She immediately shut down that line of thinking. It wasn’t helpful. What she needed was a plan or at least something other than the panicked voice shrieking in her head.

Sonny gave a twitchy movement that might’ve been a shrug. “If I don’t get out of here, I’m dead anyway. Might as well have the satisfaction of taking all you with me.” His grin was all wrong, spiking a shiver down her spine. “You would’ve just kept chasing me if I ran, anyway.”

In the tense silence that followed, there was a faint wail of an emergency siren, and Sonny’s head snapped up. The sound was both welcome and bitter, because Molly knew they’d arrive too late to do any good. It was up to them to save each other. “Hey, Norah. Remember Brody Knick?”

Before Norah could respond, John was already in motion, taking advantage of Sonny’s moment of distraction to plow into him, bringing all three of them to the floor. Grabbing Sonny’s wrist, John pounded it against the floor, and the cell phone that he’d turned into a detonator went skittering away from them. Sonny, his expression filled with fury, tucked his legs in and then double-barrel kicked John in the stomach, knocking him back. Twisting back around, Sonny reached for Norah. As his hand wrapped around the belt, Molly knew exactly what he planned. He must’ve designed the belt to detonate if it was removed, and he was about to rip it right off Norah’s waist, dooming them all.

Time seemed to slow as Molly ran toward them, her functioning arm outstretched in a futile attempt to prevent what was happening. As Sonny’s fingers closed around the belt, Norah moved toward him and drove her knee right between his legs. Apparently, she did remember the Brody Knick incident after all. He screamed, his grip releasing, and Norah rolled out of reach, the belt intact.

Molly stepped forward, preparing to dive on top of Sonny and subdue him, but something tightened roughly around her ankle. Her entire body stiffened with fear as her leg was yanked out from under her, making the world spin. Disoriented, she blindly struggled, her mind filled with nightmare images of impossibly strong men who could flip her so easily upside down, holding her painfully by her ankle as she struggled helplessly like a fish on a line. How could she ever hope to fight back against that?

When her shocked confusion cleared and the scene around her stopped spinning, she saw the cord that was wrapped tightly around her ankle. That’s what had flipped her and yanked her off the ground by her foot, leaving her dangling upside down. She’d been snared by another one of Sonny’s traps.

She could only watch helplessly as Sonny scrambled to his feet and sprinted away. John shifted, as if to chase after him, but then moved toward Molly instead.

“Get him!” She flailed her arms in a shooing motion, but John still advanced, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her so that the rope around her ankle loosened. “He’s getting away!”