Daring Dixie - Tara Crescent Page 0,2

conversation. It starts out as an indistinct murmur, and then, as I get closer, it coalesces into two separate male voices.

The corridor comes to a dead end. Passageways continue to the left and to the right. I take a deep breath. Hoping against hope, I glance down at my phone, but no. Still no reception. I'm going to have to turn left, yell really loudly, threaten to call the cops, and hope that it's enough to scare the assailants.

I turn the corner and…

A scene out of a medieval torture chamber greets me.

A naked bulb swings from the cavernous ceiling. Two men, both dressed in expensive suits, loom over a tied-up woman. She's wearing a button-up shirt and a grey pencil skirt, her hands tied behind her back. She's breathing in shallow gulps, and she's cringing away from them. "Please don't," she whispers. "I know nothing, I promise. I've told you everything."

One of the men, the bearded one, shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it aside. He undoes his cufflinks and tosses them on a table. They make a heavy, clinking sound as they land on the surface.

"I don't believe you, Camila." He starts to roll up his sleeves. "We can either do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. You decide."

The other man moves into the light. A metallic glint catches my eye, and my heartbeat stutters to a stop.

He's carrying a knife.

I jump forward with an angry shriek. "Freeze," I yell. "I have mace, you sick jerks. What kind of men tie up and torture a helpless woman anyway? The ones with small cocks, that's who. Well, you're not getting away with this. The cops are on their way."

I do not have mace. And for obvious reasons—no cell phone reception—the cops are not on their way.

Both men look up at my approach. "What are you talking about?" the man with the knife asks, giving me a puzzled frown.

His tone isn't right. Neither is his expression. He doesn't look angry, and he doesn't look afraid. He just looks… confused.

The next lie is already tumbling out of my mouth. "I have a black belt in judo," I continue. "Drop the knife, and step away from the woman, or you are going to be exceedingly sorry."

The woman speaks for the first time. "Hang on," she says, her voice sharp. "Did you say you called the cops? Why on Earth would you call the cops to a sex club? Are you out of your mind?"

That's when I realize that I've got it very, very wrong.

"You’re not being interrogated?” I ask weakly. “You’re not in trouble?”

She rolls her eyes in my direction. “Eric, can you cut me loose? Yes, honey. I’m being interrogated in a dimly lit room in the basement of a hotel where the average room costs a thousand dollars a night.”

“It’s more than a thousand,” the guy with the knife says. Eric. “Xavier said he was planning another price hike. Stay still, Cam.” He slices efficiently through the ropes, and then turns to me with a withering look. “Look, I don’t know who you are or how you made your way down here, and trust me, I intend to find out. But at the risk of pointing out the obvious, we’re in a BDSM club, this is a planned scene, and you’re interrupting.”

Yeah, I’m slowly starting to see that. No wonder the three of them are looking at me as if I’m an idiot. I am such a fool. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Just because it’s a castle, it doesn’t mean it has dungeons where people are being tortured. I’ve been reading far too many fairy tales and watching far too much Law and Order.

“I didn’t call the cops,” I murmur sheepishly. “No cell phone reception.” I take a deep breath and try to explain the unexplainable. “It’s Wednesday. I didn’t think—”

“No, you didn’t,” Eric agrees caustically. “Not even a little.”

Camila touches his arm. “Leave her be, Eric. It was an honest mistake.” She gets to her feet. “Thank you for trying to rescue me.”

Yeah, I still feel like a fool.

The other man speaks up for the first time. “Who are you?”

The odds of Xavier Leforte hearing about this incident? One-hundred-percent. Ugh. Still, if he fires me, at least I won’t have to deal with Pierre anymore. It’s not much of a silver lining, but it’s all I have. “I’m Dixie Ketcham,” I murmur. “I just started working for Mr. Leforte.”

“His new lawyer?” Beard-Guy looks amused.