Page 73 of Lacey's Fight

I’m coming for you, sunflower. I failed you twice now, there won’t be a third time.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

August 14th

5:19 P.M.

Perhaps not the most appropriate emotion to be feeling right now given she had been abducted, but Lacey was bored.

How else was she supposed to feel when she was locked in an eight-by-eight cell handcuffed to a bed?

There was anger there too, not a whole lot of fear, annoyance at herself for falling for the older woman’s ploy more than anything else.

How stupid could she be?

Lacey knew better than to allow herself to get distracted by anything. Even an old woman who had supposedly injured herself.

Just because someone didn’t look like a threat, didn’t mean they weren’t.

Apparently, she needed a refresher in that particular lesson.

With an irritated sigh, she shifted in the putrid bed. The mattress was old and stained with so many substances she didn’t even want to think about what it had been through. She’d added to its filth when she peed herself earlier.

Normally, she had great bladder control—thanks to The Master and one of his sick games where he would force them to drink copious amounts of water then not let them go to the bathroom—but she was still recovering from her assault, and the taser was messing with her body.

While certainly uncomfortable lying on the urine-soaked mattress, Lacey couldn’t say she was embarrassed. This was typical Master mind games and if he thought she was going to crack under that pressure then he was sorely mistaken.

Plus, he’d tipped his hand.

She might have no idea who the woman was or how she figured into all of this, but her abduction and captivity had The Master’s fingerprints all over it.

The small, dark room. The filthy bed. The way the bindings on her wrists had been so carefully placed so they completely covered her wounds from the manor. The way the dirty mattress was covered with a scratchy wool blanket he knew would irritate the wounds from his whip.

Classic Master.

So where was he?

Why lure her to him then bring her here—wherever here was—and not show himself?

Did he really think she was unaware that he was behind her kidnapping?

No.

He wasn’t stupid and he was the one who had trained her so he knew that she would figure out he had staged her abduction.

There was some other game he was playing, she just had no idea what it was.

At least Lacey knew someone would be looking for her within hours of her abduction. When she didn’t make her call with the shrink, the woman would call Eagle to let him know. She didn’t have a doubt in the world that Eagle would know she would never bail on something like that.

Eagle was like a big brother, or maybe an uncle, the closest thing she’d ever had to a father even if he was only thirteen years older than her. He had taken her and her sisters under his wing and he knew her better than practically anyone.

Prey was coming for her, and they would find her. Again she had no doubts about that. Her job was to hold on until they got here.

Which she would do no matter what.

When she was this close to finally laying her demons to rest, she wasn’t going to allow the man who had created them to ruin that.

So, she had no choice but to lie here in the dark, being bored, and waiting for the man she hated most in the world to tip his hand.

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