Collared By Four Ruthless Men

CHAPTER 4

I had a plan.

It was not a great plan. But it was mine and I had spent two days building it out of nothing but observation and stubbornness so I was going with it.

The south side of the yard was the weakest point. I had figured that out by watching the morning rotation. The man who usually posted near the garage drifted toward the front of the compound around nine, just for a few minutes, every single morning. Habit. People always had habits without knowing it. That window was small but it was there and the fence on that side had a horizontal beam about halfway up that could work as a foothold if I was fast enough.

I was going to be fast enough.

I set my alarm for eight thirty and slept in my clothes.

The morning felt different. Quieter than usual. I moved through the hall and down the stairs and nobody stopped me because nobody was there. The kitchen was empty. I filled a glass of water at the sink and drank it slowly and watched the yard through the window.

The man near the garage shifted. Checked his phone. Started walking toward the front.

I put the glass down and moved.

The back door opened quietly. The morning air was cold and sharp and I crossed the yard fast with my head down. The fence was closer than it looked from the window. I got to it and reached up for the beam and got my hands around it and pulled.

I made it about four feet off the ground.

A hand closed around my ankle.

I did not scream. I want to be clear about that. I held it together. But my stomach dropped clean out of my body as I was pulled back down to the ground and turned around in one smooth motion.

Zane.

He was in a dark jacket, hair slightly damp like he had just showered, and he did not look angry. That was the thing that got me. No raised voice, no sharp words. He just looked at me with that steady, measuring expression he always had and waited.

I lifted my chin. "Worth a try."

"Was it."

Not a question. I didn't answer.

He stepped back and nodded once toward the house and I went because I did not have a better option right now. We walked inside and he pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and looked at it and then at me.

I sat down.

He sat across from me and put both arms on the table and just looked at me for a moment. Morning light came through the window. Somewhere in the compound a bike started up and then faded.

"You are smart," he said. "Smarter than most people who end up in this situation."

"Please stop calling it that."

Something moved in his expression. Not quite surprise. "What would you call it."

"A kidnapping." I kept my voice flat. "I would call it a kidnapping."

He was quiet for a second. "Fair."

That surprised me. I did not let it show.

"Then let me go," I said. "If you know what this is. If you can sit there and agree with me then you know this is wrong and you can just open the front gate and let me walk out."

"I can not do that."

"Why not."

He looked at me steadily. "Because the man whose body you saw in that parking lot has people. People who will want to know if anyone witnessed what happened. If you walk out of here tonight and go back to your life, you become a loose end that someone else will find before we can manage it."

My throat tightened. "Manage it how."

"Not the way you are thinking." His voice did not change. "You would not be hurt. But you would not be safe either." He paused. "Here you are safe. That is the truth whether you want it or not."

I stared at the table. I hated that the logic held. I hated it so much I could not find the exact place to argue against it which made me even angrier.

"How long," I said.

"Until we fix the problem on our end. Then you go home."

"How long is that."

He did not answer that one. Which was its own kind of answer.

I sat back in the chair. The fight was going out of me and I did not want it to but I could not stop it. I was tired and my hands were shaky from the adrenaline of almost making it and the reality of not making it was sitting on my chest like something heavy.

Rook appeared in the doorway. He looked between us and read the room fast.

"Coffee?" he said to me.

"Yes please," I said, because I was exhausted and cold and at least that was something I could have right now.

Rook moved into the kitchen and Zane stood up and straightened his jacket and looked at me one more time.

"You will not make it over that fence," he said. Not unkind. Just factual. "The beam is weaker than it looks. It would have given on your second step."

He walked out.

I sat there and let Rook put a mug in front of me and did not say anything for a while.

"He is not lying," Rook said quietly, sitting down across from where Zane had been. "About keeping you safe. That part is real."

"That does not make it okay."

"No," he agreed. "It does not."

I wrapped both hands around the mug. Outside I heard boots on gravel, low voices, the ordinary sounds of the compound waking up around me. All of it so normal. All of it so wrong.

I thought about the fence. About how close I had gotten. About Zane telling me the beam would have given way on the second step.

He had known I was going to try. He had let me get that far and then told me exactly why it would not have worked.

That was not accidental. That was a message.

I drank my coffee and thought about what kind of man sends that kind of message and what exactly it meant that part of me respected it.

I did not like that part very much.