AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Fucking infuriating.
“All I offer is her life, but I don’t guarantee the rest. And my five million has just become ten. Midnight. In cash. Leave it in a tagged car with the keys at the Navy Pier parking lot.”
“It’s fucking Saturday. I can’t produce ten million in cash—”
“You all should have gone to the bank yesterday and you’d have five already.”
He hung up.
Andrew swung around and crashed his computer to the floor. He slammed the phone down, then grabbed his cell phone for Graves, his lungs straining for air. “They’ve got her. Son of a fucking bitch, they’ve got her. Shit, they called my landline! I couldn’t activate the damn shit!”
“That doesn’t sound right.”
“What doesn’t?”
“You sure he’s got her? Chloe’s supposed to be with her right now.”
A silence stretched bleakly. Then Graves cried, “Fuuuuuck me!”
Graves cut out, and Andrew clicked his cell phone and redialed Whitney’s number, his systems buzzed and going haywire. Answer, answer.
Fuckingfuckingdogpissshitgoddammitmotherfuckinsonofa . . .
“Shouldn’t you be counting bills already?” the muffled voice asked.
Andrew could’ve sworn there was fire coming out of his fucking nose. He was going to kill this motherfucker when he found him and he didn’t give a fucking shit how many years he went to prison for it! “I want to talk to her,” he said in an eerily calm voice that belied every hot roiling sensation inside him.
“Very well.”
Andrew could hear shuffling, and then, her sweet voice on the other end, sounding like she was more than a little scared, and more than a little determined not to show it.
“I’m all right, I’m all right!”
Andrew was sure the cracking sound in his chest was his heart. Before he could even tell her to hang on tight, to please hang the fuck tight he was going to do anything to get to her, the sound of exchanging phones came back. “There. Satisfied?”
Slowly seething in rage, Andrew pressed the star and the zero with his thumbs, holding them for five seconds, and in a low, bitter voice said, “You’ll rue the day you set a hand on her.”
***
Darkness. That was all she could see, through the blindfold covering her eyes. She couldn’t see her captor, but the hairs on the back of her neck were raised in alarm, and she felt him near. Heard his footsteps. Circling her. His voice dangerously velvety.
“I know what you did, cousin.”
She wished she’d been able to hear Andrew’s voice on the other end, before this bastard took the phone away from her. She didn’t remember ever being so cold and so scared in five years.
“And I know what your boyfriend did, too,” he sneered.
She sucked in a bunch of air, her mind spinning darkly as she wondered if Andrew had been able to activate the bomb. Her hands were bound in front of her, her feet tied at the ankles, and he’d forced her down onto a squeaky chair but thank God hadn’t tied her to it. So she had some mobility, but not a lot.
“I want to talk to my boyfriend again,” she said, all her hopes right now resting on that little bomb.
Her cousin laughed. “I don’t think so, Whitney. Tell me. Why didn’t you go to the bank when you got my note? Hmm? Why the fuck did you go to Andrew Fairchild and have him call a bunch of people? Huh? Huh? Now you see what you’ve made me do! I don’t have time to play your fucking games. I’ve been waiting five fucking years to get the fucking proof I needed to blackmail you!”
The force of his tirade sent an icy wave of fear crashing through her. Her breath rasped in her throat as she struggled against her binds until the rope bit like a saw into her wrists.
“Tell me now. Were you not planning to pay my money? I’ve been watching you and you haven’t done shit to acquire the funds in cash. As punishment, the amount has just doubled for your man, do you do realize? You cost him money. Time.”
She sputtered in fear when he touched something cold and damp along her jaw, and she thought it was his thumb. Bile rose up in her throat, and suddenly she could feel other hands. Grabbing her, and pinning her down. Awful hands. An awful man.
