“Well, I’ll find out. I’ll send this message to Mercer, and then I’ll be back to see just what secrets you have...you and Stone here. When I let Carl begin to cut him, I’m betting either he’ll talk—” Lee’s fingers tightened on her chin “—or you will.”
“Leave her alone,” Drew ordered.
Lee shook his head. “See, that’s what I’m sayin’. You get too protective for a man who doesn’t know her, and that makes me wonder... Just how do you know her? How would a man like you know Bruce Mercer’s daughter?” Menace layered his voice. “Want to know what I’m suspecting?”
“Not really. I don’t give a damn,” Drew retorted. He just needed Lee and Carl to get out of there so he could escape and get Tina to safety.
“I think one of Mercer’s agents would know her. I think you’re a man with a certain set of skills, skills a guy like Bruce Mercer would appreciate.”
“You’re thinking way too hard,” Drew told him. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
Lee’s eyelids flickered. “Getting an agent in here, monitoring us...that would be a Mercer move,” Lee continued as he stepped away from Tina. With a nod, he said, “Maybe you are the killer I thought you were—only you’re killing for the U.S. government. Not for HAVOC.”
Drew made himself smile. The bullet was still in his shoulder, and it hurt, throbbing and burning constantly. But he was used to ignoring pain, so he shoved that burn deep into the back of his mind. “If I am EOD, then you need to be watching your back. ’Cause maybe—” he deliberately tossed the word back at Lee “—I got a team here, backing me up. Maybe this little place of yours is about to explode around you.”
No, it wasn’t. Drew’s team wasn’t close enough for that fast of an attack. They wouldn’t even realize he’d been compromised at this point.
But Lee didn’t know he was bluffing. And all of a sudden the guy started to sweat as worry sank in deep. “We need to sweep the perimeter!” Lee said as he spun toward Carl. “I have to make sure the place is secure.”
With the big boss coming in, the guy wouldn’t want any screw-ups.
Lee grabbed Carl’s shirt. “You get outside that door. You make sure that no one enters and no one leaves until I get back.” His hold tightened on Carl. “I trust you. You came up with me through the ranks.”
How wonderful for them. Drew’s eyes narrowed as he filed that little piece of information away for later.
“In case this jerk has any other teammates here undercover, I want you securing him. No one but me comes in here, got it?” Lee demanded.
Carl nodded. “Got it.”
After firing one last fuming glare at Drew, the two men marched from the room. The door slammed and Drew heard the distinct sound of the lock setting into place.
“I’m sorry.” Tina’s voice was hoarse.
He grunted and yanked against the pole. He didn’t have anything with him that he could use to pick the lock on the cuffs, so he had to find another means of escape. Yanking down the pole seemed like a fairly good option number two.
“The bullet is still in you, isn’t it?”
“That’s the least of our trouble.” As soon as Lee realized that EOD agents weren’t about to swarm the place, the guy would be back. He’d torture Drew then kill him, and Tina would get an up-close seat for that bloody show.
The pipe began to groan.
“What are you doing?”
Drew figured there was no point in sugarcoating things with her. “You know this is a torture room, right?”
/> Her breath rushed out.
“See the drain over there? It’s so they can hose the place down when they’re done and just wash the blood right away. Fast and easy cleanup.” Lee had transferred them into that room so that he could fully take advantage of the facilities.
Lee had plans.
Drew was ready to destroy those plans.
“He should’ve checked the equipment,” Drew said softly. “Sloppy mistake.” Lee had probably cuffed other prisoners to this pole before to hold them in place.
But one thing Lee seemed to have missed...desperate prisoners struggled. The men and women that Lee had hurt in the past would have struggled desperately to escape from the pole—and the pain.
And their struggles had loosened the pole. It wasn’t fully embedded in the hard floor any longer.