How was he going to keep his hands off her if she took his offer of friendship?
Exhaustion pulsed through his bones and darkness called to him like an old friend, dragging him into the depths where only nightmares pulsed to life…
Singapore, September, eight months earlier
‘Wakey-wakey, pretty boy.’
Derision leaked from the hoarse oriental twang as the sound of heavy boots clomping over concrete, cracking the grit and filth beneath inch-thick soles, penetrated the lethargic smaze in which his mind wandered.
Hair like the heart of a ruby…fire in its most dangerous form…
The twang grew louder. ‘How are we feeling today?’ But it was the jangle of a loaded key ring slapping against a military toned thigh that finally roused his head from its cushioned spot on the exposed brick wall.
His backside numb from sitting on the damp floor for hours on end, he conspicuously flexed the legs outstretched in front of him, knowing what was to come.
After all, he could set his watch by these guys—if he still had it. As it was, the rare platinum timepiece now graced one of the guard’s thick, brawny wrists.
Four and a half million he’d been paid to wear that watch—to have his face plastered on every billboard from here to Timbuktu.
Easy money.
Exactly what these men wanted from him. He could have coped with that if it wasn’t for the kid in the next cell. If that kid hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time and got dragged into this godforsaken mess.
He smacked his head off the pitted brick, wondering once again if they’d get out of here alive. Wherever ‘here’ was. Some place near the ocean, if the sporadic bites of salt water were anything to go by.
He craved a glance at the skyline. Light. Space. Or, better yet, an endless track to drive down, to escape from reality. As it was, he had too many hours to think—an overrated and highly dangerous pastime. If he wasn’t imagining the peaceful waters of stunning grey eyes regrets suffocated him as they shadowed his mind like tormented souls.
The mistakes he’d made in his life. The hearts he’d broken in his youth. The way he’d abandoned his mother and Eva. What if he never had the chance to say sorry?
Chest so tight he could scarcely breathe, he stuffed the lot to the back of his mind, where all the other emotional garbage was, and let it fester. Concentrated on what he was capable of dealing with—Mr Happy in the khaki combats, who seemed to be snarling at him.
‘There is something wrong with your tongue?’
Yeah, as a matter of fact there was. It hadn’t tasted water for two days. But he’d guess Brutus, here, just wanted his answer.
How was he feeling? As if he’d had his insides scooped out and then shoved back in. With a blunt spoon.
‘Great. Never felt better. Your hospitality is second to none.’
The you’ll-pay-for-that smirk should have made him regret his smart mouth, but he had to keep their focus on him. Always on him.
‘I am pleased to hear it.’ The guard paused outside the kid’s cell and Finn felt the familiar toxic churn of foreboding right in the pit of his empty stomach. ‘And your friend?’
Already halfway up from his cosy spot on the floor, Finn almost lost his precarious stance. ‘He’s sick. Can’t even walk. So leave him alone.’ Then he smoothed the edge off his harsh tone and kicked up his lips, offering the legendary St George smile as he straightened to his full height. ‘It’s me you want, anyway. Isn’t that right?’
Another smirk. Another churn of unease and sickening revolt in his stomach.
‘Boring when they don’t fight back.’
‘There you go, then. Let me out of here.’ He jerked his chin towards the kid. ‘The view is depressing.’ Or it would be for the kid pretty soon.
‘Finn?’ Tom croaked. ‘Let me—’
‘Shut up, kid.’ Every muscle in his body protested as he coerced his legs forward as if two of his ribs weren’t cracked and his shoulder wasn’t dislocated. Piece of cake. ‘I’m feeling cooped up in here.’ His door swung wide. ‘Give him some water, would you?’
The guard grinned, flashing a less than stellar set of teeth, eyes brimming with calculation. As if he knew something Finn didn’t. As if the last four days had been foreplay to the main event.
Darkness seeped through the cracks in his mind and threatened to rise like some ugly menacing storm. ‘You leave the kid alone—you hear me? Or no money.’
The laugh that spilled from those blood-red lips made his guts wrench tighter.
‘Boss says the only thing I leave alone is your pretty face,’ the guard said, and slapped said face with enough force to sting. ‘Get moving.’
‘Speaking of my generous host, I want to talk to him again.’
‘Your wish is my command.’
Somehow he doubted that. Nevertheless, ten minutes later a big palm pushed on his shoulder—the dislocated one, thank you very much—and he fought the wince as he was slammed down into a black plastic chair in the corner of a room that looked like an interrogation hotspot out of a gritty cop show. But, nope, this was no TV set. Proof of which sat in the chair opposite, with a rickety steel-framed table separating them.
Face-to-face with his captor, it wasn’t in Finn’s nature to beat around the proverbial bush, so he kicked off today’s festivities.
‘Let’s barter,’ he managed to say through a throat that felt serrated with sticks. ‘I’ll trade you another five million if you let him go. Now.’
Eyes as black as his soul and sunk into a battered, rock-hewn face stared back at him. ‘That’s quite an offer, Mr St George. But I was thinking of a different kind of bartering altogether.’
‘I’m getting tired of these games. What exactly is it you want?’
‘Right now I want you to make a choice, racer-boy. The first of many.’
Behind him, the iron door ground open with a chilling squeal and a frigid bite swept through the room—so cold his bones turned to ice. The kid was behind him. He knew it.
‘Forget choices. Make it another ten mill and let. Him. Go.’
‘You don’t like him being touched, do you, pretty boy?’ he said silkily—in striking contrast to the sharp crack of knuckles that caromed around the room. ‘So shall I play with him? Or will you?’
Finn’s breath sawed in and out of his lungs. ‘Twenty. That will be sixty million, transferred from my Swiss bank account within the hour. You can do what the hell you like with me. Deal?’
MONTREAL BASKED IN the warmth of a glorious dusk, the sky a canvas of fluffy spiralling ribbons tinged with orange and red, with only a blaze of yellow on the curve of the earth, where the sun kissed the horizon.
Its beauty failed miserably to improve her ugly mood.
‘You’d better be in, Finn,’ Serena muttered as she stormed across the endless blanket of tarmac towards his glossy black motor home.
Never mind the prescient darkness that had clung to her skin for two weeks since Monaco, like some kind of impending doom, Michael Scott—aka dear old Dad—had just pulled a number