Pike (The Pawn Duet #1) - T.M. Frazier Page 0,26
the second the door slides open, blinding me with light from the outside. “I have a photographic memory,” I blurt, needing to get all of my cards on the table before the torture begins and I can’t think straight.
Pike slides the door shut with a bang. “Why am I supposed to care if you have a photographic memory?” he asks with an eyebrow cocked as he approaches. Today, he’s not bare-chested as usual. He’s wearing a white tank top with a black leather jacket and tight, low-rise jeans. His heavy boots echo against the concrete as he approaches.
“It could be helpful to you. We could trade. I could help you with something, and you could untie me,” I offer. “I’m not trying to escape,” I lie. “I just want to be untied. I could help you. I swear.”
“I don’t negotiate with terrorists,” he replies.
Straightening my back, I clear my dry throat. “But terrorists can negotiate amongst themselves.”
“Now, you’re a terrorist?” He laughs. “At least, you admit it.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.” He shakes his head, “No. That’s not how this works. The trade is your life in exchange for fucking answers.” He shrugs off his jacket and sets it on some sort of rusted metal tank. He crosses his arms showing off his bulging biceps. Ironically, the word truth is tattooed across the middle of one of them.
“I don’t care about my life,” I reply, feeling the weight of my words on my shoulders. “It’s the least of my concerns.”
“And I don’t care about your memory. I don’t see how it will help me considering…” he lifts his chin. “It didn’t help your family.”
A bolt of shock courses through me. I snap my eyes to his. “What do you know about my family?” I grate.
He shrugs and pulls up a chair in front of me, straddling it with his long legs, resting his forearms along the back. “Nothing. Just that no one has seen your Mom, Pops or even poor Mallory, Maya, or…Missy, was it?”
“Mindy,” I seethe, hating their names on his lips.
He snaps his fingers. “Mindy, that was it.” He shrugs although there’s a knowing look in his eyes. “No one has seen them in years. Whatever happened to them, I wonder?” he muses. He points to me. “Do you know? Or maybe, you’re the one who went off the rails and murdered the whole lot of them. Maybe, when I found you that night, you’d just gotten done strangling each one of them as they slept.”
He’s not right, but he’s hitting way too close to home. My stomach turns. I close my eyes, and I’m met with the beginning of a memory I can’t relive again. Not while I’m with him. He can’t see me at my weakest. Not now. Not ever.
“Enough. My family is fine. They’re in hiding because of me. Something I did. You’ll never find them, and I won’t ever tell you anything about them. That’s not part of the negotiation.”
He unsheathes his knife from his boot and points it at me. “You still think this is a negotiation? That’s…cute.” He stands again, slowly circling me. “We’ll see about that. Often, people who don’t want to be found are quite surprised when I show up at their door.” He’s in front of me now, gazing down at me with something unreadable in his eyes. He wets his bottom lip with his tongue and rakes his gaze over my legs. “I wonder if all of your sisters share your…assets.”
My blood boils. I lick my dry lips and narrow my eyes at the smug fuck. “Fuck you. Leave them out of this.”
“Are you threatening me?” He crouches so we’re at eye level. “You won’t leave me out of this, so why should I leave them out of it?” He leans in so close I can feel his breath on my lips. “You started this game, Mic. And, unfortunately for you, this is how fucking I play.”
He pushes off and grabs his jacket, starting back toward the door.
I begin to panic. He can’t leave. Not yet. I have to be untied. “I can’t tell you what you need to know, but I can give you anything else. Whatever you want!” I call out.
He stops and turns back around slowly. “Whatever I want?” I can hear his smile as much as I can see it. There’s an implication, an innuendo in his voice that makes me shiver.
“No!” I cry, pulling at my restraints to no use. “Not that.