Dr. Xander rises from his seat with his phone held aloft. “I’ve found their numbers on the intranet,” he blurts. “And I’m calling Miss Stahl.”
Hearing her name again is like a fist reaching into my gut and twisting. I clench my teeth and keep my features neutral.
Dr. Xander puts his handset on speakerphone. Phoenix’s phone rings but the call goes straight to voicemail. My breaths turn shallow. It’s not unusual to miss calls when in a concert hall. Many of them muffle signals to avoid interruptions to the performance.
“There was another girl.” Odin says. “Call her.”
Charlotte Bress picks up in one ring. “Hello?” the word comes out rushed. “Veer, is that you?”
“Where is my son?” asks Vili.
Miss Bress falls silent.
My eyes narrow. Crius must have already abducted the boy if his friend is sounding panicked.
Odin walks around the table and stops at the phone. He holds his hands behind his back and inhales a sharp breath. “You are the daughter of Liam Bress, I presume?”
“Who is this?” she asks.
“Odin Bestlasson,” he replies. “I don’t need to impress upon you the wide-ranging consequences of concealing my nephew, so let’s not waste time with prevarication and tell me where he is.”
“That’s the problem,” she says with a sob. “He’s been missing for hours.”
“What?” Vili roars.
A muscle in Odin’s jaw tightens, but that’s his only reaction to hearing the news. “Explain.”
“We thought he went back to the hotel with Phoenix because she’s also missing, too, but he would have returned in time for the concert.”
Odin squeezes his eyes shut, but the fist in my gut reaches up to seize my chest.
Crius’s people have taken Phoenix. It’s the only explanation for why she’s also missing.
My optimism dwindles down to one percent. A one percent chance that Crius ordered her taken because she’s the daughter of the prison’s new warden, Gordon Gofannon.
It’s more likely that she got in the way or it was easier to take them both to leave no witnesses.
My ninety-nine percent pessimism knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that Phoenix Stahl is exactly the type of beauty Crius likes to ruin.
ChapterForty-Three
PHOENIX
Cold panic washes through my insides, and I breathe hard to slow my pulse. This isn’t so bad, I have to tell myself. I’m tied up, but that’s not new. I’m sore, but so what? And this isn’t the first time I’ve awoken somewhere unfamiliar.
The cold metal surface beneath me rumbles with the van’s movements, and my side aches from where the bastards threw me into the back of their vehicle.
I hadn’t been struggling that much, yet they still subdued me with their fists. Now, I’m lying with my hands tied behind my back with a damp rope that rubs against my skin like wire wool.
Fortunately, these abductors are amateurs. Professor Segul’s knots would have been much tighter, and he wouldn’t have had to beat me into submission.
Whatever they’ve put over my head stinks of sweat, and the noose around my neck chafes. Of all the predicaments Dad predicted I would fall into the moment I broke free from his tyranny, I’ll bet he didn’t imagine this.
Veer lets out a muffled groan. They probably gagged him and only brought enough for one because all I have is a swollen jaw and the threat that they’ll break my neck if I make a noise.
I’m not stupid enough to test their resolve.
The only way to remain calm at a time like this is to pretend this is one of Professor Segul’s games. Maybe he’s gone feral and decided to abduct me somewhere for a hard fuck.