Reign (The Italian Cartel #3) - Shandi Boyes Page 0,5

nugget of information he unwittingly shared, I hold my hands out in front of myself, smug as fuck about his first stumble of the day.

I can’t wait for him to have many more.

With his grin as shit-eating as mine, he lowers his pistol from my head to my almost exposed chest before grunting out, “Higher.”

“If I raise them any higher, I’ll lose the scarce bit of coverage I have. I will spit in your face before I’ll ever let that happen.”

The man with a sleeve full of tattoos grin turns gleaming. “Those there are fighting words for men like me. Are you sure you want to go down that road, girlie? It won’t be as pretty as your face.”

You don’t scare me, I want to say, but hold back, mindful our ruse will be more effective if I play the damsel in distress. Only someone believing they’re not in real danger would act nonchalant in this situation. This isn’t the movies. Not even an imbecile would remain quiet when they’re being led out of a packed restaurant with a knife jabbed under their ribs.

A montage of the footage I perused before drawing sketches of the people I saw at Joops the day Dimitri’s wife was kidnapped halts playing in my head when something sharp jabs into my thigh. I was so deep into my thought process on Audrey’s silence when she was led away by a stranger, I didn’t notice the goon removing a needle from his bag of tricks at my side and stabbing it into my leg.

“What was that…” My woozy words answer my question on his behalf. I feel like I’m floating, like more than scratchy material is moving out from beneath me when he leans into the van to lift me out. Just like when I was carried through the hidden corridors of the office building shouldering Dr. Bates’s practice, I’m fully exposed.

It’s not all bad. My lack of clothing uncovers elements my dazed head wouldn’t have noticed. Such as the warmth of the sun when I’m carried across the gravel-crunching ground and the direction the wind is blowing. It always howls in from the ocean. Since the gusts are nowhere near as strong as the ones that roll in from Bronte’s Peak, I’m confident we’ve headed inland.

The shadow on the man’s face and the lack of warmth from the sun exposes it’s still early in the day. I either slept for an eternity, or we’re still close to Hopeton. If my intuition is anything to go by, I’m leaning toward the latter.

The thought makes me smile. Dimitri is closer than I realized. Perhaps he’s sitting in the dark sedan I spotted near the woodlands when my eyes were wrenched to the needle sticking out of my thigh. I only got the quickest glimpse of the vehicle before my eyelids grew weary, but I’m confident it wasn’t my imagination. I have a knack for taking things in much deeper than an ordinary person would. It’s a disturbing trait I developed from my father’s wish to embarrass me. I gawk even when I shouldn’t. Mercifully, I don’t see it getting me in trouble this time around.

A second after the beep of an electronic lock sounds through my ears, I’m lowered onto a cool, bumpy surface. Although this metal doesn’t feel as scratchy as the rusty bottom of the van, its distinct smell assures me I’ve been moved from one mode of transport to another. Regretfully, it isn’t an elaborate private jet. The tire jack digging into my ribs assures me of this, much less the tight confines. I’ve been shoved into a trunk, the bend of my legs to fit adding to the gnawing pain in my stomach.

“Get comfy, sweetheart. You’re in for an all-nighter,” grunts the stranger with a chuckle before he slams down the trunk, trapping me inside.

Once again, I want to get smug, but once again, the reminder that Dimitri is only one step behind stops me.

We’ve created a storm.

Now we just need it to rain.

Fingers crossed it doesn’t turn into a flood.

4

Dimitri

“Call an ambulance!” I scream at Smith as if he’s standing across from me instead of watching me via the security dome above my head.

With my earpiece bogged down by the water I’m wading through to reach Alice floating in the middle of her pool, Smith’s response doesn’t come out as crisp as normal. “Dimi—”

“Now!” My short reply doesn’t weaken the severity of my warning. I didn’t suggest for him to bring