AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When the old man had entered the cabin, he’d been partially dressed. Wearing his pants, socks, shoes, and shirt, all of which he still had on. He was missing his warmer layers, along with his tact vest, but at least he wasn’t naked.
Patting his pockets, Surf wondered whether anyone had searched him. Despite being Kristoff Mikhailov’s partner he doubted an actress like Zara knew much about anything outside her safe little world. The men that had been guarding the mansion in Switzerland had been highly trained, and he assumed whoever she had here was as well, there was every chance they had thought to go through his pockets even if it had never occurred to their boss.
Still, he could hope.
A grin broke out on his face a moment later when he found exactly what he was looking for.
Ever since Somalia, he’d been paranoid about himself and his team being caught again. He hadn’t been sure he could survive a repeat of that captivity and torture, so he’d sewn a little insurance into the inside of every pair of combat pants he owned.
The kit was small. It contained lock-picking tools and a Swiss army knife, all he thought he could reasonably hide, but all he really needed to get out of almost any situation.
Certainly, something he could use to get out of this.
Palming the kit, he circled his cell looking for weaknesses. The walls were concrete, there were no bars, no exterior windows, just walls and a door at one end. The door did have one small window, but when he looked through it all he could see were more doors like the one trapping him in his cell.
“Lila?” he called out, praying she was nearby. Not only did he want to reassure her that he was conscious, uninjured, and able to get them both out of this, but he needed the reassurance of hearing her voice.
He needed to know that she was alive, yes, but he also needed to know if she hated him for not protecting her. If Ross and Zara hadn’t arrived when they had, then the old man would have raped her.
As much as it killed him to admit it, that was what would have happened.
It felt wrong to be grateful to Ross Duffy for anything, given he was at least part of the reason Lila had been taken, but in this he was thankful for the man’s obsession with and unwillingness to share her.
The door wouldn’t budge, and there was no way to get his arms through to the other side to pick the lock, so he was going to have to play this a different way.
Returning to the corner of the cell where he’d woken up, Surf sat down and opened the kit. There was nothing in his cell, no toilet, no mattress, no blanket, but he knew that Zara wanted him alive until she had abducted the rest of his team and their partners.
That meant sooner or later someone had to enter his cell to bring him food.
When they did, he’d be ready and waiting for them.
It didn’t take him long to pick the lock in the metal cuff binding him to the chain, and he immediately breathed a sigh of relief at having the cuff gone. His wrists and ankles were a little worse for wear from the ropes the old man had used, but he felt stronger than when he’d woken, ready to fight.
The cell had a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. If he broke the bulb, it would alert whoever came to bring him food that something was up, but there was no way they could know about the kit he’d had sewn into his pants. If they knew of its existence, they would have taken it so they wouldn’t be expecting him to be free of the chain.
Swinging the chain at the bulb, he smirked with satisfaction as it shattered, raining small shards of glass down on the floor.
Surf had the knife in his pocket ready to go, and he held the chain in both hands. Before he killed the unlucky man who would come to feed him, he needed intel. He also needed a way to contact his team. If he was lucky, the man who came would have a radio on him he could use.
Settling himself into the corner, Surf now had nothing to do but wait.
Wait and let his fear for Lila’s safety fuel the fires of his fury.
* * * * *
November 22nd
9:21 A.M.
Lila paced around the bedroom.
She felt like a caged animal.
She had woken up in this room when the drugs she’d been given in the cabin had worn off. No one had been in to see her, so she had no idea how long she’d been here. At least one night, it had been bright, probably afternoon when she’d woken up, and she’d watched through the window as the sun sank and the moon came out. Unable to sleep, she’d then watched as the moon slowly crossed the sky and the sun rose once again.
The not knowing was the worst.
Where she was, what was going to happen to her, whether Ross was here too, and his crazy wife Zara.
