Her Obsession (by Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 110

Tricks Up Her Sleeve.

I wake to the bite of stone under my cheek and a chain rattling every time I breathe too hard. Cold air clings to my skin, damp and heavy. smelling of rust and mould. My head feels like someone split it open and poured sand in, but the weight at my wrists and ankles brings me back sharper than the ache does. Shackled. To the floor. Across the room, In the weak glow of a single bulb swinging above us, Naomi’s sitting up against the wall, her chain clinking as she leans forward. Her mouth curls into a grin, sharp even here,

“Oh, look who finally decided to join the party,” she says, voice too casual for the situation.

I force my throat to work. “Details,” I croak, my voice like gravel.

Naomi doesn’t hesitate. “I’ve been up maybe ten minutes. Two guards came in, rotating every five minutes, give or take. They don’t talk much, but they’re regular. Predictable.” She tips her head toward the far wall, where Nico sits slumped but awake, his one good eye locked

on me.

He clears his throat, voice hoarse. “We were moved in a white van. Took about forty minutes; the roads were bumpy, and there were lots of turns. Felt like back roads, not the city. There were four men inside with us, all armed. Two spoke Russian, one Romanian, and one didn’t talk at all. Coordinated, trained. When we stopped, it was a downhill slope into an underground facility. The security gate had card access, not just keys. Cameras on both sides.”

Naomi leans back against the wall, picking up where he leaves off. “This room’s small, but not the only one. I’ve heard at least two other doors open and shut, maybe more cells. Voices carry–male, female, hard to tell. Concrete walls, but the sound bounces. If I had to guess, we’re in a holding wing.”

Nico nods, shifting his chains enough to gesture. “I counted steps when they dragged us in. About twenty from the van to the first gate, then fifty more down a corridor. Heavy doors, triple–bolted. Ventilation’s here…” he jerks his chin up toward the ceiling, where a faint hum vibrates. “Industrial fans. Means there’s a generator nearby, and generators mean fuel storage.”

Naomi smirks faintly. “And fuel storage means boom if we can get to it.”

I test the chain at my wrists, feel the bite of metal on skin, and fix my gaze between them. My voice steadies, sharp. “Good work.”

Naomi grins wider, baring teeth. Nico exhales, a shaky sound. I sit back against the cold wall, my pulse slowing into focus. Four hours out, but my head’s clear now. They’ve got us chained, but they don’t know yet what they’ve locked in with them.

Nico’s beside me, the chain at his front swinging loose. I scoot closer the best I can, wrists locked behind me, but my hips can shift enough. My voice is a raw whisper.

“Come here,” I say.

He arches a brow, then crawls over, careful and quiet. When he’s close, I tuck my chin down and whisper into his ear, like I’m telling him a dirty secret. “Right cup. In the underwire, there’s a small earpiece. Dig it out.”

For a second, his face is pure disbelief. Then it snaps into something smaller and sharper, a grin that says he remembers exactly how many tricks we hide in our clothes.

“Fuck yes.”

He works with slow, precise fingers, like a locksmith with no tools. He tugs at the seam, finds the catch I rigged months ago, and teases the cloth up. The earpiece is tiny, folded into a piece of foam. He lifts it out like it’s a relic. His hands tremble with the small surge of hope.

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12:03 Tue, Oct 21

Tricks Up Her Sleeve.

He presses it to his ear to test the weight, then glances up at me, eyes wide and bright in the low light. “I’ve got it,” he breathes.

He leans even closer, mouth at my ear. “You’ve got a battery, right?” he whispers. I nod, and with my chin I nudge the cup a fraction so he can work the little compartment I’d sewn in. He pops the battery free with a nail and works it into place. There’s a soft click, a hiss of static before he pops it into his ear.

“Conner?” His voice says quietly..

Conner

The hours felt like they were made to break me. When Naomi and Sage slipped out with the van, I’d paced the safehouse like a caged dog. teeth grinding every time the clock ticked. Ari sat at the table, her laptop propped open, her eyes locked on a string of cameras. She didn’t flinch, didn’t move, just tracked the feed like her life depended on it. Then one single van left the compound. Just one. My stomach turned to stone. I wanted to kick a hole through the wall, grab the lads, and storm after it like hell on wheels. But Ari snapped her head up at me, eyes cold enough to freeze me mid–step. “Sit down,” she’d ordered, sharp as a blade. “You rush in blind, you lose them all.”

I clenched my fists so hard my knuckles bled. “They’re in that van-”

“She’ll have a plan,” Ari cut in, calm but firm, like she was taming an animal. “Sage always has a plan. Shut up and wait.”

I’d wanted to tear her apart for saying it so easily, but she wasn’t wrong. Sage had more tricks up her sleeve than most men had bones in their bodies. Still, waiting burned. Not long after, Winnie returned, pale and wrung out, her hands shaking as she clutched the steering wheel. She told me what Sage had said to her–if you have to go, go. Her voice cracked, as if she thought leaving them would damn her forever. I pulled her into a rough hug and told her she had done the right thing, but my chest was aching.

The four hours that followed dragged like years. Every minute without a word was another nail in my skull. Ari kept her calm, monitoring the feeds, whispering half to herself as she marked rotations, counted men, tracked the van’s route until even her shoulders started to sag. Every time I rose to pace, she hissed at me to sit down. Every time I cursed, she cut me off. “Wait,” she said, again and again. “Sage will make contact. She always does.”

Then it happened–a crackle, faint at first, like a ghost rattling the speakers. Ari’s head shot up. I froze, heart kicking. Static built, broken, but then a voice cut through, hoarse, shaky, but alive.

“Conner?”

I was across the room in two strides, hands slamming on the table, leaning over the mic. My throat burned with relief and rage all tangled into one.

“Nico?” I barked, too loud, too desperate. “Talk to me, kid. Where the fuck are you? Tell me you’ve got Sage with you.”

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