“It’s her,” said her captor. “Definitely the Chaudhary girl.”
“Hey!” The low, masculine shout came from far away. The man holding her swung around, which swung her around, and she nearly strangled on her own shock and distress. Naveen?
No, no, no. What was he doing here? Running straight toward a second masked man?
She renewed her struggles, but the man holding her barely seemed to notice, though she tried to use every pointy part of her body. Meanwhile, Naveen was grappling with the other attacker. The masked man feinted left, then punched her ex in the face hard. Naveen spun, his suit jacket flying open, and fell to the ground. The man pulled his foot back and kicked Naveen in the side, and her former boyfriend stilled.
No, no, no!
A tiny prick pinched her neck. She tried to turn her head, but it took less than a minute before it felt like she was moving through molasses. Her brain grew foggy, and so did her vision.
The last thing she saw was Naveen’s fingertips twitching. Through the haze of drugs, a shot of relief ran through her. He wasn’t dead.
The masked man standing above Naveen pulled out a gun, and her eyes closed, despair running through her.
“Take him with us, too,” said her captor.
Not dead yet, anyway.
Chapter Four
Was he dead?
Naveen didn’t think he was, but then again, he didn’t have much previous experience being dead.
Cold damp air touched his face. Something wet dripped down his neck. He blinked his eyes open and immediately slammed them shut, wincing at the immediate resulting headache. He hadn’t really ever had terrible hangovers, despite his excessive drinking in the past, but this felt like one.
He screwed his eyes shut, trying to sort through his most recent memories. No, there had been no alcohol. Amira—correction, Mira—had turned up, as beautiful as the day she’d dumped him.
I don’t think this is going to work out. I’d like to break up. Thank you for the memories. Best, Mira.
Dumped him via that terrible text. Thank you for the memories? Who the hell said that? Or signed a text, unless they were grandparents.
He’d tried to hide his dismay about the breakup from his family, but hiding stuff had never been his jam. His mother and Hema Auntie had lectured him about being careful not to get too attached to someone until they were at least engaged. They revised that to married, after his next failed relationship. Passionate disengagement Hema Auntie called the courting stage. Something he wasn’t good at.
But he’d thought he’d dealt with those emotions a long time ago. When she walked into his office, after the initial shock had worn off, he’d taken quick hold, determined to stay professional and not get lost in her eyes or her secrets.
That had been challenged when he’d plucked that earring off her shirt, he couldn’t lie. It had been an automatic impulse to help her look for it, honed through years of helping his earring-wearing relatives search for the screw-on backings. It was only when he’d touched the silk of her shirt that he realized he’d fucked up. Reckless helpful instincts.
The space under that table had shrunk to nothing. All he could see was her big brown eyes, like melted chocolate. Mira was hard to read, but he had always been able to tell the temperature of her mood by her eyes. They darkened in passion, dilated in anger, lightened in joy.
Their last night together, they’d been satisfied, and he’d fallen asleep the same. Until he woke up to an empty bed and that text on his phone.
He hated that he was still angry and confused over her past behavior and current lies. So much so, he’d followed her out of his office. What he’d planned on saying to her, he wasn’t sure. Maybe he would have invited her out to get a bite to eat so they could talk properly, so he could ask her what he’d done all those years ago to make her freeze him out. Except he didn’t get the chance, because—
Naveen stiffened. The masked men.
That was the last thing he remembered. The pain in his head and face and ribs told him they’d fought.
Not a hangover, then.
His senses came alive in fragments, giving him pieces of a puzzle he had to put together. He raised his heavy eyelids, trying to blink his way into realization. The floor under his ass, the barely there lights that were somehow still too bright for him.
He tried to lift himself up, but his wrists were tied behind him with plastic zip ties. His ankles were bound too.
His breath puffed around the duct tape sealing his mouth shut, warming him despite the chill in the air and the dirty cement floor.
A bare bulb hanging from the ceiling illuminated his dismal surroundings. A small window let in a bit of reddish-purple light from the dying sun. A storeroom of some kind? If it was, it was for a place that had been deserted for some time. The walls were made of paneled wood, decaying and chipped. There were boxes piled high against the walls, but they were either empty or the contents didn’t matter, because they were also covered in mold. The door was the most sturdy-looking thing in the room, and the four locks on it were shiny and new.
He rolled to his back and crunched up to a seated position, then scooched back to sit against the wall, the pain making him light-headed. He wasn’t a side sleeper for a reason, and his on-fire hip and shoulder were protesting however many hours he’d been in that fetal position.
He didn’t need to see the other guy to know that he’d lost this particular fight. The Naveen who had once gotten into bar brawls in college, drunk and short-tempered, was embarrassed for the middle-aged version of him.
A low groan came to his ears, and he stiffened, searching the shadowy areas behind the circle of light cast by the bulb. A lump lay on the floor. The lump moved, and he leaned forward, his breath coming faster. “Mira,” he whispered, but the gag rendered him voiceless. It wasn’t a question. Who else could it be? He’d clearly interrupted her kidnapping.
She rolled over, partially coming into the light. The shadows under her eyes were dark, her eyeliner smeared. Her long lashes resting on her plump cheeks made her look especially vulnerable. Her hands and feet were bound like his. Other than being unconscious, she didn’t look injured, but he was no doctor. His mom had been right all along, he should have gone to med school instead of law school. Brief-writing skills were of no help right now.
He had no idea what had happened or what was going on, but everyone knew being taken to a second location was bad news, no matter why it had happened.
He kept one eye on Mira and twisted his wrists one way, then the other, but the plastic ties only tightened.
His breath came in rough pants as he surveyed the room again, this time searching out a tool to get these bindings off. The rickety table. Perhaps there was a pen or scissors in one of the drawers. Hell, he’d even take a stapler.
He rested his heels on the floor and tried to scoot like a very undignified inchworm. Brace the heels, slide. Brace the heels, slide.
Two feet were all he managed to cover before raised masculine voices from outside the door had him freezing.
“The boss is pissed.”
“We did what we were told.”
The other man’s response was inaudible, but then he spoke louder, closer to the door separating them. “Let’s get the information quick, so we can get the fuck out of here.”
Naveen slid back to the wall, as the door opened and two men entered the room. No masks this time, but he bet these were the two who had grabbed them.