AVERY'S POV
Pain was a sharp, grounding line across my face, but I refused to let it pull me under.
The two men had walked toward the far end of the warehouse, their voices muffled by the low rumble of a diesel generator. I forced my breathing to steady through my nose. Panic was useless. If I was going to survive this, I needed data.
Every forty minutes, a heavy freight train rattled past the eastern side of the building, sending a low vibration through the concrete beneath my knees. The air hung thick and stale, sharp with the unmistakable stench of industrial paint thinner. High above, through a fractured pane of dirty glass, a red railway signal light pulsed at steady intervals against the gathering dusk.
My hands were still bound behind me to the metal leg of the workbench, but my fingers could move.
During the scuffle in the van, one of my pearl earrings had snapped at the post. I felt the tiny piece of jagged metal tangled in the hem of my blazer. Straining my shoulders until the plastic ties bit deep into my skin, I worked my fingers into the cloth, working the broken post free.
Holding the metal pin between my index finger and thumb, I blindly dragged the point against the rusted iron near the floor.
I pressed as hard as my cramped muscles allowed, scraping deep grooves into the metal.
*10/14.*
Today’s date. If someone eventually cleared this place, or if investigators ever ran forensics on this room, the mark would prove I had been held here alive.
I shifted my hips, stretching my right leg as far as it would reach. Near the edge of the workbench sat a half-empty metal can of paint thinner, left behind by some long-gone worker. I hooked the heel of my boot under the rim and kicked hard.
The can tipped over with a dull clang.
A dark puddle of oily solvent spilled across the cracked concrete, creeping in a steady, glossy stream toward the warehouse’s main sliding door. It soaked into the porous floor, leaving a clear chemical trail that would remain visible long after the liquid evaporated.
"What the hell was that?" the shorter kidnapper barked, tossing a set of car keys onto a nearby crate as he walked back in.
"Just knocked something over," the masked man replied without turning. "Did you dump her car?"
"Parked it right in the commuter lot by the northern line," the shorter man said, pulling my smartphone from his pocket. "No cameras on the west exit. I sent the message like we planned."
My chest tightened. "What message?"
The shorter man smirked under his mask, looking down at my screen. "A nice little farewell note from you to your big brother: *I need a few days away. Don't look for me.* It makes you look like a spoiled brat throwing another tantrum after getting shut down at the board meeting."
"Lucas won't buy that," I said, though my voice sounded hollow even to my own ears.
"Oh, he bought it," the man sneered, holding up the phone to show a monitoring app connected to a clone device. "Your brother's assistant already forwarded the message to the police liaison. Word from their house is that pretty little blonde girl told him to stop letting you manipulate him."
Lena.
Of course she did.
The kidnapper shook his head with a dry laugh. "Your brother stood down the private tactical team he started to call. He told the dispatcher it was an unsubstantiated domestic disappearance. They're just filing paperwork. Nobody is searching."
The words felt like ice water poured directly into my veins. Lucas had shut down the search before it even started. To the entire city, I was just Avery Hale, the unstable heiress crying wolf for attention.
The taller man checked his watch. "Time's up for the first installment. Let's see if he changes his mind."
He picked up the burner phone, sent an automated payment request to the encrypted link, and waited.
Three minutes passed in complete silence.
The phone didn't ring with a wire confirmation. Instead, a direct text message flashed across the screen of my own phone, sent from Lucas’s personal number.
The kidnapper picked up the phone, walked over to where I was kneeling, and thrust the bright screen inches from my face.
*End this now. Come home before you make it worse.*
I stared at those eight words.
My eyes burned, but the tears simply refused to fall. The frantic, desperate hope that had been pounding in my chest for the last two hours collapsed into complete, icy stillness. He genuinely believed this was all a game. He thought I was sitting in some hotel room, watching a screen and laughing at him.
"See that?" the man muttered, pocketing the phone. "He thinks you're a joke."
I lifted my head, meeting the cold gaze behind his mask. "Let me speak to him."
"We're not negotiating through you," he said.
"Listen to me," I said, my voice steady, stripped of all pleading. "He thinks the video was staged in a studio. He thinks you're actors I hired. If you let me talk to him on speaker for ten seconds, I can make him hear what's actually happening. Let him hear the trains. Let him hear your demands live."
The two men exchanged a brief, calculating look.
The shorter one rubbed his chin. "Could work. If he hears her breaking down in real time without a script, he might realize he fucked up."
"Tomorrow morning," the taller one said, turning back to me with a harsh, unyielding stare. "First light. You get one short call. If the money isn't wired within fifteen minutes after that call ends, we're not waiting around for the cops to figure out this is real. We start arranging your move to the disposal site down south."
"Understood," I said quietly.
They didn't answer. The taller man threw a coarse wool blanket over my shoulders and kicked the heavy wooden crate in front of the door, blocking the latch from the inside. They retreated to the small partition office near the back, shutting the door and leaving me alone in the dark.
Hours dragged by in absolute silence.
Around two in the morning, the deep, thunderous roar of another freight train tore through the night, shaking the dust from the steel beams overhead. The ground beneath me trembled, the vibration rattling through my ribs.
I didn't close my eyes. I didn't tell myself that Lucas was outside with security. I didn't tell myself that he was secretly tracking the phone or realizing his mistake.
He wasn't coming.
Lena had won his mind years ago, and I had been a fool to think blood meant protection.
Behind my back, my fingers found the thin silver chain around my left wrist. It was a charm bracelet Lucas had given me for my sixteenth birthday, back when he still looked at me like a sister instead of a liability.
I pressed my thumbs against the delicate lobster clasp, twisting the thin metal back and forth against the iron leg of the workbench.
The metal resisted, digging painfully into my thumb, but I kept twisting, applying steady, unrelenting pressure until I felt the tiny click of the joint fracturing.
The sharp, jagged piece of steel snapped free into my palm.
On the nearby crate, the car keys the shorter man had tossed down earlier caught the weak light. A white fleet tag hung from the ring. From where I was tied, I could only make out the first four characters clearly: *7WA9.*
I pressed the jagged edge into my palm until a thin line of blood welled up. Reaching down behind the workbench, I dragged one fingertip across the concrete at the edge of the paint-thinner stain and traced four crooked characters: *7-W-A-9.*
If anyone ever found this place, they would have something to run.
I closed my fist around the broken clasp, hiding the metal in my grip.
If I was getting out of this warehouse alive, I was going to have to do it myself.
