ALINEI’d never realized how aware I’d always been of time as awhole. Years and months and weeks. Days. Hours. Minutes. I still knew what year and month it was, and I was pretty sure that a full week hadn’t gone by, but that was about all I knew. I was unsure, not only of the day but the date as well.I’d been taken on Friday, November fifteenth. I knew that for certain since I’d been on my way to the airport. I liked to think I would’ve known it anyway, but I wasn’t anticipating similar future circumstances with which I could make a comparison, so there wasn’t a point in dwelling on that particular thought.What I definitely didn’t know was how long they’d had me. Everything that’d happened to me would have been understandably disorienting on its own. Taken altogether, it was overwhelming.Kidnapped. Blindfolded. Bruised from the rough drive. Sporadic food and water. Thrown around. Yelled at in a dialect I didn’t know. Kept in a place without windows.That last one was re

EOINI KNEW  A  LOT  OF  PEOPLE  WOULD  CALL  MY  FAMILY  SNOBS  FOR  HAVINGour own plane – multiple planes, actually, when counting the entire family as a whole. Much of the reason we practically owned our own fleet had less to do with us not wanting to fly commercial and more to do with practicality since we had business all over the world.For example, a flight that took a little over two hours in the air meant around twice that amount of time spent. I understood why there was so much security, and I agreed that it was necessary, but in situations like this, waiting in line for who knew how long would’ve driven me crazy. With a private plane, that wasn’t an issue. I was able to be in Los Angeles and on my way to Cain’s apartment two-and-a-half hours after I checked out of my hotel.When he opened the door, his face was so grim that, for a moment, I thought the girl we were supposed to rescue had been killed. Instead, he steppe

EOINI  definitely  wanted  to  meet  Freedom  Mercier.I’d once seen Cain reduce a smartass private to tears with two sharp words and a glare.Freedom had kept him on the phone for forty-three minutes, arguing about why she wasn’t going to fly back to L.A.  without her sister. He’d gone back to what I assumed was his bedroom to make the call, so I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but every once in a while he’d get loud enough for me to know he was still talking to her.Any woman who could go toe to toe with Cain was someone I wanted to meet…only under the right circumstances, though, because I had a feeling Freedom could be fucking scary if she was pissed.And if she was anything like her sister, I could see why Cain had immediately agreed to help her. I had a feeling the Mercier women were the kind who stuck with a man.Even from far away.Like halfway around the world away.I’d watched Ali

ALINEI DIDN’T KNOW WHEN  I’D  FALLEN ASLEEP, ONLY  THAT  I MUST  HAVE  ATsome point because the cell door banging open was what startled me awake. The light from outside the room streamed in, blinding me so that all I could see were two dark silhouettes. One stayed in the doorway, I assumed to keep us from making a run for it, but the other came inside with long, purposeful strides that took him to where Gia cowered in only a few short seconds.He grabbed her matted curls and yanked her to her feet. She let out a pained cry, and he just laughed. I hadn’t heard any of the guards laugh like that and realized that I hadn’t seen this man before. He started shouting at her in what I recognized as Persian. I couldn’t make out most of what he was saying, but I caught enough of the curses to know that he wasn’t happy with her. Judging by the way he was gesturing, I thought he might be  angry  that  her  headscarf had disappeared.Another

EOINTHE BUILDING WAS  LOCATED ON  THE  EDGES OF  THE  CITY, FAR  ENOUGHout of the way that there wasn’t a lot of foot tra  c, but still close enough to not be completely isolated. Two stories high, it was barely visible above the surrounding trees, both the ones inside the fence and the ones outside. What it lacked in height, it made up for in width, spreading over at least an acre. The fact that there weren’t any windows I could see on the ground floor made me think that it’d been  specifically built for things like this.Considering the little bit Cain had been able to find on the group that owned it, it wasn’t really a surprise that they’d have a base like this. Every year for the past four years, a handful of people who came to Iran, either as workers or tourists, vanished for a few days before suddenly showing up again.Sometimes, they were hurt, but not always. Some simply left the country, not telling anyone about what’d happe