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SADIE

My knees skid across an old rug speckled with red paint.

I try to catch myself, only to come face to face with a man missing his face.

My mouth drops to scream when I spin around and catch Aubry’s eye.

His body’s wound up like he’s about to run for the window, and blood is splattered across his nose.

“Are you okay?” I blurt out.

“Awe…” The man he warned me about, the big boss himself, grabs me by the arm. I can barely get my feet under me before he hefts me off of the ground. “How sweet. You brought your sidepiece.”

“Sadie…”

What’s that look in his eye? Is it disappointment? Damn it, I tried.

Aubry cups his hand then slaps it against his thigh, right over his empty pocket. I do the same and give a small nod.

“Did anyone hurt you?” he asks.

When they caught me trying to slip out, the one in the white suit yanked my hair back so hard I think he tore pieces out. But judging by the way Aubry’s vein is bulging, I should probably not tell him that. “No,” I tell him, my gaze wandering over to the man who tried to scalp me. “I’m fine.”

“Cute. You’re not hurt,” the big boss, Mr. Ato says. His arm moves and, next thing I know, I’m staring down a six inch blade. “At least not yet.”

Aubry surges forward. At the last second, white-suit grabs him, then the Green guy on the floor goes for his leg. “If you fucking touch one hair on her head—!”

Mr. Ato shrugs it off, but a whole lot of flop sweat rises on the man in white’s forehead. Staring at him, Mr. Ato asks, “Where did you find this bird, Goji?”

“Outside your office.”

“Having a little looksie, were we?”

I laugh. “I was trying to find the bathroom. You know, these places are like a maze and—”

The blade presses tighter to my throat.

Aubry growls and takes a step closer even with two grown men hanging on him.

“Empty your pockets,” Mr. Ato says. “Or should I do it for you?”

Fuck. I panic swallow, which presses my throat to the blade. Wincing, I try to still my breathing so I don’t hurt myself. Then I look over at Aubry.

This was all his idea. The only Hail Mary, last throw hope to save him. I could have walked away, but I agreed. I had to save him.

If I fail…

“I’m sorry,” I mouth and pull the phone out of my pocket.

Mr. Ato grabs it from my fingers. The knife lifts. I start to rub my neck and move to run to Aubry’s side. The hand clamps tighter to my arm.

“Unlock it, please.” Mr. Ato extends the phone and I stare back at Aubry. “Or I can just chop your finger off and do it myself.”

“If you do,” Aubry snarls, “I’ll—”

I leap forward, pressing my thumb to the readout. The phone unlocks with a picture of Astin. As Mr. Ato scrolls through the photo gallery I rush to Aubry’s side. He reaches an arm over my shoulder. Even if ten men had been hanging off of him, he’d still have held me.

It doesn’t take Mr. Ato long to find what he wants, what I was up to when I snuck into his office once Aubry provided the distraction I needed. “Ha. Clever, Talong. Very clever.”

With his bare hands, he snaps the phone in half.

I yelp at the sparks dancing on the falling plastic.

Mr. Ato glides over a glass filled with amber liquid, and drops the phone remains inside.

“Did you really think holding that material over my head would you let you escape? That I wouldn’t hunt you down to the ends of the Earth for that! ”

Aubry lifts his chest, not about to be cowed by the man.

A snarl twists up Ato’s lips, and he slams his fist to the desk.

In a rage, he starts shoving everything off.

Liquor bottles, a lamp, papers, even the glass with the drowned phone in it hit the ground.

After giving a long scream, he turns his back on everything and begins to fix up his balding hair.

“Talong, I wish I could tell you that this will hurt me as much as it does you.” He stands up straight and adjusts his tie. “But we both know that’s a lie. Grab the girl.”

“No!”

Goji, the man in white, lunges for my arms. Aubry’s fist plows through the man’s jaw. Two teeth explode out of Goji’s mouth and hit the desk. The hands fall off of me, and I duck out of the way just as Aubry grabs Goji by the middle and hefts him off his feet.

The cock of a gun sunders the air.

It’s the big man in green. He holds the gun right at Aubry’s heart, but tears gush down his cheeks.

“Put him down,” Mr. Ato says.

Aubry looks about to snap Goji’s spine over his knee. He doesn’t care that a bullet’s going to shred his heart to pieces. I slide in between them and place my palm to his chest. His wild eyes pull back, the purple giving way to brown as he focuses on me.

Please.

With a grunt, Aubry throws Goji to the floor. The man rolls better than I’d have expected for someone who just lost two teeth. He cups his jaw, moaning in pain, but rises.

“Sadie…” Aubry reaches a hand around my waist, but he’s too late.

Goji yanks me hard off of my feet. I skitter, trying to keep from bashing my nose in as he drags me toward the boss. In the fight, I missed Mr. Ato dragging a whet stone down his blade with a terrifying glee in his eye.

“Now, my dear, this is going to hurt. A lot. So don’t hold anything back. I’d quite like for him to hear you scream.”

“So fucking help me!” Aubry lunges for me, only for Green to wrap his arm around Aubry’s throat. Even nearly strangling himself, he keeps fighting, stretching his hand to me. “If you hurt her…”

The knife swoops up my arm, slicing away the fine layer of hair. “What should I cut off first?” Mr. Ato muses.

Oh, fuck. Fuck, this is so fucking real.

Metal bites into my ear and he presses down. I yelp, then slap a hand to my mouth. Someone grabs my wrist, yanking my arm down so I can’t stop myself. So he has to hear me scream.

The knife travels over my head. “You won’t look so pretty without that nose of yours.”

Aubry. Please!

I plead with my eyes for him to do something, but all I can see is a boiling ocean of rage. He’d tear everyone to pieces with his teeth, but he wouldn’t make it a step before they killed him.

Mr. Ato gives a little laugh like we’re all having a jolly good time. “You always were a tits man, weren’t you, Talong? And she’s got quite the set on her. Well…had.”

The blade rises.

I dig my toes in and slam my eyes shut. “You’ll never find them!”

The blade stops.

“Never find what?” Ato twists the knife through the air like he’s already sawing off one of my breasts.

I look over to Aubry and mouth, “Sorry.” Taking a deep breath, I try to steady my voice. “The pictures. You’ll never find them if I’m dead.”

“The pictures are in a watery grave,” Mr. Ato declares, but the younger guys have all caught on. They’re on edge, terrified of the truth, but no one willing to explain it.

“Are you sure?” I ask, swiveling my head around to him.

It took me almost no time to find the right documents thanks to Aubry’s instructions. It was waiting for them to upload that got me caught. But I know they went through.

“Yes. They’re destroyed, as soon you will be.”

“Uh, boss…” Goji says, the one willing to fall on his sword. “She may have, um, backed them up.”

“Where?”

“In the cloud.”

Mr. Ato cranes his head up, then glares at the man. “Find this cloud and destroy it!”

I almost feel sorry for the man with clumps of my bloody hair in his rings. Nervously rubbing the back of his neck, he spits out blood, then mumbles. “I can’t. Not without the phone.”

Every man but Aubry stares at the pieces of his cell scattered across the floor. In the car, Aubry had told me to fork over the phone as soon as someone asked. He knew his boss was insane about them and would shatter it, wiping away the proof with his own hands.

It was a good plan.

Except for one small problem.

Roaring, Ato shoves the tip of the knife under my jaw. I strain my head up to escape it, but he keeps pushing, winnowing into my skin. “Where are they?”

“I can’t…” A yelp falls out and blood trickles down the silver blade.

“Oh, you’re right. I need you alive to tell me. But there is a vast gulf of pain between alive and healthy. You’re about to experience every possible permutation. First, I’ll take out your eye.”

“No!”

He grabs the back of my head. A thumb comes racing for my eye. I slam them both shut and wrench my head away, but the knife cuts across my throat.

“Sadie!” Aubry shouts.

“I won’t tell you!” I cry out so terrified I can’t feel my body. “Ah!” He digs his thumb into my eye, squeezing so hard I can feel it pressing into my brain.

“Where. Are. The pictures,” Ato fumes. His thumb digs under my eyeball. I can feel it, roaming around, trying to hook under it. He’s going to pop it out. He’s going to blind me.

I can’t tell him. I can’t!

“Sadvhi. Tell him. Tell him everything!”

Aubry. My mouth opens, ready to spill the truth.

But if I do, he’ll kill him. I’ll lose him.

Forever.

I have to keep stalling even if it costs me an eye.

Clenching my fists tight, I lock my jaw.

“So fucking be it!” Ato squeezes and I scream.

Something heavy hits the floor from the hallway. Twice. The pressure breaks off of my skull. I nearly fall backward as Ato lets go of me. But he still presses the blade to my throat as he shouts, “What’s going on out there?”

Tears well up in the eye he attacked. I cup my hand over it and stare with my left. A single leather shoe lands in the doorframe. A green shoe.

The men all gasp as the shoe is followed by a long, gangly leg, then a man in a suit coat and fedora.

His face is tanned like old leather left out in the summer, with wrinkles or scars creating a crosshatch pattern across his face.

After sweeping off his hat, he stares right at Mr. Ato.

“Hello, Tom,” he says with a smile. “We need to talk.”