The man in charge grins and says, “Then it won’t bother you if we kill her?”

Raide looks bored. “Nope.”

He’s joking? Right? He’s playing them. He has to be. He wouldn’t risk letting me get killed.

“Well, then, no point in waiting.” Baldy reaches down and hauls me up quickly.

I scream and twist as he slams me against the wall, then there’s a knife to my throat. I don’t even know where he got it from, but everything in my world just stops and all I can do is shake violently. I cry out and whisper, “Raide.” My eyes turn to him but his expression is hard.

“You sure you don’t care for her?”

“Positive.”

He presses the knife into my flesh some more.

“Raide!” I scream.

Does he think they won’t do it?

“You know what? I think I’ll enjoy her a bit first. Get on your knees.” He drops me to the ground and I scurry away from him, but he takes hold of my hair and pulls me back.

That’s when Raide loses it—he lunges forward and I hear a loud crack, then a thump. A gun is fired and I topple forward, landing on my face. I want to turn but my cheek is burning and I’m frozen in fear, waiting for the fatal bullet to be shot into my back. I close my eyes, trying to breathe as I hear the grunting sounds, and then the door slams.

I turn slowly after a few minutes of silence to see we’re alone once more, with a dead body. Raide is on all fours, panting, and there’s blood running from his arm. The bald man is facedown on the floor, but there’s a good deal of blood coming from around his face and neck. I don’t even want to know what Raide did to him.

I force myself to my hands and knees and crawl toward Raide. When I reach him, I stretch my hand out and lift his shirt. “Raide,” I cry, “you’ve been shot!”

“It’s fine,” he says in barely a whisper.

He’s in pain. I know he is. “Let me help you, please.” I push his shoulder gently and he shifts so he’s sitting against the wall. I lift his sleeve and decide there’s no point keeping that tattered mess on his body when I can use it to halt the blood dripping down his arm. “I’m going to use your shirt, is that okay?”

He doesn’t say anything, so I give it a few tugs and it tears free of his body. I tie a couple of the ripped strands together and then I bundle another piece up in a ball and place it over the wound. Raide winces, but he doesn’t stop me. I use the tied strands to secure the ball in place and then I tie it tightly. Before I’m done, the door opens and the two men enter again. This time they have massive guns that I have no doubt would obliterate us if we were shot by them.

“Don’t fuckin’ move!”

They hold the guns pointed at us while two more men come in and lift the lifeless body from the floor. Then a younger guy comes in and scrubs the blood from the floor with something that smells strong enough to burn my nose hairs.

When they’re done, they turn to us. “We’re leaving in the morning, so say your last good-byes.”

They slam the door on their way out.

I drop my head and try to come up with a plan. There has to be something we can do! This isn’t the end for us. It isn’t. Raide reaches up and his fingers graze my cheek. I close my eyes and try to stop my body from trembling.

“I would never have let him hurt you,” he assures me.

I flinch. “You just sat there,” I whisper.

“Because I wanted him to turn his back to us—and he did.”

“You risked my life.”

“Gracie,” he murmurs, leaning forward and nuzzling my cheek.

I push him off and walk slowly, numbly to the other side of the room. I lower down onto the floor and don’t make eye contact with him again. I was terrified. For a second there, I thought that guy was going to kill me and Raide was just going to sit by and let it happen. My body shakes with fear all over again, and before I can stop it, I start to sob. Loud, heart-wrenching sobs that clog my throat.

Raide is beside me in seconds, pulling me onto his lap. “I would never have let him hurt you, Grace!” he says again. “You have to believe that.”

“I lost everything,” I sob into his bare chest. “Everything.”

“You didn’t, and we’re going to get out of here.”

“My boss hates me, my friends hate me, and you hate me. I—lost—everything.”

“I don’t hate you, baby.” When I cry harder, he runs his fingers through my hair, soothing me. “Truth is,” he rasps, then hesitates. “The truth is, Grace, that I haven’t thought of a damned thing since you left, except you.”

I close my eyes and breathe him in.

“You’re under my skin.”

I rub my cheek over his hard muscled flesh.

“And I can’t fuckin’ get you out.”

I shudder and my sobs subside.

“You made me feel again.”

Oh. Yes.

“You made me want to fight.”

I turn so my ear is over his heart. There I listen to it pounding.

“You made me want to start again.”

I exhale loudly.

“With you.”

I tilt my head up and look at him. He’s staring down at me, his amber eyes filled with something a whole lot deeper than lust.

“Raide,” I whisper.

He leans down, cupping my jaw and tilting my face up. “Hush.”

Then he kisses me. His lips are rough yet so, so soft. He kisses me with force, spreading my lips and gently coaxing my tongue out with his. He shifts my body so I’m straddling him and his hands glide up and down my back as our kiss deepens until we’re panting and clutching each other. He pulls back after a few long, passionate moments and runs his mouth down my neck. I close my eyes, dropping my head back so he can move around to my throat. He kisses the little hollow there before gliding his lips back up to find mine once more.

“We have to get out of here,” I breathe against his lips when they stop dancing together.

“Yeah.”

“How are we going to do that?”

“There aren’t many choices, lady. They’re going to drug us before they take us from here, you can guarantee that. They won’t risk us escaping from the car.”

“They said they didn’t know who Dean is?”

Raide grunts. “They know. That smart fucker is making it look like he has nothing to do with this. He’s probably back at that bar, sitting casually.”

“I was wired.”

“You get anything?”

I shake my head.

“Fuck.”

“I went to the cops, Raide.”

He stares at me. “And?”

“And they sent me in, wired, to get a confession from Dean. He figured me out, and here I am.”

Raide sighs. “This leaves only one option.”

“And that is?”

“We fight.”

I narrow my eyes. “Fight?”

“Yeah, we fight. We’re not cuffed—they might be smart but they are stupid when it comes to holding captives. I wasn’t enough to take them on my own, but with you here, we might have a chance. There’s only six of them, five now I killed one. I’ve been counting them.”