Page 125 of Dear John

“I’m surprised you haven’t found another person to stalk by now,” Rae muttered.

“There’s only one woman I would stalk,” I rationalized, getting out of the van.

I left Rae and Dash to grab Cash and walked ahead of them, flipping on the lights in the hallway to the old warehouse. It was a packing plant long ago and some of the hooks and various other packing materials were still in here. But that wasn’t what I was going for. I unlocked the door to my special room, swinging it open as Dash and Rae walked inside, stopping when they took in the dark interior.

“Aren’t there any lights?”

“Oh, there are,” I grinned. “But trust me, you don’t want those on.”

“Fuck, I really hate it when you go all creepy on us.”

“Where do you want him?” Rae asked.

“Just drop him in the middle of the room.”

“Really?”

“Yep, that’s where the drain is.”

Both of them went silent as they looked back at me.

“What?”

“You want us to put him over the drain?” Rae asked. “Fox, what exactly do you have planned?”

I tossed my head back and laughed. “Relax. He’ll be back in one piece. Mostly.”

They dropped him on the ground and headed for the door, but I didn’t miss the way both of them seemed to hang back as if they thought they could somehow protect our boss.

But the thing was, he didn’t need them to save him. He needed to do that for himself.

“Anything else you need from us?”

“Nope. I’ve got everything I need.” I patted my jacket pocket—the same jacket Knight had given to me—and grinned at both of them. This was going to be fine. Cash might be more than a little irritated when he woke up, but I counted on that. Taking the easy way with him wasn’t going to work. He needed someone to kick his ass and get him moving, and I intended to do just that.

I locked the room as I left, giving a two-finger salute to Dash as he walked out the door. WhistlingSeasons Of Love, I headed down to the warehouse to grab a few things. On my way, I stopped in the tech room and switched on my favorite playlist to blare throughout the warehouse. Frank Sinatra crooned through the speakers, putting me in a downright jolly mood.

I still hadn’t decided how I was going to play this. Should I come out strong and go straight to the dark side? Or maybe I should get things going with a few show tunes and keep things light for a while? I could slowly drive him insane until he snapped.

It was a conundrum. Maybe I’d just feel him out when he woke up. He was bound to be pissed, but I had a feeling I’d know exactly what to do when he opened his eyes.

For now, I headed back to the room to prepare him for what was to come. Lowering the chains from the ceiling, I clicked the heavy metal cuff into place around his wrist, then moved on to the other. Man, he was gonna be really pissed when he woke up.

I couldn’t help chuckling to myself. I remembered when he wanted to do this to Eva. Looked like that backfired on him big time, but I had the feeling that watchingOklahomawith him wouldn’t solve all our problems.

When he finally started to wake up, I hit the switch, raising the chains along with his body. He didn’t fully rouse until he was on his feet, his arms spread out by the length of the chains. Then his eyes opened and I knew exactly how this was going to go.

I stepped forward and looked my boss in the eyes. “Let’s begin.”