"Don't get me wrong, I know you've got your life in place, I've yet to take a hint. Someday I'm sure I'll get the picture and stop waiting up."
Kai remembered everything that had happened the second he woke up. He remembered being at the corner restaurant finishing up his lunch when a commotion started. He remembered trying desperately to fight his way out of it, but he was the only person fighting against these men – he remembered them saying that as long as everyone stood down except for 'the boy at the corner table' no one would get hurt. No one except for Kai. He remembered fighting as hard as he could, wondering why Mynah would have sent ten men after him. He remembered being cornered after a few minutes of surprisingly good fighting, considering it was ten to one, and the last thing that he remembered was a rag being shoved over his mouth and a toxin of some sort entering his body before passing out.
The second he came too, he had a heightened awareness of his surroundings – the kind that he only had when he knew he shouldn't be alive and didn't understand why he wasn't dead yet. Using a combination of sight and feeling, he assessed quickly that he was in the corner of a room. He wasn't alone, as there were desks and a few computers, not to mention people, in the room, but none of them seemed to be looking at him – he was in the back, the closest desk was a good four yards away and he didn't want to attract attention any sooner than he had to.
His wrists had been pulled behind him, tied tightly together and attached to a metal loop coming out of the ground so that he couldn't get very far, even if he tried. A length of rope had been wrapped three times around his upper torso, pinning his upper arms to his sides and his legs were bound together at both the ankle and just below the knee cap. He was sitting on the ground, the only thing between his back and the wall of the corner was his bound arms, and his legs, instead of being straight out in front of him, were bent at the knees so that he took up less space. He could have stretched his legs out had he wanted to, but he honestly didn't see the point.
He spent several minutes trying to figure where he was, though he assumed it was some Mynah base, why he was still alive, though he assumed that it had something to do with collateral, and how to get out, though he assumed that was impossible. After awhile, he resigned himself to try and get as comfortable as possible, as he didn't anticipate freedom anytime soon. He was in the process of straightening his back against the wall as best he could in an attempt to keep it from going stiff, when someone walked up and stopped right in front of him.
"I have entertained the image of you tied up many times, Kai, but I never would have imagined that it would look this good."
"Maria." Kai looked up to see his ex girlfriend; the sister of his current lover, looking down at him, a coy smirk on her face. "I should have known."
"Kai," Maria shook her head. "You already knew, don't pretend that you didn't – after all, I am the only one who knows you well enough to catch you off guard."
"I wouldn't call sending ten men after me catching me off guard," Kai spat. "I would call that using brute force to ensure that you didn't fail."
"Does it really matter now?" she asked, dropping to her knees beside him and reaching up to place her hand on his cheek, caressing it in what would appear a gentle manner to anyone who didn't know better.
"Don't touch me." Kai turned his head away swiftly, though he knew that if she wanted to touch him, he wouldn't be able to stop her.
"It doesn't have to be like that," she whispered, her voice seductive and dangerous. "After all, we used to be on the same side, Kai, and if you didn't treasure that at all, you wouldn't still call me Maria."
"I call me Maria because I know you as Maria." Kai retorted. "Not because I have any feelings left for you – you tried to kill me, you've tried to kill your own brother and now this. There is nothing left between us." Kai's words, determined and harsh as they may be, earned him nothing from his captor but a rough slap across the cheek, causing his head to turn yet again and his dark hair to fall into his eyes.
"I don't think that you understand the way things work around here, Kai." She gestured towards the room; the people, desks and computers. "You can't escape from this place. Ropes may not hold you, but the drug that entered your system earlier have weakened you greatly, it will be days before you can fight again, and by then, I'm sure that we will have what we want." She put her hand on Kai's chest, slowly undoing the top button of his black shirt. "Having you around is only a means to an end, though I can't say that it won't be nice to have you around again; you were always fun for me."
"I'm not your toy anymore." Kai tried to pull away, jerking his body as best he could and startling her touch. "I share someone else's bed now and no matter how hard you try, I will never be yours again."
"Look around you, Kai. I control everything in this room." Maria smirked. "I control those people, I control this building, I control those computers and I control you." She put her hand behind Kai, resting it on his bound wrists. "These ropes, they're mine and they are holding you; that makes you mine too." She removed her hand from his wrists and grabbed his chin, harshly pulling his face towards her, looking at him, giving him no choice but to look back. "You may walk this city a free man again, Kai, if you're lucky, but for now, you're mine in every respect."
"No, Maria." Kai tried his best to shake his head, but her grip was too strong…and he was too weak. "I'm not. The only way that I will ever be fully yours again is if I love you and that is never going to happen."
"Of all of the attributes you possess, of everything that makes you," Maria shot back. "Your heart is what I least desire." Maria roughly pushed his head away and got to her feet, walking away without another word, though she did look back at him as she left, throwing him a sinister smirk, and Kai sighed, resting his head against the hard wall, knowing that this was far, far from over.