Page 13 of Capture (Primal #3)

I didn’t bother wrestling or struggling with the Russians, as soon as I saw Ronan standing by, watching me being escorted, he received my message and knew exactly what to do.

We planned this. It was either him or me that they’d target, but since the geek girl Ivanov lingered around me like a bad smell, I suspected it would be me they’d target.

Predictable. I had to stifle an eye roll when they cornered me outside my class.

Walked me through the campus on display without a single person challenging us, even if they did, the Ivanovs would lie.

This was our plan. I had a tracker sewn into my briefs, so Ronan and Mikky could trace where their hideout was.

A balaclava was placed over my head back to front, so the eyeholes were at the back of my head, but I still had blurred vision through the black fabric. My wrists were tied behind my back with plastic cable ties, and they bundled me inside a van, slammed the door hard, making the van rock.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.

Silence.

“C’mon, man, I can hear you breathing and I can smell your fucking rank body odor,” I mocked him.

“Shut the fuck up,” he spat. His enormous frame shifted, and I caught sight of what looked like a gun. No surprises there.

I chuckled at how easy it was to provoke the fucker. “You got a wife?”

Silence, but I could sense his irritation.

I continued to mock him in an attempt to provoke a reaction. “Is she blind? I bet she is to date a giant motherfucker like you.”

Silence.

The van slowed and remained at a leisurely pace, stopping and starting at traffic lights, I assumed, so I knew we’d arrived at the inner city.

My wrists were tied behind my back, but I managed to tuck my thumb into the band of my jeans and rub along my lower back to find the small disc in my briefs.

It’s still there, but I hoped like hell that it’s still sending off a GPS signal to Ronan’s phone.

I tried to avoid thinking that way, but my life depended on the signal working, and if it didn’t, then I was screwed.

The beast in front of me shuffled in his seat, then stood, banged solidly on the divider to alert the drivers in the cab. I jumped in fright because I couldn’t see what he was doing properly through the black stitching of the ski mask.

“We’re being followed,” he informed them, then his thick skull turned behind him to the back windows.

I tried to see what he was referring to, but the windows were darkened, so all I could see were glimmers of light as it struck metal and flashes of light when vehicles momentarily blocked out the view or turned in another direction.

It wouldn’t be Ronan who was following us because he didn’t need to unless the GPS tracker wasn’t working.

But then he wouldn’t make it obvious, and they’d recognize his vehicle since they’d been watching us for weeks.

So, it could be one of our contractors that we hire to do the dirty work, yet that didn’t make sense either.

These men were professional at covering their tracks, or else we wouldn’t hire them to knock people off.

The van seemed to go around the block, one right turn after another, and it honestly felt like we were going around in circles, coming back to where we began. The beast opposite me kept his head turned toward the window, watching whoever was following us.

Then a muffled voice coming from the cab snarled a word in Russian that the beast repeated. I recognized the phrase instantly as the Russian word for pigs.

“You got the cops on your back?” I mocked him again. “Stand out like a fucking sore thumb, you do. Maybe a student called them when they saw you at Gotland. Probably thought he looked too dumb to be coming to college. Big fucker in a suit.” I was ranting mindlessly, trying to stir the shit.

I detected movement before a solid thump struck the side of my head, so I didn’t have time to move out of the way. “That’s no way to treat your guest,” I blurted, speaking over the ringing in my ears.

“You shut that mouth or I’ll shut it for you,” he threatened, forcing his tone to remain calm. I knew I was getting to him, like an annoying flea that no amount of pesticide managed to kill.

“You missed my mouth, bro. That was my ear,” I pointed out in that smartass tone that used to piss my father off.

Even at twenty, I still managed to find my inner sixteen-year-old to stretch the patience of fuckers like the beast. Men like him were not used to someone talking back to them.

We kept driving around the block in giddy circles, one right turn after another, to rid ourselves of the cops.

It had to be Gothenburg cops since we were convinced that the blond cop from Larsson was working with them.

Well, it seemed like it anyway. Honestly, we were the good guys for once, and everyone against us was the ones acting illegally, trying to sabotage or blackmail us.

Whether it was the blond cop or these fuckers.

“Are you working with the Larsson cops?” I asked him, knowing he wouldn’t give me an honest answer, but I was curious to see how he’d react.

“Shut up,” he belted out. This time, there was a tone of anger, showing that he was losing his cool.

Refusing to obey, I pressed, “Have you got a problem with your steering? Why are we going around and around in fucking circles? Is the steering locked? Can you fuckers not drive properly?”

Silence.

“Stop the car and I’ll take a look at the steering for ya,” I offered out of the goodness of my heart. “I’m a fucking wizz, bro, a wizz. Basically mechanic. I fixed my car. I gotta classic, old school, Stang, bro.”

The beast exhaled, his patience wearing thin due to my constant chatter, which was getting on his nerves. I felt I was winning this battle of might or wits. I opened my mouth to persist with the verbal diarrhea, but

Mikky’s voice echoed in my head, telling me to stop with the cocky shit or else they’ll make my life harder.

Alright. I’ll calm my shit and fall silent, watching the beast through the black haze, stitching as his head was turned, watching out the window.

The beast banged on the divider again, making me jump. Jeez, I wish he’d warn me before doing that shit. “Lost ‘em,” he informed the driver, sounding relieved, then mumbled the Russian word for pigs again in great disgust.

The van’s direction changed from driving around in circles to turning left instead. There was more stopping and starting at traffic lights, and then the van increased its speed along strips of road, and I assumed we were leaving the city center again and entering the suburbs.

So, the Ivanovs were taking me to a nice suburb with a white picket fence? Their headquarters, located down the street where kids play on the road on their bicycles, was the perfect cover.

“Am I going to meet your boss?” I asked the beast.

Silence.

“Is he pretty?” I went on because I couldn’t help myself. “I bet he’s pretty. Does he bend you over the des-”

“Shut up,” he snapped, and I cracked up laughing.

“So, will you introduce me to your boss? The messiah. The rat king. Vladimir? Is Vladimir, the king, going to be there?” I pushed to see how far I could take it.

“You are a stupid fucking…,” he snarled, then was interrupted by the van turning around a corner, then slowly driving down a smooth road, until it stopped with the engine running.

I heard voices in the driver’s cab before a sharp clanging sound, like a gate opening, then the van lurched forward.

The van kept to a slow speed on the smooth road, again, as imagined images tossed about in my head.

Birds were chirping overhead as leaves rustled in the trees, then dogs began barking.

I couldn’t hear traffic, so we must be far away from the high-population area.

Nerves coiled throughout my body as my mouth grew desert dry, and I had the urgent need for water. The persistent stress was whether or not the GPS was sending signals to Ronan because it felt as though I was a world away from them.

The van pulled up, the engine cut out, the driver’s doors slammed, and then the back of the van was opened as a gush of wind swept over me carrying the scent of gas and dried grass or hay. Maybe they had taken me to a hideout in the country.

The beast roughly grabbed my arm and pushed me forward as two men waited outside the back doors. My natural reaction was to wrestle against him to make his life harder, but I wanted to avoid injuries, so I remained calm.

I climbed out and sensed a building towering over us, blocking out the sun, with a peaked roof and front porch, which seemed like a typical house. Instead of going into the house, they led me down the side of the building in the shadows, making it difficult for me to see.

The surface beneath my feet changed from cement to soft grass as the scent of hay grew stronger.

We stalled as one of the men bent down and pulled up something that creaked loudly, and it wasn’t until I was forced to feel stairs under my feet that I realized they were leading down into an underground tornado shelter.

A dank stench infiltrated the ski mask, then a light was switched on, but it didn’t make much difference. I was forced down onto a hard surface, and then I felt the plastic ties cut. Then, footsteps retreating as I rubbed my wrists and immediately reached to take the ski mask off.

The door slammed, followed by the sounds of bolts sliding into place. As I freed my face from the ski mask, I found myself exactly where I imagined - in a dank tornado shelter with only one way out.