Page 5 of Lash

Filip growls in frustration. "Fuck. No one will know, Ivan."

Ivan shoves Filip toward the exit. "Hewill. Youknowhe will. And I know how you like to play, Filip. I've seen what's left of them when you're done."

Filip laughs—a dry, horrible little chuckle. "I wouldn't do that to her. I just want a little taste."

Ivan pulls a baggie of white powder from his back pocket. “I’ve got something else you can taste. Pure Colombian coke. We each get a whole fucking key of this shit if we pull this off, Filip."

They go outside, huddling together just outside the hangar. Ivan dips into the bag and snorts a hit, tips his head back, and then whoops loudly, handing the bag to Filip.

"Psst." A soft hiss gets my attention, and my head whips around; the man must've been playing possum. "Get ready."

I ever so gently rattle one handcuff. "For what? Unless you have a key?"

His eyes glint in the gloom, and his teeth flash white. "I do not need a key."

I hear rattling, a soft breath as he does something that makes him strain, and then I hear a crack of a joint dislocating. Seconds later, he's crouching behind me.

His voice is hot against my ear. "Do you have any bobby pins in your hair?"

“Yes, quite a few," I whisper.

My hair, black and quite long, is done up in an elaborate updo, courtesy of my glam squad.

I realize belatedly that the man spoke to me in English, whereas I'd been speaking Croatian with Filip.

"Do you know what they were saying?" I hiss as the man runs his fingers over my hair, finding a bobby pin and withdrawing it.

"Yes," he answers.

"Who is this Mercado?"

"A very, very,verybad man. I'll explain later. For now, we must go." his English is excellent if accented—Croatian is not his first language, nor is English.

My English is good but not as good as his, so I revert to Croatian—I'm too freaked out and confused to have the brain space to translate my thoughts on the fly right now.

"Can you understand me?"

He snorts. "I speak a dozen languages fluently, Tatiana Juric," he says in flawless if accented Croatian.

"How do we get out of here?" I ask. "There's only one exit."

"Think carefully. Did he leave the keys in the car or did he remove them?"

I close my eyes and focus. "I don’t know. I didn't see him take them, but they could be in his pocket. It's a key fob. I don't know."

"Can't risk it, then."

This whole time, he's been quickly and quietly using the bobby pin to unlock my handcuffs. When the last one is unlocked, he grabs my wrist and tugs me off the chair and into the shadows deeper in the hangar. Since he seems to know what he's doing, and since he's a victim of this whole convoluted scheme as much as I am, I opt to go with him. It's my best shot at the moment. He shoves me ahead of him, and we duck underneath a jet; he puts me behind the front wheel assembly.

“Wait here. If you are squeamish, do not watch."

"I'm not."

"Suit yourself."

I grab his wrist. "Wait—-whoareyou?"

He drops to a knee in front of me, and I can just barely make out his dark eyes and white teeth in the dim light of the hangar—it's past sunset now, the light of day fading.