“I thought you were dead,” Cali muttered in a hoarse yet emotionless voice.

“Where are we?”

She licked her lips, only to grimace at the taste of her own blood. “Home,” she said with a shudder. “Colombia.”

“What? How did we get here?” Fuck, how long had I been out? I didn’t remember the trip to Colombia.

“I don’t know.” She shifted, but when she tried to put weight on her left leg, it folded on her, making her fall forward again, her arms pulling so hard she cried out. “When I woke up, we were on some cargo plane. Manuel started running his mouth, then to relieve some aggression, he started his favorite pastime—using me as his personal punching bag. Next thing I knew, we were in this stupid room. It’s his favorite place in the house. The torture dungeon, as he likes to call it. I’ve never been a guest, but I’ve heard plenty of people screaming from this room over the years.” She shuddered again. “We’re going to die, Nova.”

“We’re not going to die,” I promised her. “Ryan and Garret are probably already on their way to get us right now.”

A humorless laugh escaped her. “Sweet, innocent Nova. You think they will come and rescue us? What world do you live in? We are nothing to them. Out of sight, out of mind. They probably already have replacements for us.”

“No,” I denied vehemently. “Ryan will come for me. Both of us. Just wait and see.”

“From what I can determine, it’s already been two days. Over forty-eight hours with no sign of your precious Ryan. If they were going to save us, they would have been here by now.” She bowed her head, her hair falling forward and shielding her face from me once more. “Just accept it, Nova. We’re going to die here. Stop fooling yourself and thinking that any man is a knight in shining armor. That is fairy-tale bullshit our moms tell us when we’re little girls to give us hope of a better life.”

“You’ll see,” I vowed. “Any minute now, Ryan will come through that door and get us the hell out of here.”

“Keep dreaming, princess.”

We drifted into complete silence again. It made me sad that Cali had been let down so many times that she thought no one would save her. But Ryan would prove to her that not every man was the same.

Time ticked by slowly. I realized I needed to pee, but obviously, there was no place to go, and I wasn’t expecting a nice guard to come in and take me to the bathroom if I called out that I needed to relieve myself. From the smell of urine coming from the other side of the room, I was sure Cali had already been forced to go on herself, but I wasn’t about to embarrass her by asking.

I figured an hour had gone by since I’d woken up, possibly a little longer, and my bladder was starting to scream for relief. Every inch of my body hurt, but it appeared I didn’t have any other choice. We needed to get the fuck out of there, and I needed to use the bathroom. It left me with only one option, and I wasn’t all that sure with the way I felt that I could pull it off, but it was do-or-die.