Distressed: Enemy Of The State- Book 1 Read Online Free PDF Page A

total. He’d watched thousands of his own people die at the hands of tyrant rulers, foreign armies, and skirmishes amongst themselves. All Kasaika cared about was paying back that number two-fold.
    Kasaika picked up a ration meal and a bottle of water and made his way to the far corner of the warehouse. A large metal shipping container had been placed there in which Dylan’s son was kept. Kasaika pulled at the heavy door, and the metal cringed as it opened.
    The fluorescent lights from the warehouse flooded the darkened tomb up until the last ten feet of the container, which was where Sean lay hidden. “Food, boy.” Kasaika tossed the box of rations, and it skidded across the rusted floor. The water bottle he tossed rolled a little farther. The waste bucket was already by the door, filled. Kasaika grabbed it and went to shut the door when the boy appeared from the shadows.
    “My dad.” Sean stood half bathed in light and half in darkness. His hair was oily and messy, and his clothes were soiled. “Tell me.”
    “He’s still alive, boy.” Kasaika had told the boy about his father, how they were using him. Sean took a few more steps into the light, his face twisted in the effort of relief and grief. “You want me to tell you how many people he helped kill today?” The boy’s fists clenched at his sides, and Kasaika smiled.
    “My dad will come and get me. He’ll do whatever it takes.” Sean was as thin as a rail, no older than Kasaika’s own nephews and nieces.
    Kasaika set the bucket of waste down and stepped inside the metal tomb, his heavy feet ringing through the container with each step. To the boy’s credit, he did not back down. “Your father will die by our hands or the hands of your government. Either way, you will not make it out alive.”
    “Then why are you taking care of me?”
    Kasaika knelt down to meet the boy at eye level. The smell stung his nostrils and eyes, and up close he could see the resemblance of the boy’s father in him. The look of wild fear in his eyes, held together with a quiet reserve. “Leverage. You’re alive so your father can die.”
    Sean shoved Kasaika hard with both arms, but the boy’s weight and force weren’t enough to throw Kasaika off kilter. Kasaika palmed the side of the boy’s head and knocked him to the ground. “But remember that we don’t have to keep you in one piece to keep you alive.”
    Kasaika shut the door, and once against sentenced the boy to darkness. He tossed the waste bucket outside and did not return it. He found his brother-in-law, Sefkh, and joined him in a meeting with Perry.
    “Shut the door,” Perry said.
    Sefkh locked the three of them in the room. Kasaika stood opposite Perry and glanced down at the papers under the glow of the lamp. He picked one of them up, his jaw dropping slightly in awe. “This is it?” He looked to both Perry and Sefkh.
    Perry reached over and snatched the paper from Kasaika’s hands. “Yes.” Perry placed the paper back into the pile with the rest and adjusted the watch on his wrist. “Sefkh will fill you in on the details, but the shipment we need is coming in less than three days. There are no others. If we want to finish this strike, then we will need this device.”
    “Tell the captain he will be needed,” Sefkh said. “We’ll be using the river as the main escape route.”
    Perry meandered over to Kasaika, his hands running along the edges of the table. “You’ve been taking care of his boy?” Perry stopped once he reached the other side. His body leaned against the table, his arms and legs slanted at an angle that Kasaika would have believed would snap his bones in half.
    “I have,” Kasaika answered.
    Perry stepped around Kasaika, moving toward the front of the room. He shifted his head from side to side then abruptly turned. “I understand that you had a problem with the way I handled Amarah.”
    “I may not agree with your methods, but I cannot argue with your results.”
    Perry