Except, it’s not a closet. It’s another room. A guard is sitting there, smoking a cigarette and flipping through a magazine. He stands at the sight of me, and the two guards begin a conversation. The new one eyes me lasciviously, and then I’m passed over to him.

We head through another door, and I’m taken down a narrow, cold set of stairs. Hudson’s house is a maze, and it almost feels like I’m being taken through a secret tunnel or something. I hope Daniel will know where to find me, but I’m getting more frightened with every moment.

The new guard takes me a few doors down and then opens one marked PRIVADO.

This room . . . is a sex room. There’s a cross with cuffs on it at the back of the room, a wooden horse, and all kinds of various paraphernalia in this room. It’s horrible. My frightened gasp makes the guard laugh, and he pushes me in. “Strip.”

“I . . . what?” I cling to the shift I’m wearing.

“You strip,” he tells me, pointing his gun in my direction.

Oh God, the GPS. Will Daniel know where I’m going? “Strip?” I repeat, stalling for time.

“You. Strip.”

When the man starts to head forward to do it himself, I wave him off and begin to remove my clothing. I peek at the guard, but he’s not paying attention to me. Instead, he’s heading to the far side of the room as I undress.

I remove everything and ball the clothes together, tucking the panties and bra into the shift so he won’t find the GPS. I look at the door. I might be able to escape before he shoots me . . . but then what? Then Naomi is lost. I suck in a breath and clutch the ball of clothing to my chest.

The guard returns a moment later with handcuffs. He takes the clothes from my hands, clasps one handcuff around my wrist, and drags me toward a metal pole in the center of the room. There are a few iron circles at the top of the pole and he clasps the other end of the handcuff through it, locking me there.

“Stay,” he tells me. “Good dog.” And he laughs in my face.

He’s still laughing as he leaves me in this horrible room. I’m naked, handcuffed to a bar, and surrounded by deviant toys that are clearly meant for the enjoyment of one party, and it’s not me. There are spikes and whips and things I can’t even begin to imagine their use, but it doesn’t look good.

I’m naked, and I’m trapped, and I don’t even have my GPS tracker anymore. There’s no sign of Naomi. There’s no sign of anyone. I’m stuck in this torture room all alone.

My bravery deserts me, and I begin to sob.


TIME PASSES , AND I KEEP CRYING until I’m hoarse, until the sobs that rack from my chest are ugly and painful. I can’t seem to stop. It’s like all the pressure that’s been building up has exploded with nowhere left to go except tears. I’ve messed everything up. I’m supposed to be finding Daniel’s sister and the hacker, and handling things. Instead, I’m naked and handcuffed in a sadist’s sex basement.

So I cry. And cry.

And cry.

There’s a knock at the door, which startles me out of my tears and sends me back into terror. I back up as much as the bar will let me, my now-raw wrist slamming against the handcuff above my head.

The door opens a moment later, and a woman in a beaten-up baseball cap peers in. She scowls in my direction, shuts the door, and walks toward me. “There must be silence if I’m to work. Those are the rules.”

I blink my tears back, startled. “W-what?”

“Silence. I told Hudson that if he wants me to be his Emperor, I have to have silence. Silence makes the atoms happy. If the atoms are happy, my brain functions at a higher level.” She crosses her arms and looks down at me. “You’re making my atoms very unhappy.”

“I . . . I’m sorry?” I twist in the handcuff. This girl is odd. She’s odd, but she’s also about my age, and I have a hunch. “Are you . . . are you Naomi?”

“I’ve told him,” she says as her hands smooth along the brim of her beaten-up cap, over and over again, “if he wants the Emperor to work, there must be silence and all foods must be brown or green, but not both together. Those are the rules, and he said that was fine. And now you’re here, making all this noise—” Her fingers flutter on the brim of the cap, agitated. She’s not meeting my curious gaze. “And I can’t think!”

I sniffle hard. “I’ll stop crying if you get me down from here.”

“Really?” Her gaze flicks to my face and then just as quickly skids away again.

“Yes, really.”

She considers the bar I’m handcuffed to, and her fingers slide along the brim of the hat, over and over again as she thinks. Then, she says, “I’ll have to tie you up somewhere else. Those are the rules.”

“That’s okay,” I say quickly. Anything has to be better than being handcuffed here. “If you tie me somewhere else and get me something to wear, I promise I’ll stop crying.”

“Good. Good.” She nods, and her fingers flutter on the edge of her hat again. “I’ll be back.”

“No, wait,” I say, but she’s gone as quickly as she came. I fight the urge to start screaming again, my terror over being alone returning like a tidal wave. I choke on sobs for what feels like eternity.

But then she returns, and she’s got a sleep shirt with her. “Here,” she says and holds it out.

I jangle the handcuff over my head. “Can we get rid of this?”

“Yes, of course.” She gives me the shirt and heads to the far wall, plucking a key from a hook with an expertise that makes me wonder how many other women she’s seen in this room. She returns, grabs one of the weird sex stools, climbs it, and undoes the latch on the handcuffs for me. “Now you’ll be quiet so I can work?”

I clutch my wrist to my chest once it’s free. I feel like crying again, but it won’t serve any purpose. “I’ll be quiet. You’re Naomi?”

She blinks at me, steps down off the stool, and then shrugs. “Most of the time. Sometimes I’m the Emperor.”

I tug the sleep shirt over my head. It’s a Mickey Mouse shirt, and I’m trying not to be weirded out by something so clean and childish in this bizarre place. It feels good to be wearing something. “The Emperor? That’s not another hacker? You’re the hacker?”

“I’m the hacker,” she agrees, and her gaze skids to the door again, as if she doesn’t like to look at me. “But I can’t hack anything if it’s not quiet.”

“Sorry,” I say and wring my hands. I’m feeling shaky and fragile, but excited all at once. “Daniel sent me,” I murmur in a low voice. “He’s here to come get you.”

“Oh no,” she says. Anxiety flickers across her face. Her hands go back to the brim of her cap. “Oh no. That’s not good. He can’t be here.”

“Wait, why can’t he be here? You want to stay?” I’m shocked.

Naomi looks at me then shakes her head, gaze skidding away again. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I want to leave. But he can’t be here. It’s dangerous.”

I bite my lip. “I don’t have any way of telling him not to come. I had a GPS tracker, but they took it with my clothes.”

She nods absently and pulls at my sleeve. “We’ll figure something out. Come with me.”

Twenty-four

Daniel

LETTING REGAN GO BACK TO Hudson is about the worst thing I have ever done. Petrovich and Mendoza literally sit on me to keep me from dragging Gomes out and punching him until his face is raw, tenderized meat. Kind of like what’s between his pants right now.

“It’s time.” Petrovich hands me a cheap pair of black pants, a white shirt, and a vest. These are our uniforms. The GPS Regan has will alert us to her location and hopefully that will reveal my sister. Petrovich is still working out where his hacker will be. He thinks basement. I don’t really give two shits.

“Do I tape my gun to the bottom of the tray?”

“No weapons,” Mendoza reminds me. Only Hudson’s carefully vetted guards are allowed weapons. Even those in the kitchen are screened due to their placement near knives and heavy objects, but I guess the wait staff is not. At some point, Petrovich and I will have to disarm two guards, take their weapons, and find Regan.

Getting inside Hudson’s compound is ridiculously easy if you have no weapons and are dressed like staff. Mendoza has done it before; at the time he was unwilling to level the place to find his lost girl. But I guess it ate at him, and now we’ve tipped him over the edge. That and we’re the ones taking all the risks.

“You eat this shit?” Petrovich asks, sniffing at the squares of raw tuna speared by a toothpick.

“We can’t all live on borscht,” I mock, picking up my own tray. “Let’s do one circle, meet back here and then decide on our targets.”

He nods and—with one more disgusted sniff—walks out.

Petrovich and I as waiters is a foolish disguise. I can already see the Hudson men eyeing us with suspicion. If it were just me, perhaps it wouldn’t be an issue, but Petrovich is a bear of a man with a dour expression—like Nick. Humorless.

Inside, I count eight Hudson men stationed at the corners of the room and two at each entrance. Their weapons aren’t visible, but their watchful eyes and careful poses set them apart from the party guests. The guards at the back of the room are being the least attentive; their eyes are wandering all over the barely-clad bodies of the female party favors. Hudson’s idea of party is a two-to-one ratio of prostitutes to men. My guess is that several of the “guests” are actually businessmen, although I see the familiar haircuts of military folk as well. Money, booze, and lack of control over one’s dick are the downfall of many careers.

“The men at the back,” I inform Petrovich when we meet in the expediting room where all the trays of food are delivered from the kitchen.