Quinn's Ransom

Chapter 3: Taken

Quinn blinked slowly, the faint, dim light filtering through cracks in the boarded-up windows just enough to reveal the squalor around her. The air was thick—stale, oppressive—clinging to her lungs like smog. Her wrists burned where zip ties had cut into the delicate skin, and her muscles screamed in protest. She wasn't sure how long she'd been here—hours? Days? Maybe longer. Time had become a blur. But one thing was certain: her captors were growing more agitated.

Footsteps echoed outside the door. Sharp. Calculated. The sound of heavy boots scraping against the cold concrete floor sent a shiver through her.

The steel door creaked open, its sound sending an unsettling tremor through her bones.

Friedrich Braun strode in with the confidence of a man accustomed to getting whatever he wanted. His tailored coat, despite the filth of the room, remained immaculate, as if he could still control the air around him. His smile—a cruel, calculating thing—spread across his face like a predator's before the kill. Quinn's stomach twisted.

"Well, Fraulein," he drawled in his thick German accent, though his English was chillingly smooth. He circled her like a hawk sizing up its prey, his eyes never leaving hers. "Your boyfriend... quite the adversary. Clever. Dangerous. And willing to chase ghosts across continents for a girl."

He chuckled low, a sound that felt like it was scraping against her skin. He crouched just close enough for Quinn to catch the pungent scent of his cologne, the clash of expensive fragrance and sweat making her stomach lurch.

"He must really love you."

Quinn met his gaze, defiant, even as blood caked her temple from a blow she couldn't quite remember. Her chin stayed lifted, her hazel eyes burning with quiet fury. Her voice, hoarse but unbroken, cut through the thick air like a blade.

"You have no idea."

The last thing Quinn clearly remembered was her phone ringing.

She'd been standing outside a boutique in SoHo, laughing at a text from Blaine, the late-afternoon sun warming her skin as she held a shopping bag. Life had been... normal. Everything had been normal.

But now, she was waking up again in the same damp, decaying room. Her wrists were raw, her throat parched. The air tasted like dust. Cold, brittle. It clung to her skin.

She didn't know where she was. The windows were boarded up. Voices outside spoke a clipped blend of English and something else—German? Maybe more. She'd stopped asking questions after the second week. The lies had started then.

First, they told her Noah was dead.

Then, that he'd paid the ransom and abandoned her.

Finally, they said he'd never come at all.

But Quinn knew better.

Noah Puckerman would never bow to a man like Friedrich Braun. Not with money.

And he would never stop looking for her.

Noah Puckerman hadn't slept in five days.

For thirty-five sleepless nights, he burned through every contact, every favor, every military channel he had access to. The ransom demand had come just hours after Quinn disappeared—delivered in a flash drive to Kurt and Blaine's mailbox. On it, footage of Quinn bound and barely conscious, her eyes half-closed in fear.

The demand was ten million dollars.

The threat was chilling: "Try the FBI, and you'll get her back in pieces."

Noah didn't flinch.

He didn't send a cent.

Instead, he forwarded the footage to two men he trusted:

- His former intelligence officer from Kandahar.

- Bruno Calderon, a federal agent with a cover deep inside Braun's operation.

Five weeks of burning through everything he had.

Then came the message.

She was in Great Britain. A rural compound near the Irish border. Two days before they moved her again. Bruno was running out of time.

"If Braun finds out I'm FBI, we all die."

Noah's jaw clenched. He wasn't sure if it was the fear for Quinn or the raw fury bubbling inside him. Either way, he wasn't waiting any longer.

Inside the compound, Bruno paced the hallway, every step controlled and deliberate. He had been careful for weeks, keeping his head down, watching, waiting. But now, the heat was rising. Braun's right-hand man was asking questions. One slip-up, and it wouldn't just be Quinn dead.

He paused outside her door, listening. She was restless, alert. Even in this cage, she fought to hold onto something.

"You're the quiet one," Quinn rasped from inside.

Bruno didn't respond. He couldn't.

She didn't know who he was. No one here did. But her voice—something about it cut through him like an old wound.

Back in London, Noah hunched over a map of rural Ireland, the dim light from his laptop casting long shadows across the basement room. Red pins stabbed into the countryside, each one marking a possible location. The hum of the computer was the only sound.

A British Intelligence contact stood over his shoulder, arms crossed.

"You go in there alone, it's a suicide run."

Noah didn't flinch. His eyes stayed locked on the screen.

"He took her from a street full of people. In New York City. You think I'm not going in?"

The agent scoffed. "Mate, I know what Braun does to people."

Noah looked up, his voice cold and steady.

"So does she. That's why I'm not leaving her."

In the compound, Braun stood outside Quinn's cell, cigarette dangling from his fingers. The hallway was too quiet, too still.

"Bruno," he called out.

Bruno turned, stiffening.

"Yes, sir?"

"Tell me again what you know about her boyfriend. This… Puckerman."

Bruno shrugged. "What I've heard. Ex-military. Discharged. Some contract work. Hot temper. Not the kind of guy you want chasing ghosts."

Braun smiled around his cigarette, but his eyes stayed calculating, cold.

"No. But he is the kind of man who doesn't like paying ransoms."

He flicked the ash to the floor and turned, leaving the room with a sense of finality.

Bruno felt the shift in the air. He knew. Or he was close.

That night, Quinn hugged herself against the cold. She felt it. Something had changed. The guards were on edge. The quiet one hadn't passed her door again.

The tension in the air was palpable, like a storm gathering just beyond the horizon. She waited, each breath a fragile thing, waiting for whatever came next.

Morning broke like a bruise—gray, suffocating. Fog smothered the view outside the compound. Quinn could feel the shift in her bones. The guards were whispering now. The quiet one was gone.

She slumped against the wall, legs folded beneath her, wrists wrapped in cloth. Her eyes were empty now. The tears had stopped long ago. She no longer cried. She just waited.

Until—

The door slammed open.

Braun stormed in, flanked by two unfamiliar men. His coat was unbuttoned, his shirt damp with sweat. His eyes were burning with fury.

"Stand," he barked.

She didn't move fast enough. He grabbed her arm, jerking her upright. She stumbled but caught herself. He didn't care. There was blood on his cuff.

"Where are we going?" she demanded, trying to mask the raw tremor in her voice.

His smile was cold, almost predatory. He leaned in close, breath ice-cold against her cheek.

"Scotland, meine Liebe. A change of scenery."

"What about—" Her voice cracked, a flicker of something fragile slipping through. "What did you do to the quiet one?"

His smile turned sharper, more dangerous. "Ah, Bruno. He was… an inconvenience."

The word was a curse. A betrayal.

Two hours earlier.

Bruno knelt in the old dining hall, blood soaking into the cracked floor beneath him. The room smelled of decay. Of betrayal.

Friedrich Braun circled him like a vulture, his calm demeanor the calm before the storm. Guards held Bruno's arms behind him, his shirt torn, ribs bruised.

"I always knew there was something off about you," Braun said, his voice lilting with casual cruelty. "Too clean. Too quiet."

Bruno spat blood, meeting his gaze.

"Should've killed me yesterday."

Braun smiled. "I should've. But this is so much more satisfying."

He drove the blade into Bruno's gut.

The sound was wet. Final.

Quinn was silent as they shoved her into the back of the van. Her wrists were zip-tied tighter this time. She didn't scream. She didn't beg.

But inside her, something cracked. Bruno was gone. Noah didn't know.

And she was being moved—again.

Noah was less than a mile out when the final encrypted message pinged on his phone. His pulse stilled.

He knows.

Run.

Quinn—Scotland.

Then: silence.

Noah's fingers tightened around his phone until it cracked in his hand.

He looked up, his body tense, every muscle in his body coiled like a spring. He wasn't too late. He wouldn't be.

Noah's heart pounded as he sprinted through the compound, boots pounding against the ground. There was no room for hesitation, no time for second guesses. The storm had already hit.

One way or another, I'm going to find you.

The adrenaline surged, but the drive to find her was far stronger.

He was a man possessed.

Chapter 4 will be up soon.