I sighed. Was he trying to establish a dating profile for me?
“My name is Sasha Winters. I’m a Sagittarius. My favorite color, despite my profession and attire, is green. When I’m not at work, I enjoy long walks, lounging around in my pajamas, and listening to music while I clean my apartment. I’m currently single, you know, since my lifestyle isn’t all that compatible to relationships. I barely graduated high school and never made it to college. Is there anything else you need to know?” I watched for his reaction, hoping my little outburst would piss him off enough to leave me alone.
“Are you crazy? Who do you work for?” he asked.
“My boss.”
He levelled his eyes on me. They were a beautiful emerald green, and it was hard not to just spill everything out.
“Who’s your boss?” he asked.
I bit my lower lip. I wanted to tell him, “the guy I work for,” but I figured I was already pressing my luck. If he was who I thought he was, I’d heard stories about him, and pressing my luck with him wasn’t the wisest idea. But it was so much fun!
“Who’s your boss?” he asked again, forcing his words out of his mouth. He grabbed my shoulders and gave me a good shake against the back of the metal chair I sat in.
“Who’s your boss?” he asked a third time.
“I’m not going to tell you, so you can stop asking me.”
“You bitch,” he said as he let go of me and stood back up.
“So, can I go now?” I asked him.
“No, you can’t go now.” He chuckled and shook his head. He placed his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned back in my face.
“You know, I have ways of making people talk,” he threatened before standing up and walking way.
Chapter 3
I let the man tie me down to the chair. I waited while he rummaged around on a work bench for tape and rope. I didn’t get up. I didn’t make for the door. I waited for my captor to return. I figured that since I wasn’t able to find any drugs, allowing myself to be captured and tied to a chair would give me the opportunity to gather more information from whoever was questioning me.
Part of why I didn’t run while he was getting ready to tie me up was because it wouldn’t have done any good. Where would I have gone? I couldn’t go back to Fang and tell him I was empty-handed because I’d been caught by Cole’s Overlords. That wouldn’t have worked out very well for me.
“Do you know who I am?” the man asked as he wrapped the rope around my wrists and waist.
I almost missed the question as I watched him. He wasn’t rough with me. He didn’t wrap the rope too tightly around my wrists or my chest. He was almost tender in the way he strapped me into the chair. The way he knelt down in front of me seemed so trusting and submissive, I almost forgot I was really his prisoner. It felt more like some sort of roleplay.
“My name is Cole Masterson,” he said, looking up at me with his green eyes and hardened face.
I sighed. I should have known. He didn’t seem like the type who would have taken orders from anyone.
“I wanted to catch you myself,” he explained as he stood back up.
“Of course. I don’t blame you for that,” I told him. “I feel honored that the president of Hell’s Overlords was waiting for me himself,” I admitted with a grin. The fact that he’d waited for me himself meant I’d gotten under his skin as a thief. Now, it had become my job to do so as a woman if I wanted to defeat his reputation and get out of here with any intel that would help Fang take him down.
“I must say, I’m impressed,” he added, beginning to pace around me. “I didn’t think anyone could have done what you did. But a woman? It never occurred to me that a woman, an attractive woman, could get away with stealing from Hell’s Overlords. I almost want to applaud you, but you’ve cost me a lot of money and caused a lot of trouble for me.”
I knew I was in deep shit now. I could hear the tension in his voice. He was holding back his urge to beat me the way he’d beaten so many others. I wondered how long he could hold back. I knew the only thing keeping me safe in the short term was probably the same thing putting me in more danger in the long run—the fact that I was a woman. He didn’t want to rough me up because I was just a girl, but that probably meant there were other perils down the road if I didn’t do something.
“So, who would hire a female thief to steal from Hell’s Overlords? The question of our thief’s identity has been plaguing me since the first time we noticed some of our product was missing. We couldn’t figure out who would be bold enough to send anyone to steal from us like that. But now? Now, I really don’t know who would be behind it.” He walked around me while he talked himself up to the question.