Page 17 of The Woman with the Handcuffs

The thing was pretty damn convincing if you didn’t touch it.

I placed it back down as I glanced over at the woman, sleeping peacefully on my couch. Her body was curled in tight, her anxiety making her protect herself even at rest.

What the hell was this about?

What could I have possibly done to her to warrant this kind of planning and execution? Knowing full well who I was, what my organization was known for doing to those who crossed us?

This was a different kind of desperation to push a normal person to extremes.

Which meant it was personal.

And since I was relatively sure I’d never seen this woman before in my life, this had to do with someone in her life.

Taking note of the state of things, none of my soldiers or capos had gotten killed recently. So this was no mourning girlfriend. I was relatively sure no one had gotten pinched either.

My life wasn’t exactly expansive.

Did I give her book a scathing review or something?

I had no idea.

But I guess I would figure it out eventually. Once she got her sleep and woke up with a clear head enough to interrogate me.

I went into the bedroom, grabbing an extra blanket and draping it over her before shooting off a text to Leo to come by the day after tomorrow.

If she somehow got smart about the whole not securing me properly thing, I wanted to know someone was going to find out. Without worrying him enough to drop by immediately.

I kind of wanted to see how this was going to play out.

And I clearly didn’t have much to worry about if the sheer idea of trying to torture me had her vomiting.

I puttered around for another hour or two before putting on a documentary, then finally slipped the zip ties into the chair legs, slapped the damn tape over my mouth, and secured my wrists with the handcuffs, careful to keep them as loose as she had.

Then I watched and waited.

The TV was three episodes into a four-episode miniseries when the woman sucked in a quick, startled breath and jerked awake hard.

The blanket fell around her as she sat up and she regarded it with comically pinched brows as she tried to place it, tried to mentally remember it on the back of the couch, even though it hadn’t been there.

I looked away before she caught me watching her.

She took a minute but came over toward me, her hair all bed-messy, her eyes red and dry.

“Well,” she said, trying to inject something like authority into her voice. “Have you had enough time to think about the seriousness of this situation?”

I smiled behind the tape.

You had to admire that she somehow turned giving herself a panic attack and falling asleep into her “giving me time to think.”

Unable to do anything else, I shrugged my shoulders.

“Good. Well. Um. Give me a minute.”

With that, she walked behind me, going into the kitchen. I heard the tap running and a clink of a glass.

When she came back, her lashes and lips were wet. Like she’d not only gotten a drink, but maybe splashed her face with water.

“This is going to hurt,” she warned as she reached for the edge of the tape.”