Page 89 of Keeping Penny

“Good. Again, thank you so much.”

“Of course.”

“See you soon.”

Edge clicked off the phone and crouched down in front of Penny. “It sounds as if they took them across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and are near Kiptopeke Beach pier. I know where that is. Pyro has to be nearby. I’ll call the guys as soon as we’re on our way. Let’s go get your girl, Penny.”

She nodded. She didn’t know where those places were that Edge mentioned, but all that mattered was that Bowie was safe and they were going to do everything in their power to find Pyro.

Standing, she dried her tears and headed for the door. It was time to end this once and for all. And bring her daughter and Pyro home.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Pyro was ready.

He might not have fought back when he and Bowie were taken, but now he wouldn’t be taken by surprise. And because Bowie wasn’t here, and he wasn’t afraid of doing anything that might scar her for life—more than she might already be, after being kidnapped and sent out into the world by herself—Pyro was more than ready to show the assholes who dared put their hands on that precious little girl that he was someone to be reckoned with. They might think he was a pathetic, scared wimp, out of his element…but they were dead wrong.

His leg hurt like hell but he wasn’t going to let a broken bone keep him from doing what needed to be done. His bone wasn’t sticking out of his leg, so he was good. He had plenty to fight for. Penny and Bowie. A family of his own. Something he’d never had and wanted down to his very soul.

If he was overpowered and taken away, so be it. But he wouldn’t make it easy for them.

The guilt he felt about putting Bowie out the window and sending her on her way still weighed heavily on his mind. Where was she? Was she okay? Had she found someone to help her? Someone decent who wouldn’t take advantage of a vulnerable little girl? Pyro knew better than most about the evil people living in this world.

After about twenty minutes of despair, during which he let his emotions flow without trying to hold them back, Pyro got control of himself and planned. The only entrance and exit to this basement was apparently the elevator. He hadn’t been able to find any kind of outside entrance other than the windows, which he’d known with a glance he wouldn’t fit through.

The chair he’d been shackled to was in plain view of the elevator. So that’s where he had to be when someone came for him and Bowie. Ignoring the pain, he’d stacked a few boxes under the window that sat a few feet directly behind his chair. When whoever came for him didn’t see the little girl, they’d immediately make the connection between the boxes and the window.

His plan was risky at best. If several people came for him at the same time, the odds of him getting dead were high. But if they underestimated him—and he hoped like hell they did, especially after his helpless performance last night—he might have a small chance to make it out of this house of horrors alive.

Pyro wasn’t counting on Bowie finding help and sending reinforcements. Not because he didn’t believe she could do it. But because it simply wouldn’t be smart to rely solely on the little girl. Realistically, he was on his own until the police or his team came through the door.

Taking a deep breath and slowing his heart rate, Pyro sat in the chair, his hands behind his back, feet carefully placed, ropes looped around his calves. Looking exactly like he’d been left the night before. He forced his mind not to think about the pain, or Bowie and Penny, or anything other than the different scenarios that could happen when someone appeared.

It was getting light outside when he finally heard the machinery of the elevator start up. His body tensed but he forced himself to relax. This was it. He’d been trained for this moment. To overpower captors and escape.

Lowering his head and hoping he looked sufficiently beaten down, Pyro waited.

The elevator dinged with the arrival of the car, and Pyro heard the whoosh of the door opening. Lifting his head slightly, he saw with glee that only one man exited. The same one who’d wielded the baseball bat the previous day.

Pyro would feel great satisfaction from taking him down.

“Good morning!” the man said—but the fake smile on his face quickly faded as he glanced around the room. “What the fuck? Where’s the girl?”

Pyro didn’t speak. Instead he held his breath, hoping against hope the asshole fell for the deception he’d painstakingly set up.

He saw the moment the man spotted the boxes stacked under the open window.

“Motherfucker!”

Just as Pyro hoped, the man raced over to the window to look out, not bothering to take a second glance at the guy secured to the chair. Moving silently, Pyro stood and swung around to the man who had his back to him, still searching out the window.

Using one of the ropes that had previously bound his legs, he threw it around Bat Guy’s neck and pulled taut.

The man immediately brought his hands to his neck, but he was too late to get his fingers under the rope to reduce the pressure.

He thrashed and fought, but Pyro had the upper hand. Not to mention tons of anger on his side over what had been done to him and Bowie. Rage that this guy had kidnapped a helpless little girl for another man’s sick need for money.

Pyro’s intention wasn’t to kill the guy, he just needed him unconscious. His arms shook with the strength it took to cut off his air, because the man was fighting as if his life depended on it. Which it did. The life he’d known up until this point.