"Well?" Dorian said. "I don't have all day. Did the walk clarify your priorities?"
Ines gasped for air, her chest heaving. The panic attack was setting in, hyperventilation making her vision spotty. Hhh-uh. Hhh-uh.
The man with the knife grew impatient. He leaned into the phone, shouting.
"Listen here, Mcclain. We got your girl. She's bleeding."
Silence on the line. Absolute, dead silence.
The thug grinned. "Fifty thousand. Cash app. Within thirty minutes. Or she gets a lot uglier."
Dorian's voice changed. The arrogance vanished, replaced by a tone so cold it could freeze helium.
"Put her on."
The thug pressed the phone against Ines's ear. "Talk, bitch. Beg him."
"Ines," Dorian said. His voice was sharp, a command. "Tap the phone twice if you're alone. Once if you're not. Give me a signal."
He was testing her. Not for her voice, but for her mind. He was giving her an out, a way to communicate past her captors.
Ines squeezed her eyes shut. She tried. God, she tried. She willed her numb fingers to move, to give him the single tap he needed.
But the thug's grip was like a vise on her wrist. She couldn't move. She could only produce a wet, choking sound of pure terror.
The memory of the night her family fell, the screaming, the gunshots-it all crashed over her. Her voice was locked in a vault, and her body was a prison.
"I'm waiting," Dorian said. His voice was strained, the nonchalance gone.
Ines sobbed, a silent convulsion of her shoulders.
"Fine," Dorian said. "You made your choice."
Click.
The line went dead.
The thug pulled the phone away, staring at the screen in disbelief. "He hung up? The motherfucker hung up?"
He looked at his partner. "She ain't worth shit."
Rage twisted his face. He backhanded Ines.
The blow sent her sprawling across the floor. Her head cracked against the floorboards. Her ears rang. She tasted copper.
"Don't kill her!" Silas shrieked. "She's still useful!"
The thug began to unbuckle his belt. "If we can't get money, we take payment in trade."
Ines scrambled backward, her heels skidding on the trash-strewn floor. Her hand brushed against a shard of a broken vase. She gripped it, the glass cutting into her palm.
She backed into the corner, raising the glass. She would kill him. She would try.
The thug laughed, stepping closer.
SCREEECH.
Outside, tires squealed. Not one car. A convoy.
Heavy boots thundered on the stairs. Fast. Disciplined.
The thug paused, his belt halfway undone. "The cops?"
Ines's heart stopped.
One minute earlier.
In the back of the Escalade, Dorian stared at his phone, his knuckles white.
"He didn't hang up to abandon her," he thought, his own heart hammering. "He hung up to cut the line, to make them think they won. To make them get sloppy."
"Do we have it?" he barked into the car's intercom.
Preston, in the front seat, tapped a tablet. "Triangulation complete. Queensbridge Houses. Alpha Team is thirty seconds out. He hung up the second we got a lock."
"Breach," Dorian ordered. "I want them alive. Barely."
He hadn't hung up because he didn't care. He hung up to start the clock.
But his hand was shaking. Just a little.
CRASH.
The apartment door didn't just open. It exploded inward, kicked off its hinges.
