Chapter 31 · Contract of the Damned

The zip tie had eaten through my cuff and into the skin under it, and my left hand had stopped reporting in sometime during the second hour. That was the part that scared me. Not Caspian. Not the gun sweating on the credenza beside him. The fact that my own hands had gone quiet.

"I need a pen," I said.

Caspian looked up from the tablet and gave me his father's smile on the wrong face. "You've got a whole bag of them. Unless you want to tell me the bag's back at the marina."

"It's back at the marina." I shifted on the bolted-down chair. My back had been aching in a rhythm for the last hour, and rhythm was the one thing I couldn't afford to think about out loud. "Along with my phone, my wallet, and what's left of your father's patience."

"Don't." He set the tablet down, screen toward me. "Don't do the lawyer voice. It's four in the morning and I've had a very long night."

The tablet was live. Red dot in the corner, live.