He’d fucking love to get a stronger confession, more to nail these assholes permanently, but he wasn’t risking Trace. At a minimum, they had them on this fucked up hostage situation, with enough of a confession to get someone else going on digging up dirt on Ursula’s many ventures.
Trace shifted her shoulders, the bindings so tight, her arms were probably going numb. Feet tied to the chair, she wasn’t going anywhere easily.
“Keep talking,” Ursula said, grinding sawdust under her boot as she turned mid-pace and looked at Cole expectantly. “I’ve got all night.”
Cole looked over at Trace, holding her look and hoping she caught on.
She fiddled her tooth around her canine.
Lifting his voice, he fired a sideways glance at Ursula. “Let Trace go first.”
“No.” Trace yelled. Exactly on target, and he hoped to hell that call was still going, she cried, “I’m not leaving without you.”
Now. Cole glanced up at the clock. Four minutes, and it would all be over.
“So romantic,” Ursula said, chortling with vicious delight. “But it’s not up to you.” She rolled her eyes and stalked close, drawing her knife and flicking it through the fabric of Trace’s sweatshirt. “Talk. Or she dies. Let’s start with a name.”
“I’m definitely not telling you if kill her,” Cole said, almost flippant in his response, knowing it would piss off Ursula. “Not one detail if you so much as cause one more bruise on her. She walks out of here—alone—and I’ll give you a first name. I walk, you get a last name. I see you all on a plane out of here, and I’ll give you the rest.”
Now he’d pissed her off. Ursula flicked her hair back as she stood straight, embodying the term, “if looks could kill.” Add a few snakes to her head, and everyone in the room would be damned to an eternity frozen in stone. “I shouldn’t have expected anything simple from the man who nearly took down our entire operation.Nearly.“ She fired a look at Janessa. “Where’s Milo?”
Cole flinched, wondering how many more of his former colleagues had been bought. At least two so far. He wasn’t sure if the ones bound and gagged were a ruse to mess with his trust later, or if they were actually on his side.
“Still keeping post outside the house.”
“Call him. I’ll need someone to verify the identity of the programmer.”
Janessa called over the radio, but no one answered. Again, she insisted she required an immediate response. Nothing.
Cole held a straight face.
Across from him, Trace looked around with subtle confusion, but he knew she was faking it.
Fuck. Ursula was pissed. Fist out, closed hard. He refused to flinch, just to piss her off. Like a miniature sledgehammer, she slammed an uppercut under his chin.
Reflexive, from the force of it, his head snapped back.
He rolled his neck and adjusted his posture. Coppery blood filled his mouth from where he’d bitten his cheek. He rubbed his tongue over the wound, grimacing as he realized this one was going to take a while to heal.
Ursula whipped out her knife and sliced a line across his forearm.
Searing hot pain lashed across his arm, radiating and numb, it burned as blood seeped from the wound.
Tongue fucking tied, he flashed back to the longest two weeks of his life, how they’d kept this going last time, getting more creative and him more delirious the longer it lasted. Before it sucked him under, he thought of Trace removing the stitches, holding him when he was dizzy, shaving his beard when he was too weak to lift his arm.
He looked across at Trace. Color had leached from her skin, her lips ghost white, and every muscle in her body was tensed. She ripped at her bindings.
Another minute would be nice, but he knew it would take nothing for Ursula to start cutting on Trace. Cole shook his head subtly and mouthed, “Go.”
She didn’t hesitate. Trace rocked back in her chair and aimed it just right.
The ancient dining chair had caused more than a few injuries in the Perry house. His very shitty repair job this afternoon may have set it up to shatter with just the right movement. As it hit the ground, the back slats popped out and the arms busted free.
Trace kicked one leg out and the peg snapped.
All eyes turned toward Trace. A series of safeties flicked off, guns aimed.
Cole moved fast. His bindings already loosened, his wrists raw and thumbs aching as they popped back into joint, he slipped out of the ropes and shook his hands in front as he pushed to his feet. He kicked back, but his chair wasn’t busting so easily. Fuck. Like a complete idiot, he shuffled fast, but he didn’t have far to go. Before Ursula could turn back toward him, he spun and knocked her with the legs of his chair.
