The Hostage Bargain by Annika Martin Read Free Book Online Page B

at some point you’d hit a low where you feel homesick. You don’t want it to be too late to go back when that happens,” he said. “We’re doing you a favor by dumping you. In the meantime, don’t even think about getting a message to your people. You have to come to us with that sort of thing, and we’ll decide what’s smart for all of us. You think you’ve given the finger to every rule you’ve ever had to follow? You think you’ve seized a week of freedom for yourself as Isis? No. You’ve traded in one set of rules for another. You’ve given up your freedom to the good of the group. We all have. That is how we stay strong. This is our power. It is a power beyond what you can imagine. Do not fuck with that power.”
    The silence in the van seemed almost thunderous after he finished this little speech. This was more than a gang. More than bank robbers, I thought.
    Also, what was up with the danger, subversion, and Hedonistic pleasures bit? Who said that? Who were these guys?
    Thor’s cheekbones looked slightly pink, possibly from the sun, and he had blond scruff on his cheeks. He looked more like a tennis player than a soccer player, I decided. He said, “As far as you’re concerned, we started our life of crime five hours ago when we hit your bank. We don’t have a past or a future, okay?”
    Odin looked back at me. “We’re the fucking hive mind of crime,” he said.
    “Like the Borg?”
    Thor gave me a heated look. “More like one for all and all for one.”
    My breath caught in my throat. “I never thought of that as dirty before.”
    He sat back. “This is an ideal time to start.”

CHAPTER TWO
    I rested my head against the back of the seat as the scenery zoomed by, drowsily wondering what my sisters were doing. Probably entertaining police at the farm. Did they think I’d be ransomed? Maybe I could get a message to them. Zeus hadn’t said I couldn’t. You have to come to us with that sort of thing , he’d said.
    More scenery zoomed by. I closed my eyes. The next thing I knew, I was face down on the seat with my cheek glued to the vinyl, with a hand gently shaking my shoulder.
    We’d arrived.
    I pulled myself together and we walked as a group across a parking lot and into the lavishly gold-gilded and palm-treed entrance of the Regal Hotel.
    A lot of the money they’d stolen, I presumed, would be spent at the Regal Hotel—I’d never set foot in a place so fancy. Thor and Odin and I lingered in a stand of marble pillars and potted tropical plants in a corner of the lobby while Zeus went to the desk.
    Thor and Odin had even put their ties back on. I supposed we looked like a group of business people. Aside from my rip-hemmed mini skirt. They were the businesspeople and I was the businesspauper.
    “They don’t need our IDs?”
    Thor shrugged. “Nah. We’re special.”
    “Gods?”
    Odin sat in a posh velvet chair. “That’s right, baby.”
    “So we lie low for a while?” I asked. “Is that the idea?”
    Thor got a devilish look in his eyes. “That’s one way of putting it.”
    My cheeks heated, and I didn’t have to look under my jacket to know my nipples were hardening like two eager bullets.
    “I love when you blush,” Thor whispered. “I haven’t even told you what we’ll do up there, and you’re already blushing. This is very good already.” He closed the distance between us, touched my jacket, then my neck.
    I shut my eyes—it was like his fingers were magic wands, but instead of fairy dust, he seemed to be sprinkling me with shivers of apprehension. Good shivers. Crazy good shivers.
    “Did you have something specific in mind?” I asked.
    “Well, it’s safe to say that first, you’ll take off all your clothes,” Thor said.
    “Slowly,” Odin grumbled from the chair, gaze cool on me. “Slow and one thing at a time.”
    “Is that so?” I said it a little bored, but oh, I loved their dirty attention on me.
    “Yes, Isis,” Thor said. “It is so.” He drew