Despite my vocal protest, I’m thrown into the back of the sleek, black sedan and handcuffed to the door. Maxim doesn’t join me. He just gives me one last cold look and slams the door in my face, then the car starts moving and I’m dragged away from everything I’ve ever known.
What the hell is happening?
Over and over, that gunshot rings in my ears, followed by the sickening thud of that body hitting the floor. His eyes, open and unseeing, pierced right through me and they repeatedly flash up every time I close my eyes. Tears come swiftly after a few minutes of wrestling with the steel cuffs to no avail, and I sob into my hands.
I’ve never seen someone die before. Sure, it’s been on the news and in stories, but to see it with my own eyes sets a chill deep in my soul that I can’t shift. For two months, I searched for Maxim and seemingly, it’s the biggest mistake of my life.
He’s going to kill me.
I don’t see why he doesn’t just do it now. Why drag this out? Whisking me across the city like I’m some kind of package and acting like it’smyfault for witnessing the murder and not his for committing it in the first place. And those men around him? They were as calm as anything, like this is some kind of daily occurrence for them. Not a single one of them seemed horrified by the murder.
Thoughts of Thanksgiving and my mother collide in my mind, but it’s too much for me to think about on top of everything else. That and my face hurts. I feel like I slammed face-first into a moving truck, but it was just a slap from that asshole.
Stu, I think I caught his name.
The car glides through the streets without a single stop, not even for any red lights that crop up on our path. It’s either stupidity or arrogance, I can’t decide, but as the drive continues, the turmoil in my gut worsens. Each breath scrapes against my throat, my heart pounds like a drum and shows no sign of stopping, my hands shake like I’m no longer in control of them, and nausea assaults me in waves.
Tears pour silently down my cheeks no matter how hard I try to stop them, but a sudden soft lurch of the car is the cork that pops it all. Bile rushes up my throat and I’m barely able to haul my hair out of the way before I’m throwing up all over the floor of this luxury car. The leather seats are ruined in seconds as another wave overtakes me, and what’s left of my lunch burrito ends up staining the soft felt floor.
Oddly, I feel miles better by the time I’ve regained control of myself and I sag back into the plush leather seat, panting.
Holy. Shit.
Two minutes later, the car pulls to a soft stop. Ten seconds after that, the door opens and one of Maxim’s men leans inside, holding a small silver key. His eyes widen when he sees the mess on the floor.
“Sorry,” I say weakly, although I’m not all that sorry. “Your driving was terrible.”
The man’s boyish face breaks into a brief smile as he unlocks my cuffs, then he grasps my upper arm and pulls me from the car. Any urge to bolt down the street fades when I see two men clad in black framing the golden entrance into a building so tall I can’t even see the top.
“Toto.” One greets the man guiding me with a nod of the head.
“Toto?” I croak, wincing around the acidic taste lingering in my mouth. “Like the dog?”
He glances at me but doesn’t speak while he drags me through gold-rimmed glass doors and into a marble foyer. Several red couches sit around a small glass table to my left, and a deep red carpet leads the way toward a wooden half-oval desk where a woman sits filing her nails. She doesn’t even glance up as we pass, and I stumble over myself all the way to the elevator.
Toto doesn’t release me until the doors close, and I immediately hug the wall furthest away from him.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Why, because you have a conscience?” I snap.
“No.” His blue eyes lock onto mine. “I’m under orders not to.”
Orders? What the hell is going on? “Do you always do what he tells you?”
“Yes,” Toto replies simply, and half a second later, the doors glide open once more. I barely even felt us moving. “This is where you will be staying.”
His arm sweeps out and on trembling legs, I step over the threshold, but Toto doesn’t follow. I turn back to face him as he presses an unseen number on the elevator.
“You’re not coming?”
“No.”
“You’re just going to leave me here?”
“You’ll be fine,” Toto says, and for a moment, there’s almost something genuine in his little smile. Then the doors close and I’m left alone.
Hugging my arms around my waist, I stand alone in a short hallway. Black flooring leads to an open-plan lounge with white and blue furniture situated three steps down. Three couches surround a coffee table piled high with magazines and several unopened packets of blank printer paper. To my left, the black flooring leads to another hallway but just before the wall, a small kitchen is on my left and several tall potted plants surrounded by small glass stones are on the right. As I approach, the sound of trickling water catches my attention and I glimpse a small stream weaving between the plants filled with an array of colorful fish calmly swimming around.
