Free This Would Be Paradise (Book 2) by N.D. Iverson

around here. Chloe and Amanda chose that moment to reappear, their arms full of food.
    I didn’t need that much.
    “Dad?” Amanda asked hesitantly.
    His shoulders stiffened, and Roy turned to his daughter. “You and Chloe need to go to your rooms.”
    “But why?”
    “Just do it!” Roy shouted.
    His daughter looked on the verge of crying. I’d never seen Roy like this, and I didn’t think Amanda had either. I walked over to them and took some of the food from their hands.
    “Thank you guys for getting me food, but now you need to go to Amanda’s room, okay?” I said.
    “Do you think the bad guys are comin’ back?” Chloe asked.
    “We don’t know, but you need to stay safe in your room. I’ll explain later.” The abbreviated version anyway.
    Chloe looked at me, her face serious. She turned to Amanda. “Come on, let’s go to your room.”
    Chloe led them out, and they headed upstairs.
    Roy was so agitated that he was pacing. Karla retreated as far from him as she could, and stern eyes watched Roy walk his circuit. I had no idea what to do. I hadn’t expected this from Roy, but his wife was missing and the gang members had killed his daughter. Someone would pay.

Chapter 10
    Time ticked by and Roy continued to pace. An hour had gone by and Tim still hadn’t shown his face. As far as he knew, we were all oblivious to his involvement. We hadn’t let Karla leave; she’d more than likely warn him.
    I picked at some of the food the girls had rounded up—the crackers and another juice box—but my nerves prevented me from eating anything else.
    We barely talked, other than to explain what had happened to Karla. She vehemently denied that Tim could have done anything like that until she was red in the face. Mac suggested she was too close to Tim to see the situation clearly, and I swore Karla considered punching him in the face.
    Mac came over to me and took a cracker from the box.
    “What should we do?” he half whispered.
    I set down the cracker I was nibbling on. Why is he asking me?
    “I don’t know,” I replied just as quietly. “Short of locking Roy up, there’s nothing we can do until Tim shows up.”
    Elaine joined our little think-tank. “This will go really badly once Tim shows up. Roy is just getting angrier.”
    We all looked over at Roy. I could almost feel waves of anger radiating off him.
    “We need to intercept Tim before Roy does something,” I said. “Maybe handcuff Tim as soon as we see him. The element of surprise is all we have.”
    “There are some zip ties in the storage room. I’ll go grab some.” Mac took off in search of our handcuffs substitute.
    Karla glared suspiciously at us but remained sitting and kept chewing her nails. Mac came back and showed us the black zip ties in his coat pocket, then asked, “How do we do this?”
    “Unless there’s a secret entrance you guys didn’t tell me about, there’s only one way in,” I said. “Someone strong should open the door when Tim comes in, so they’ll be behind him when he enters. We’ll talk to him to distract him until the doorman tackles him to the ground. And then we’ll tie his hands behind his back.”
    “Why not just grab him?” Elaine asked.
    “He’s military. I’d say he’s trained in combat. Our best bet is to knock him to the ground and use our weight against him to pin him down while we tie his hands up.” This was all guesswork on my part.
    Mac raised an eyebrow. “I take it I’m the doorman?”
    I bit my lip. “Sorry. It’s nothing personal. But the more weight we have to hold him down, the better.”
    “That’s the nicest way to call someone fat I’ve ever heard,” Mac said. If he was offended, he didn’t show it.
    I shrugged. I had nothing to say that would make it any less rude.
    “You should probably get up there then,” Elaine said. “Who knows when he might return?”
    Mac grumbled but left to go play doorman and give José a break. Karla watched him disappear with narrowed