The big guy grabbed Will’s arm and pulled him through the crowd. “Act as natural as you can dressed in that outfit.”
“What’s wrong with my outfit?” Will looked down at his leather pants. They were loose enough he could kneel at Lindi’s feet without cutting off circulation to anything important. His silver mesh shirt covered his chest but discreetly highlighted his muscles.
“Nothing at all, I guess, if you’re a sub.”
“Which I am!” Will rolled his eyes. He wasn’t worried about a two-bit forgery group. They were about as scary as Stephen’s bunny slippers. As long as they didn’t have a gun pointed at Lindi, Will wasn’t too concerned about them. They needed Will unharmed if they hoped to influence Lindi. If Will was right, they didn’t want Lindi to disappear; they needed him to claim he was mistaken about their forger’s activity.
“It’ll be all right, Will,” Ethan said soothingly. “All you have to do is come with us. We just need some leverage on Lindi. Once we have that, we’ll let you go.”
Will shook his head. He’d heard stories like that one before, generally spoken by one of his brothers. “You’ll kill me.”
“Don’t be an idiot, we’re not killers,” Ethan argued. “We’re just a group of art lovers.”
The sharp prick against his neck was Will’s only warning before he slid into unconsciousness.
Cold. Will came to awareness in slow, freezing increments.
Where am I?
The last time he’d woken up in a strange room, he’d been captured by a Russian mob trying to butt into his father’s territory. He’d been held for a week until his father paid the ransom. Will was tired of people using him as a bargaining chip. At least he didn’t get the feeling the forgery guys were vicious killers. They might accidentally shoot Will, but he had a feeling it would probably be when Will was trying to leave.
How did he always end up in these situations? Will rubbed his aching head. Dehydration was giving him a headache.
The room he woke up in looked like part of a warehouse. A peek out the interior glass window revealed he was up a set of metal stairs in a large building filled with generic boxes the size of refrigerators. He could make out writing on the cardboard in Chinese, or it could’ve been Japanese; Will couldn’t really tell them apart. At the moment, he didn’t care which they were. He doubted a warehouse of foreign imports would narrow down where he was being kept, there was bound to be more than one. He didn’t spot any other people immediately, but he didn’t let that fool him into thinking there weren’t any around.
The cot he had slept on wasn’t too uncomfortable, but his mouth tasted like several things had died in it, then were left to dry out. Will swallowed back the bile rising in his throat. Although it had only happened a few times in his life, he knew the effects of being drugged.
A glass of water sat on a box beside the cot. Will picked it up and took a long drink. Hopefully, they hadn’t contaminated his water. “Nice to have considerate kidnappers.” Footsteps echoed on the metal stairs. Will sat back down on the cot; unfortunately from that spot, he couldn’t see the intruder. It didn’t matter really. He needed more intel about where he was and how many people he was up against before he made any kind of move. His father always taught him to evaluate the situation before acting. He hadn’t needed his old skills since he’d lived with Lindi. His master had no idea about Will’s past, and he had planned to keep it that way.
Ethan walked in, a gun in his hand. He moved with the confidence of a man who knew how to use the weapon he was holding. He’d changed out of his shiny shorts and into a plain pair of denim pants, a white T-shirt and black biker boots. Ethan’s generic outfit would be hard for a witness to pick out in a crowd. Will’s stomach fluttered with swooping eagles at that sort of forethought. Maybe his kidnappers weren’t such idiots after all.
“Planning on shooting me?” Will eyed the pistol.
Ethan smirked. “Not unless you rush me. Your boyfriend has made it difficult for us to continue. He got our forger arrested, so we think he should pay for that. We’re going to sell you to him for the amount we would’ve received on the forgeries. It seems fair enough to me. What do you think?”
Will sighed. “He’s not going to give you any money unless I talk to him.”
He didn’t comment on the fairness of the entire thing. If life were fair, Will would be at home and Lindi would be whipping him until he came. Knowing Lindi’s protective streak, he must be going out of his mind. His master wouldn’t take Will’s abduction well.