spread out across the solid floor that’s about ten feet below the grate.
“You’re going to kill us, anyway, aren’t you?” Lea grinds out. “Begging won’t help.”
