CHAPTER 5 - THE RANSOM
ALEXI

Alexi sat in the ragged silence, apathy washing over him. He couldn't believe this was actually happening to him, and if it weren't for the screaming aches in his body he would have been certain that this was some kind of nightmare. He tested his bonds, more out of habit now than anything else, but they were as strong as ever, and he didn't want to rock around too much and knock the chair over.

It was getting uncomfortably hot inside the hood over his head, and that was making it hard to breathe, if it hadn't been hard enough over his tape-gag anyway. He swallowed awkwardly, his mouth uncomfortably dry, all the moisture sucked out by the wodge of material. He pushed, half heartedly, at it with his tongue, but it didn't shift and only made him want to hurl. He fought with the sensation desperately, the last thing he wanted to do right now was throw up.

He shifted, trying to relieve his discomfort, but his bum was rapidly going numb, and pins and needles were shooting through his feet. But in an odd way, he was glad for the pain, it kept him in the here and now, rather than remembering Jonas on the floor in a pool of his own blood and Dimitri with the 3 holes in his back, ice white, but still gripping his gun. Alexi closed his eyes in the darkness of the hood, praying to a God he wasn't sure he believed in.

Please God let him be safe. Please God don't let him die.

He didn't know how long he was locked in there, it could have been hours or even days before he heard the lock click open. His head jerked up at the sound, making him bite his gag as pain shot through him again. There were quiet voices, barely audible through the thick fabric of the hood, then he heard heels click towards him and the hood was abruptly yanked off his head.

He screwed his eyes shut against the light that seemed searingly bright now, but some-one grabbed him by the chin and forced his head up.  He cracked one eye open, then the other, the light manageable now. It wasn't Chen, he realised, brightening slightly, but it was a woman, her long blonde ponytail sticking out of the back of her ski mask as she surveyed him with eyes like frozen earth.

"So this is the Crown Prince?" She snorted, a welsh accent tainting her voice. "Doesn't look like much, for all he gave you lot the run around. The Chinese isn't happy with you Jones. She thought you ran a tighter ship than that."

"Chase was late taking care of the other bodyguard," Jones' voice said darkly. "That would have minimised casualties."

"Yeah, yeah," She released Alexi's head dismissively, then turned to face Roach. "What happened to your nose?"

She gave a high-pitched laugh at his reply, then turned her gaze to Alexi.

"Get everything set up. I want this tape done and out of here by today. I've got a publisher lined up, but the little shit will try to squirm out if we don't do this soon," She clicked out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

Alexi shook his head slightly as he was immersed in darkness again. She hadn't put his hood back on, so that was something, but he hoped that they'd hurry up, he hadn't had breakfast this morning, and it felt like his stomach was trying to eat itself. That and the more urgent need currently pressing on his bladder.

Footsteps returned after a few tense minutes, and then Jones was silhouetted against the light. He was taller and blockier than the wiry Roach, and walked with a slight limp, Alexi noted, favouring his right leg. It seemed useless information to know now, but if Dimitri had taught him anything, it was that you should gather as much information as you could about your enemies.

Jones stopped a step in front of Alexi and knelt down slightly to put his eyes on Alexi's level. Alexi looked pointedly away.

"Look," Jones said, his tone mild. "You know why you're here, you're the Crown Prince, we're broke, your family have money. If you play along, nice and sweet, you'll be back with your folks in a week or so's time. If you don't play along, it'll be a whole lot less pleasant and you might not be alive when we give you back."

Alexi tensed.

"'Course, none of us wants to kill you and dump you in the Thames, except maybe Roach, he's a bit sore about his nose," Jones continued calmly. "But do as you're told and we won't have to."

Alexi raised his eyes to Jones and raised an eyebrow, giving him a plainly disbelieving look. Jones' mouth twisted into a wry smile.

"We're going to do a ransom tape, and for that we need a proof-of-life. Play along and we'll ease up on the rope, and maybe let you have a drink," Jones said mildly, his shrewd black eyes catching the small jump at the mention of a drink. "Cause us any trouble whatsoever and you'll be back in here for the entirety of tomorrow, with the hood on."

Alexi couldn't resist a shiver, seeing the dark blue bag on the floor where it had fallen earlier.

"So what do you say?" Jones asked casually. "Are you going to play along?"

Alexi hesitated. Do I have a choice? Was what he wanted to say, but he sighed and gave a small nod.

"Good boy," Jones said, casually ruffling Alexi's hair and making him scowl again.

Jones grabbed the back of Alexi's chair and turned him in the confined space. They'd shut him in a cupboard, Alexi realised, it was basically the size of a large wardrobe set into the wall, brackets still hanging from the wall for shelves. Jones dragged Alexi back out of it and into the large room, where the woman and Roach were fiddling around with a laptop they had sat on the wooden table. The woman barely deemed to look up.

"Stick him over there will you?" She asked lazily. "Where the bit of black tape is?"

Jones rolled his eyes behind his mask, then dragged Alex further back across the room so he was sat in the middle of the room, facing the laptop.

"Perfect," the woman said lazily.

Jones set Alex down with a jolt, making him groan, then walked over to join the others. There was a quiet discussion that Alex tried desperately to catch, but they spoke way too fast for him.

"You can ask," Jones sighed. "But it's a bad idea."

"And it was a bad idea to have Chase on Sniper Duty, you still did it!" Roach snapped.

"Just go stand over there and look intimidating with your knife," Jones commanded in a growl.

Roach scowled, but obediently walked over to stand behind Alexi, drawing his switchblade from his pocket again.

"Alright Princeling, this is what we're going to do," The woman said, tone bored. "We're going to start recording and you're going to say what I write down for you to say, in English. If you slip into your native tongue, Roach will slip with his knife."

Alexi swallowed awkwardly.

"You're going to say just what we tell you to say," she repeated. "Say anything else and you'll be back in the cupboard and you'll never see the light of day again. Are we clear?"

Alexi nodded again. Jones gave a sharp jerk of the head to Roach, who reached over and slit the tape at the back of his neck, wrenching it off with a sharp jerk that made it feel like all the skin of his face had come off with it. Alexi immediately spat out the cloying wad of cloth, coughing.

"Good,"  the woman tapped some keys on the laptop. "Recording in 3, 2, 1..."

She backed away from the camera so Alexi could see himself in the laptop screen. God, he looked like shit. He looked up to see the woman raise a whiteboard, uneven block capitals scrawled across it in black pen. He read it through carefully, then pulled a face. God, he'd never called his parents 'mother and father' in his life, but...

He took a breath. Here goes, he thought, and was glad to hear his voice was much less shaky than he felt.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Mother, Father..."