“I know this sounds strange considering what I’ve thought of you for so long. But I won’t let you die either, Ben. I just won’t.”
He reached out a hand, knowing that it would find hers eventually, just as eventually they’d found each other. Intertwining his fingers with hers seemed natural enough. Sliding across the bed to be closer to her did too. When Victoria turned on her side and let her head fall against his shoulder, he prayed that was a natural reaction for her, one that would last for years and years to come.
Victoria
It was a few hours later when Victoria woke up to use the bathroom. She slipped from beneath Ben’s warm embrace, hating like hell that she had no other choice. Stopping on her way to the bathroom she peaked out the window, grabbing the curtain in her fists and pulling it apart slightly. Their view faced the back parking lot, Devlin’s black SUV was parked in the same spot as it had been when they’d arrived hours ago.
Finally making it to the bathroom she was washing her hands when she heard the soft hum of a cell phone vibrating. She assumed it was hers since she’d hung her jeans and t-shirt in thebathroom. It was bad enough she had to put these clothes back on for a second day, no way was she going to sleep in them too. Besides, she and Ben had already been intimate, there was really no need for modesty at this point. He’d climbed into bed in his boxers and she in her underwear and all was well. Or as well as circumstances would allow.
Pulling her pants down from the hook on the back of the door she reached into her pocket for her phone. There were eight text messages. At the sight she remembered her phone had chimed just as she’d gotten out of the car to see Ben on her steps yesterday. Two from Grace and six from an unknown number. Victoria read Grace’s messages first. No baby, just wondering where she was. Regardless of what Devlin and Trent thought she was definitely going to call Grace when it wasn’t nearing six in the morning.
She read the first of the unknown messages and her heart raced.
Need to talk to you. In person. Soon. AJ
Victoria didn’t know anyone named AJ and she didn’t recognize the number.
Really need to talk to you. Can’t trust anyone else. He’s going to kill me!
That was the last message, the one received just three minutes ago. The one that this time was signed:Alayna.
Alayna Jonas was trying to contact her. Victoria couldn’t believe it, her heart thumped so loud she could hear it roaring in her ears. She needed to call her back.
No. What if her phone was being tapped? Maybe she could text her?
No. If this was a set up, they could trace her number and find out where she was. But if they had her number, couldn’t they trace the phone anyway?
She needed to talk to Alayna. Or rather she definitely needed Alayna to testify at trial next week. If the girl knew enough to contact her she must know everything that was going on. For the next few minutes Victoria paced the bathroom wondering what she should do.
If she woke Ben he’d want to call Trent and Devlin and they’d come up with some sort of plan that would go in with guns blazing to bring Alayna back. Victoria knew the tone of text messages could easily be misconstrued, just like that of email messages. But she couldn’t help but feel the fear reverberating through each message she’d read. Wherever Alayna was and whoever she was with, she was definitely afraid for her life. And Victoria didn’t like that at all.
When she’d paced until she was dizzy from moving around in the small bathroom, she put the lid down and sat on the toilet.
“Think. Think,” she whispered.
Seconds later, she was switching on the phone, hitting one of her speed dial numbers and waiting for Grace to answer.
Grace was not a morning person, being pregnant only seemed to make that worse as she answered the phone sounding like there were a couple of frogs in her throat.
“Grace!” Victoria whispered urgently. “It’s me. I need you to listen to me carefully.”
It took two rushed explanations before Grace was awake enough to understand what she was saying. At that point she shifted from groggy sleepyhead to panicked best friend. Then it took another round of explaining to calm her down enough so that she was eventually saying, “I’m on my way.”
Now, Victoria needed to figure out how she was going to get out of this hotel room without Ben or any of their guardsfinding out. She should just tell Ben, she thought as she finished dressing and picked up the tube of toothpaste left in the bathroom. Squirting it onto her finger she tried not to gag as she scrapped that finger over her teeth and did a quick rinse and spit.
If she told him he would want to come with her. Worse, he would want to bring Trent and Devlin with them. That might make Alayna run. After all, if the woman knew who Victoria was and how to get in touch with her, she was sure she knew who Ben was and still had made it a point to contact her instead. That meant she didn’t want to talk to Ben. Which meant Victoria couldn’t tell him.
Then again, she thought with her hand on the knob to the bathroom door, what if this was all a set-up and Vega was using Alayna to get to her? No. If Vega were with Alayna, Alayna would be dead. There was no doubt in Victoria’s mind about that. There was no need for Vega to use Alayna as bait to get to Victoria, because with Alayna out of the way Victoria had no case and was therefore no threat to Vega’s freedom.
Holding her breath, she turned the knob as slowly as she could manage and pulled the door open. Across the room she saw that Ben had rolled onto his side, his back facing her. Thank goodness. Silently she apologized over and over as her feet moved soundlessly across the carpeted floor. The middle door in between the utility closet and the clothes’ closet was the adjoining bedroom door. It was a quick plan, one she prayed would work even though she had zero experience doing things of this nature.
If she could get into the other room she could leave out that door. Rio was standing guard in front of their room door, not this one. She should be able to slip out without him seeing her. Then what?
She was in the adjoining room by this time having closed both doors behind her. For one second she allowed herself a release of breath, and a sigh because she prayed she was doing the right thing. On her hip her cell phone vibrated and she hurriedly looked down at the screen.
ETA 10min
How the hell did Grace get here that fast? She had to be speeding which was just like Grace and would almost certainly piss Clinton off. Having his pregnant wife stand before him for a speeding ticket was not going to be cute.
