Chapter 430
Chapter 430:
Consciousness returned slowly, accompanied by the smell of rotting fish and old rust.
Skye opened her eyes.
She was lying on a cold concrete floor. Above her, high windows let in weak, gray light. It was an abandoned cannery near the docks.
She tried to move her hands. They were zip-tied behind her back, tight enough to cut off circulation.
“You are harder to kill than a cockroach,” a voice sneered.
Skye lifted her head.
Mrs. Chandler sat on a folding chair placed atop a pristine white rug that looked ludicrously out of place in the grime. She wore a surgical mask and sprayed perfume into the air to mask the stench.
“Mrs. Chandler,” Skye rasped. “Beatrice’s lapdog p>
Chandler’s face twisted beneath the mask. She signaled to Vinnie.
Vinnie kicked Skye in the ribs. Skye groaned, curling up, tasting blood.
“I should have finished you in the office,” Chandler spat. “But Beatrice wanted it clean. I told her, ‘clean’ doesn’t work with you. So now we do it my way p>
She turned to Rocco.
“Throw her in the harbor. Attach the weights. Make sure she never comes up p>
“With pleasure,” Rocco said.
Skye’s eyes darted across the floor. Near her hand, half-buried in the dust, was a rusted, jagged nail protruding from a rotted pallet.
Rocco grabbed her by the hair, dragging her toward the loading bay doors. The ocean churned black and angry twenty feet below.
Skye didn’t fight him. She let him drag her. She needed him confident.
She shifted her weight, sliding her bound hands along the floor. Her fingers found the nail. She grabbed the pallet wood it was attached to.
She began to saw the plastic zip tie against the rusty metal.
It didn’t snap easily. The nail dug into her wrist, tearing skin. Warm blood slicked her hands, acting as lubricant, but the pain kept her focused.
Rocco stopped at the edge.
с𝗈𝘮p𝘭𝘦𝗍е 𝘀𝗍𝗼𝗿i𝖾ѕ оn 𝗯е.co𝘮
“Say goodbye, princess p>
He bent down to grab a heavy cinder block tied to a rope.
Skye saw the opening. He adjusted his grip on her hair.
She sawed frantically. Gritting her teeth, she jerked her wrists apart with all her strength, forcing the weakened plastic against the jagged iron.
Snap.
Her hands were free.
Rocco turned back to her, holding the weight.
Skye didn’t hesitate. She lunged upward. She jammed the piece of wood with the rusty nail into Rocco’s thigh, aiming for the femoral artery.
Rocco howled, dropping the weight on his own foot. Blood spurted, dark and fast.
Skye rolled away from the edge, scrambling to her feet.
She grabbed the gun Rocco had dropped in his agony.
She aimed it at Mrs. Chandler, her hands shaking, blood dripping from her torn wrists.
“Game over,” Skye whispered.
The engine of the stolen delivery van sputtered and died as Skye Sterling guided it into the shadows of a narrow alleyway, three blocks east of the Cloud Zenith Hotel.
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the rhythmic drumming of rain on the rusted roof and the ragged sound of her own breathing. Behind her, miles away in the industrial district, lay the abandoned cannery—and inside it, Mrs. Chandler, bound and unconscious in a storage locker.