Unseen (Will Trent / Atlanta Series)

left in his life.
    The redneck held up his hands so Will could watch what he was doing. The handle on his folding knife was pearl with gold accents. The light caught on the blade as he opened it. There was blood on the hinge, caked into the rivets, probably from carving X’s into the man tied to the chair. The redneck was a natural with the knife. He held the handle with a light grip, almost like another thumb or finger.
    Will flinched as he felt the sharp stainless-steel blade trace across his neck. Then up the side of his face. Then underneath his eye. The redneck pressed a little harder and the skin opened. Will was so terrified that it didn’t even hurt. He wouldn’t have even known he was cut but for the bead of blood that rolled down his cheek.
    Will closed his eyes. He wasn’t here. He wasn’t in this room. Maybe talking to Cayla and Tony about the beach set him off. He could smell the salt in the air, feel the warm, gentle breeze rolling in off the ocean.
    Three months ago, Sara had taught Will how to fly a kite. They were on the beach in Florida. The kite was yellow and blue and had a long white tail. Will had never taken a beach vacation before. All his knowledge about Florida came courtesy of Wikipedia and
Miami Vice
. Sara was a good teacher. Patient, kind. Sexy as hell in her bathing suit. Her father had taught her how to fly a kite when she was little. He’d been worried that Sara would feel pushed aside by her new baby sister, so he’d taken her on little day trips to make her feel special.
    Will’s eyes shot open. The knife was in his ear—not the soft fleshy part, but the bit right at the inside where a thin layer of cartilage lay against the skull.
    The redneck was smiling, enjoying the effect. The man had perfect white teeth. His gums looked almost blue against them.
    Will didn’t move. The knife was needle sharp. The tip brokethrough his skin, sliced open the cartilage. A drop of blood slid inside his ear. With excruciating slowness, it traveled down the canal. Will felt a shudder coming on. It started slow, like the rumble of an oncoming train. A slight tremble, then a shaking that built and built until the earth started to move and his teeth were rattling and the ground felt ripped out from under him.
    The redneck jerked out the knife just in time.
    “Fuck!” Will shook his head violently. The grip on his arms got tighter. He shook his head again. The blood was still moving inside his ear.
    The redneck laughed as he folded the blade back into the handle. “Take off your clothes.”
    Junior and number three released him. Will jammed his pinkie in his ear and moved it like a clapper in a bell.
    “Take off your clothes,” the redneck repeated.
    Will glared at him. “Go fuck yourself.” He headed toward the door, but Junior stopped him.
    The redneck offered, “We can do this the hard way.”
    Junior pushed Will into his partner, who in turn slammed Will into the wall.
    The redneck asked, “Hard way, easy way?”
    Will couldn’t think about the beach anymore. He couldn’t think about Sara or anything else but staying alive.
    Bill Black could handle this. He had been in his share of back rooms. He had dealt with lowlifes and bad guys all of his life. According to his records, he’d
been
a lowlife and bad guy all of his life.
    Will didn’t know what boot camp was like other than what he’d seen in the movies, but he was very familiar with the intake process at the Atlanta jail. Bill Black would’ve been one of at least a hundred new inmates the guards checked in that day. They’d stripped him, searched him, shaved him, deloused him, then thrown him into a five-by-nine cell with another man and an open sewage pit for a toilet. There were communal showers. There were occasional cavity searches. There was nowhere to hide.
    Undressing for a bunch of violent hicks was not something that would faze a guy like Bill Black.
    Will ripped open his shirt. Some of the buttons popped loose. His T-shirt came next, then his jeans. Will used the toe of one boot to brace the heel of the other as he stepped out of the shoes. He kicked off the jeans.
    The room went silent but for the muffled beats of club music.
    They stared at him like an exhibit at the zoo.
    Will didn’t look at his body much. As grateful as he was to Sara, he didn’t know how she could stand it. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t tell some story of abuse—the cigarette burns around his ribs, the electrical burns