Page 107 of He Who Sleeps

She wasn’t a hero, but damn it, she wasn’t a coward, either, and while her guys each had a specific set of skills, she didn’t doubt for one fucking second she couldn’t open someone’s veins to get to safety...in fact, she was counting on hidden viciousness to deal with this, along with calculated patience.

Checking her surroundings, she realized she was in an apartment, untied, and completely clothed, and she was lying on a couch. Sitting up, she looked around, noticing the brown drapes drawn on the windows, the overlength pooling at the floor. The couch was brown, too, as was the chair, and the carpet a pristine tan. The place looked like an earth tone nightmare. No color, no life, all brown, all drab. Where the fuck was she?

As she heard a door open, she turned to see who it was.

"Oh good. You're awake." It was that fucking cop. "I brought you some breakfast and a couple of aspirin. I figured you might have a hangover." He set a paper bag and a bottle of aspirin down on the coffee table next to her.

“You... Why am I here, Officer Douritz?” she asked carefully, not planning on eating anything he left for her. Asshole drugged her already.

"Because I can't trust you to keep yourself safe," he said with a soft smile, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You're hanging out with these dangerous guys. I'm keeping you here to keep you safe."

She frowned. “I’m sorry...dangerous guys?” She shook her head, wanting to know how much he did know. It wasn’t going to matter, by the end of this this asshole would die by her hand or one of theirs, forfeiting his life the second he took her.

"I've looked into those guys hanging around you, sniffing after you like street dogs. One of them was a suspect in a double murder." He shook his head. "You're my girl, Petra. I can't let you get hurt by those animals."

“I’m sorry, I’m your what?” she asked and frowned. This was what she got for being friendly. Truly no good deed went unpunished. “Officer Douritz, I don’t even know your first fucking name, and let’s not even forget you’re like what, ten, fifteen years older than me?” She didn’t mind older men but this was fucking ridiculous. “This isn’t fucking happening. You can’t just abscond with someone.”

"Don't be like that," he said, frowning. "You know that's not how it is with us." She opened her mouth to protest and he loomed over her. "Shut up and eat your breakfast, bitch." When she flinched, he straightened up with that sickly sweet smile again. "I got your favorite coffee."

Jesus fucking Christ, split personalities ahoy. The Petra she was before her guys would have flinched at the action, but it just fucking annoyed her now. This guy thought because he was bigger than her he was imposing? As if. She got chased around the woods by Kendrix and he was twice the size of this asshole,andhe had a massive fucking knife.

“Why would I trust anything you gave me? Honestly. And what do you intend to do with me? I will be missed, Officer Douritz, as I’m sure you will be, too, considering your job,” she hedged. “So, what’s your end game here, just kidnap me from my life and what?”

"Because I love you." His face was starting to darken with anger and before she knew it was coming, he slapped her hard enough to send her sprawling on the sofa. "Now eat your fucking breakfast. And don't bother trying to escape. Everything is locked until you learn to be a good girl."

Getting off the ground, she felt everything in her snap. “Oh, fuck this. You seem to think I’m thisgoodgirl...well, joke’s on you, asshole, I only play one on TV! And if you checked into my guys then you know that they are not the people with whom to fuck. They will find me, and when they do there won’t be enough left of you for them to ID.” Her gaze on him was unwavering. She was not going to be this man’s anything, and if he tried to touch her again she would make him very fucking sorry he was alive. “Touch me again,OfficerDouritz,” she sneered, exaggerating his designation. “I fucking dare you.”

She'd underestimated his speed and dexterity. She was on her front with her arm twisted behind her and the cold steel of handcuffs closing around her wrist before she could blink. "If that's how you want to play it," he told her, wrenching her other arm behind her back and cuffing it to the first one. "I tried to make it easy on you, but if you're going to be silly about it, you'll soon learn." Leaving her squirming on the floor, he attached a chain to the handcuffs and the other end he padlocked to a radiator bolted to the wall, dragging her so that she was close enough. "And you can just fucking go hungry. I'll be home in two hours."

“Fucking asshole!” she spit at him. Oh, she was going to feed him his fucking eyes.

Chapter 39

Emerson growled ashe paced the cabin of his Learjet, seething with rage. Normally the one to keep the clearest head, right now the high from their insurrection in the Balkans was waning, the anticipation of finding the dead man that put hands on their girl starting to ramp up.

“Em, calm down and go get fucking changed. You’re still fucking covered in blood and getting off the plane in the States is going to cause a problem,” Jack offered.