Considering—what the hell had he called her? Drew?—her reaction, I had a feeling she was one of those very dangerous people he'd been screwing over.
Pulse racing, I twisted my wrists inside the cuffs. Between the blood and the sweat slicking them they moved, but not much. Fuck. The chair was pretty damn sturdy. But everything had a breaking point.
I did the mental math. Weight. Torque. I leaned down and checked the actual rungs beneath the chair—nothing connected the legs. I just needed to break the arms to get my cuffed hands free.
Then fuck the cuffs, I could get them off elsewhere. Balancing up onto my feet, I made a run at the wall and braced for it. The chair cracked, the noise loud even to my aching ears. The blow knocked the breath out of me. But even better, the arm of the chair loosened.
Jockeying for position, I backed off and raced at it again. This time, it cracked and I got one arm free. Fuck yes. Twisting, I used my weight to slam the chair into the wall. It took three blows and my arm was fucking killing me, but the chair broke.
The plastic pushed aside to admit my vengeful savior and I froze. I swore she stared at me in the most assessing manner. "I was going to unlock your cuffs." Those were not the words I expected to hear. Instead of a gun in her hand, she had three hard drives.
Dion's servers.
Smart lady.
She tossed something to me with her free hand and I caught the keys. She really meant it.
"You're not going to kill me?"
"Do I need to kill you?" The question gave me pause.
"I would really prefer that you didn't."
"Fair," she said with a slow smile and I swore what blood hadn't already dripped out of my nose and from the cut to my face flooded my cock. "You were honest with me, Fletcher Reed. You told me the truth."
"Yes," I said, freeing the cuff and almost shuddering with relief as the metal hit the ground. "You saved my life, Drew." Kind of like Nancy Drew, I supposed. Was she a girl detective? Well, a modern-day badass girl detective? Would that make her more Veronica Mars?
Fuck, my sisters made me watch too much shit with them. That, and there wasn't much else to do while I worked my magic on the net.
When the second shackle dropped, I realized she wasn't paying attention to me anymore, but she was looking down at the body. What I should do, was walk out that sliding glass door and keep going. I should get the hell out of here. I didn't have any devices on me, they'd smashed my phone.
That was fine, I could get another one.
That was exactly what I should do, but I didn't. What I did was ask, "What do you want to do?"
She froze. Her gaze slowly lifted to mine, and I ignored the way my stomach twisted and my cock twitched when her pale brown eyes pinned me to the spot. I was mesmerized by the sharp intelligence in their depths and admittedly froze under the weight of her stare.
“What do you mean, what do I want to do?” Her tone definitely said I should rethink the question. And I did, because this woman was not to be fucked with.
But I considered myself a good judge of character and this woman wasn’t tipping my bullshit meter. Not even a little bit. “That prick had me abducted,” I said as I pointed to Dion’s corpse, refusing to look at him again. The nausea might have passed but I didn’t want to tempt fate a-fucking-gain. “I need a ride, and I’m willing to help you get out of here quicker. So, what’s your plan?”
Her head jerked back comically, and it was a fucking miracle my lips didn’t twitch. Drew sucked in a prolonged breath, her nostrils flaring. It took a good twenty seconds before she responded.
“This can’t be happening…” she muttered to herself, shaking her head. Then louder. “Dion is a classic car collector. Sure you don’t want to take one of his cars as payment for the beating?”
Ouch. It was one thing to know you got the shit kicked out of you, regardless of being unable to defend yourself. It was another to have a gorgeous, albeit scary, woman point it out.
“Without knowing who will care that he’s suddenly met his expiration date, I’d rather not put myself on the radar.” Using my shirt to wipe away any prints on the keys, I tossed them in the corner.
“Smart,” she murmured. The look of approval on her face as she watched me wipe my prints away boosted my sore ego, and yeah, my chest might have puffed out a little bit.
Okay, Drew was taking more time to answer than I hoped she would. Shit, okay. How was I getting out of here if she wasn’t giving me a ride? I wasn’t joking. Whether it was authorities or his buddies who investigated his murder, I didn’t want them to have any reason to look my way. And unfortunately, I loved technology, but sometimes it was a bitch. Calling an Uber anywhere within a five mile radius of here would be traceable.
Maybe he had a bike or skateboard in the garage.
Making the mistake of glancing over at his overweight and very dead form, I nixed that idea. Fat fucking chance, I thought to myself as my stomach churned at an unpleasant velocity.
“Let’s go.”