A Tiger's Bounty by Terry Bolryder

You’ve been far too tightlipped about him all day.”
    Amber picked up the glass and put it to her lips, but as she was about to drink it, she felt her stomach turn over, as if in rebellion at the thought of taking it in. Amber followed her gut and put it down on the tray, feeling weird about it, but not knowing why.
    “Aren’t you going to try it?” Josie asked, still smiling. “It’s pretty expensive, but I wanted you to try it.”
    “Not feeling it right now. Maybe I’m catching something,” Amber dodged, though aside from the slightly off feeling she had, she felt fine physically.
    Josie’s smile slowly fell and she raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on, Amber? Why are you acting so suspicious all of a sudden? It’s not like you to be so paranoid all the time.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Even at the mall. You kept looking over your shoulder, as if watching for something. Is everything okay?”
    “Why do you want me to drink the tea so bad? Why do you even care, Josie?” Amber asked, hearing little alarms going off inside her head. Amber had no reason to mistrust Josie, so why did she feel like she needed to run?
    For a moment, Josie seemed reluctant to answer. Finally, she opened her mouth to say something, but then a firm knock sounded on the door several times. It instantly sent a chill down Amber’s spine, but she tried to remind herself that she wasn’t in danger, and just because Jace had been uppity about everything, it didn’t mean she needed to be.
    Josie got up silently to answer the door, but no sooner had she unlocked it when the door was pushed open, revealing several large men on the other side. Without a word, they came into the house. They were all dressed in worn, dirty-looking clothing and had severe, angry-looking faces. One of them in particular looked familiar somehow, but she couldn’t quite put a finger on it.
    More of them poured into the room, at least a half dozen or so, shutting the door behind them and surrounding her, cutting off any exit from the apartment. Josie, who’d been knocked backward after the door was pushed open, had regained her footing and was glaring at the lead man angrily.
    “Geez, it took you guys long enough getting here,” she said.
    The man who’d first come in, who was huge and bald and had severe lines running from the corners of his cold blue eyes diagonally down his cheeks, turned toward her, looking down as if regarding a flea before him.
    “Nobody orders me around. Understood?” he said witheringly, making Josie squirm. Just the sound of this man’s voice made Amber’s skin crawl.
    “Josie, what’s going on?” Amber asked.
    “So we’re even now. Right?” Josie asked the man, not regarding Amber in any way.
    The man hesitated for a moment, then suddenly lashed the back of his hand at Josie, hitting her cheek and knocking her to the ground. Josie landed with a light thud but didn’t move.
    “Now we’re even,” the man said to her unconscious body, then turned to Amber.
    This was bad. Amber tried to to think of an escape, but there were large, mean-looking men between her and the door and the fire escape. She did a quick scan for her purse, which had both a Taser and a bottle of pepper spray in it, but she realized it was hung on a hall tree next to the door, out of reach.
    If she could only stall them, maybe she could force her way out.
    “What the hell is going on here?” Amber demanded.
    The bald man stopped where he was, smiling at Amber’s outburst.
    “The girl was right. You do have spunk. My clients will like that,” he said with a chuckle.
    “What do you mean?”
    “This little bitch owes me a lot of money, and she’s been way behind on her payments. I was going to wring it out of her neck personally, but when she said she had a friend with curves like yours and very few personal connections, I thought maybe we could make a deal.”
    Amber thought for a second as the bald man grinned.
    “So that first night, at