"I don't know about you, Gresa, my friend, but I could do with a bit of prime American tail," Nassi added, so confident that his foreign speech would slip right past her, he had the balls to look Jenna square in the eye as he spoke. "Take this bitch back to the office and let's you and me have a little fun with her."
"Sounds good to me." Gresa laughed and dropped his foot down on the gas pedal, sending the delivery van speeding under a highway overpass and into the throng of busy traffic.
Oh, God.
Jenna's feeling of dread from a few minutes ago went as cold as ice in her belly now.
The sudden jolt of acceleration threw her back on her ass. She scrambled to hold on to the crates around her, knowing her chances of escaping the fast-moving vehicle were nil. If the fall out of the van didn't kill her, the roaring cars and trucks flying by on both lanes beside them certainly would.
Making everything worse, her head was beginning to spin with the barrage of lights and noise from outside the van. Automobile exhaust fumes, coupled with the stench inside the vehicle, formed a nauseating olfactory stew that had her stomach turning on itself, threatening to rise up on her. All of her surroundings seemed amplified and too intense, as though the world had somehow gotten more vivid, more choked with detail.
Was she losing her mind?
After all that she'd been through recently, after all she'd seen and heard, she shouldn't be surprised if she was cracking up.
And as she sat back, miserable against the crates and cartons, listening to the two men discuss their ideas for her in eager, violent detail, she got the feeling that her sanity wasn't the only thing at risk right now. Nassi and his friend Gresa had some rather nasty plans for her back at their office. Plans that included knives and chains and soundproof walls so no one would hear her screams, if Jenna could trust her sudden newfound fluency in their language.
They were arguing over which of them would get to enjoy her first, as they wheeled the van off the main road and into a ratty section of the city.
The pavement narrowed, streetlights growing more sparse the deeper they traveled into what looked to be an industrial area. Warehouses and long, red-brick buildings crowded the street and alleyways.
The delivery van bounced over large potholes and uneven asphalt, the tires crunching in the iced-over brown slush that bunched on both sides of the pavement.
"Home sweet home," Nassi said, in English this time, grinning at her from around his passenger seat. "Ride is over. Time to collect our fare."
The two men laughed as the driver put the van in park and cut the engine. Nassi came out of his seat and started to head back inside the van.
Jenna knew she would have only a few seconds to act--precious seconds to disable one or both of the men and bolt.
She inched into a stable position, preparing for the moment she knew was coming.
Nassi smiled broadly as he walked farther into the vehicle. "What do you have to offer us, hmm? Let me see."
"No," Jenna said, shaking her head and feigning the helpless female.
"No, please."
He chuckled wolfishly. "I like a woman who will beg. A woman who knows her place."
"Please, don't," Jenna said as he stepped ever closer. The stink of him nearly made her retch, but she kept her eyes fixed on him. When he got within arm's length of her, she thrust out her left hand, palm forward, as though to physically hold him off.
She knew he would grab her.
She counted on it, and could barely contain the answering jolt of triumph that surged through her veins as he snatched her by the wrist and hauled her up off the floor of the van.
She put her weight into the movement, using his own brute force to launch herself at him. With the heel of her free hand, she smashed him hard under the nose, driving soft cartilage up into his septum with a bone-crunching pop.
"Aaghh!" Nassi howled in agony. " Putane! Bitch, you will pay for that!"
Blood gushed from his face and onto her as he thrust his hands out and roared toward her. Jenna feinted left, dodging his grasp. Up in front of the van, she heard the other man scrambling around, moving out of the driver's seat to fumble with the console between the seats.
She didn't have time to worry about him right now. Nassi was furious, and in order to get out of the van, she'd have to get through him first.
Jenna locked her hands together and brought her elbows down on her attacker's spine. He shouted in pain, coughing as he made another sloppy grab for her. She eluded him again, dancing out of his reach as though he were standing still.
" Puthje topa tuaj lamtumire, ju copille skemtuar! " she whispered to him tightly, a threat she made good on when she then brought her knee up between his legs and nailed him with a sharp blow to the groin.
Nassi went down like a ton of bricks.
Jenna spun on a scream of her own, ready to do battle with his friend Gresa now.
She didn't see the gun in the other man's hand until the flare of the shot burned as bright as lightning. The sudden crack of the bullet as it exploded toward her was deafening. She blinked, dazed and oddly detached, as the searing fire of its impact slammed into her.
"Have we got anything?"
Lucan strode into the tech lab where Brock, Kade, Alex, Renata, and Nikolai were all gathered around Gideon's workstation.
Brock had his hands braced on the desk, staring over Gideon's shoulder at the monitor. He gave Lucan a grim shake of his head. "Nothing solid yet. Still searching DMV records for possible matches."
Jenna had been gone more than an hour. Their best lead on where she might have fled was a couple seconds of surveillance footage captured by a mounted security camera on the south perimeter of the estate.