Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
I didn’t enjoy walking down memory lane, but I preferred it over no food.
“She’s dead.” He said it more like a statement, but I nodded anyway. “Drink herself to death?”
I lifted a shoulder. “More or less. She was drunk and fell down the stairwell at our apartment building in the middle of the night. Broke her neck on impact.”
I watched his face while I ate another berry. I wondered if he’d let me save the food for later. If this was going to be a once-a-day thing, then I wanted to be sure I could eat again before I went to sleep. Without the hunger pains, I would sleep better in these conditions.
His hair looked damp, as if he’d just had a shower. I was envious. I wanted a shower, to be able to scrub my body, brush my teeth and hair. Heck, to sit on a toilet instead of squatting over a bucket. I was sure I looked like some savage animal while he looked as perfect as always. Another reason to hate him.
“How long have I been down here?” I asked him, unsure about the time. It all seemed to be one long, endless existence.
He glanced down at his phone. “Fifty-eight hours and eleven minutes.”
That was it? It’d felt much longer than that.
I took another forkful of eggs and put them in my mouth. I’d gone a week without food before. I was spoiled now if two days had me thinking I was on the brink of death. He wasn’t going to let me starve down here if two days was all he’d been willing to let me go without eating.
I licked my lips, making sure nothing was on my mouth. Why I cared about that I didn’t know. My hair was probably a rat’s nest, I had to smell bad, my teeth…ugh, I didn’t want to go there. A little egg on my face couldn’t make me look any worse. Not that my appearance mattered.
Okay, that was a lie. I was a female, and Oz—albeit a criminal who had abducted me—was gorgeous, sexy, hot, all the things that made a woman very aware of how she appeared and where she lacked. Because I doubted that man had ever lacked a day in his life when it came to anything. He’d still look good with dirty hair, unbathed, having slept on a basement floor for two days. Me? Not so much.
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he studied me. I was probably blushing because of my thoughts, but this was where living in dim lighting came in handy—he wouldn’t be able to tell.
“Someone checked the location of your phone,” he told me.
All other thoughts were zapped from my brain as several emotions and thoughts rushed in. Fear for Perry, anxiety over what he’d do, if he was guilty, the small trace of hope that I was going to be freed. I didn’t know what to cling to and what to focus on. Perry needed me, but I couldn’t figure out a way to help him. Not if what Oz was claiming was true. I could save him from our drunk, abusive mother, but the Feds and the…Mafia? I was still working through that one. Not sure what to believe there either.
“Do you know anyone who lives in Atlanta?” he asked me.
I started to shake my head, then paused. I’d heard Perry talking about introducing me to a business associate and friend of his. Sam, Samuel, Samson. It was Samson.
“You do,” Oz said without me saying a word. “Listen to me, Winslet. If you want to eat again in the near future and you want more than a small bottle of water a day, then you need to give me something.”
I nodded and gripped my hands together tightly. I was nervous. What if they went there and found this man and…and I don’t know. Would they kill him? Would I, in return, be a murderer because I’d told them a name of a man I had never met? Crap. I wasn’t sure I could live with myself.
Those slate-gray eyes of his bored into me, as if he could read my thoughts. Nervously, I licked my lips again. I had to say something. And if a phone had tried to find me from Atlanta…well, it had to be Perry. Right? He was there? Would he come here?
“Winslet.” There was a sharp warning in his tone that caused me to jump.
“Okay. I’m just…” I stopped and took a deep breath. “I know you have no problem abducting people, starving them, doing God knows what else. But I am struggling here. Because, yes, Perry has mentioned to me someone who lives in Atlanta. I’ve not met this man. I do not know him. And if I give you the name and you go and…well, string him up and torture him or whatever, that will be on me. I’ll have to live with myself over it.”