Ben Bracken: Origins (Ben Bracken Books 1 - 5) Read Online Free Page A

waistband, front and back. Nothing. He yanks up the guard’s trouser-legs and checks. Still nothing. He knows he can’t keep looking - the noise will have alerted Freya’s kidnappers. Freya has been watching, and Ben looks up and catches her eye. His expression doesn’t change a bit as he brings his finger up across his pursed mouth, gesturing a firm ‘shhh’. She immediately looks down at the floor. Ben feels for her - in her nighty, on the floor, tear-speckled cheeks and the threat of oncoming demise. He has met Freya twice - she always seemed a nice girl. A safe bet for Trev - Trev’s easy humour had always been attractive to the girls when he and Ben were in their teens. He had done well for himself, but he got the feeling Freya felt that she had done well in return. They were, in short, a nice deserving pair.
    Hate swells in Ben, and he lets it roll out but not too far. He knows hate gives you an unbending steel when it comes to completing an unpleasant objective, but blind rage is exactly the opposite. He lowers himself to a crouch and peeks around the corner into the flat. First thing to strike Ben is that it’s not very big - the open living room and kitchen space is perhaps only 200 square feet. There is a bedroom door off opposite the entrance hallway, and the kitchen is sparse, white modern and, oddly, free of people.
    He breaks across to the kitchen, ducking as he goes, fully expecting the bedroom door to open at any time. It doesn’t - he get’s to the kitchen and dread begins to set in. Where is everybody? Are they all in the bedroom? What is happening? He reaches up to the kitchen draws to see what he can find. First one is just so chock-full of pans he can barely get it open. Second, is empty take-out boxes, about fifty of them. The third draw is a cutlery draw - bingo. He reaches his hand in - when the bedroom door blasts open. Ben’s hand closes on whatever he can grasp, feeling something metallic and pulls it out quickly. He crouches again, just as two men barrel into the room. He looks down at his hand - to see he is brandishing a soup spoon. Great, he thinks.
    The two men are both crossing the room now, towards the entrance hallway. One of them is a squat powerhouse, a cube of human muscle. In this confined space, Ben knows he will be a nightmare to stop. A steroidal bull in a tiny China shop. It’s a miracle that they could find a suit to fit him, let alone the sharp navy number he is wedged into. The other man is of average height but is so sprightly on his feet Ben almost misses him completely. He has crossed the room before Ben knows it. Two very different adversaries that, in the outside world, Ben would have no trouble taking on. But together, at the same time, in this tiny space, with Freya in the middle of it all? No way, he thinks - a different approach is needed.
    By the way the men have trotted across the room, Ben has surmised that neither of these guys is the boss. On hearing Ben’s entrance, the main man was never going to just poke his head around the door for Ben to have a crack at. He assumes the man must be in the bedroom. He leaps over the counter top, and motors straight for the bedroom door, opening it and flinging it shut behind him. He is not keen on leaving Freya alone, but considering their desire for the laptop, he is banking on them not touching her until they know where their prized possession is.
    Inside the room a man in his sixties is quickly pulling his trousers up. The man turns to Ben, and his expression is indeed that of a man caught with his pants down. The expression turns to venom-fueled spite, as he clanks his belt clasp closed. He is tanned, grey, wrinkled, with sparkling blue daggers for eyes. Ben shudders at the thought of how many girls have been seduced, betrayed and abused by those eyes over the years.
    ‘Who the fuck are you?’ the man spits. Ben answers with a forearm to the throat, hard and spiked, right into the man’s adams apple. The man