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CHAPTER3
Penelope
A click wakes me.My eyes fly open, but there’s nothing but darkness.
I sit up. Did I see something move?
A shadow that’s darker than the rest sweeps toward me. I squeak and roll off my cot. I’m wearing a sweater and leggings that someone, I doubt it was Roman, stocked for me, but I wish I had on my shoes too.
Strong arms wrap around me. Terror squeezes my heart until I can’t breathe. Is this how he’s doing it? I’m going to get murdered in my old practice studio?
I open my mouth to scream, but I can’t draw air. Panic makes me go rigid.
A hand clamps over my mouth, and I kick my legs and flail my arms.
A familiar gruff voice growls in my ear. “Quiet. I’m getting you out of here.”
Cannon.
My heart’s hammering. He’s here. He’s alive and he’s not in jail. I’m frozen again for a different reason.
He doesn’t remove his hand. My body wants to melt into his familiar form, but I stay rigid.
I don’t know whether Cannon or Mick is the wiser option.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on, but then we have to get out of here.”
I give my head a shake and make a noise. What if he’s finishing the job? What if he got the ten million he asked for? His hold over my mouth loosens, but he doesn’t remove his hand.
How can he be so strong that his other arm bands me in place? To let him know I have something to ask before I unquestioningly do what he says, I stomp my foot.
He lets out a frustrated noise and moves his hand a fraction of an inch.
I whisper, “Are you going to kill me?”
“You’d be dead if I was.”
Yeah, that makes sense. That’s all that makes sense. “That doesn’t mean the timing is right. Eight million means you have to get it right.”
“Roman made it look like you have a stalker. I tricked him into paying me to kill you so he’d quit his thugs while I figured out why. But he swept the rug out from under me before I had a chance to.”
Roman? Why would he— Fury burns through my veins. He could get into the studio with my spare set of keys. He could get into the car. He knew my schedule. And he’d hired someone to kill me.
It makes sense, but it doesn’t explain why he claimed to save me. Do I just want to believe Cannon, or is he the only one telling the truth? “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We’ll talk about it later. Put this on.”
The room gets even darker as he yanks soft material over my head. It feels like a sweatshirt and it smells like Cannon.
I inhale his scent as I search for the armholes. “I don’t have shoes.”
“You have ten seconds to find them.”
I feel around for my flats. Apparently, I’ve decided to trust him. The inclination is natural, and since he didn’t lock me in a room while he was watching me, I’m going with it. I barely get the shoes on before he’s towing me out of the room. Light streams down the stairs, but the rest of the basement is dark.
Cannon gets close enough to whisper in my ear. “Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.”
I won’t. If I don’t escape with Cannon, I’ll be locked in an impenetrable room, waiting for Roman to do God knows what.
