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1
Slowly my eyes flutter open, but I can barely see anything. I’m immersed in darkness. It takes me a moment before I realize that I’m in the back seat of a moving car, my face sticking to the leather. The car takes a sharp turn, and my head lolls to the side. Ugh. It feels like my skull’s been stuffed with cotton balls. My thoughts a blurred mess like I’m looking through a puddle of water that’s mixed with mud, I can’t figure out how I got here.
A wave of nausea overcomes me, my stomach churning like I’m on a roller coaster. I’ve never gotten car sick before, but right now, I could blow chunks. Slowly my thoughts return, and as I roll over on the seat, I’m reminded that someone put a cloth over my mouth… that someone drugged and kidnapped me.
Jackknifing in the seat, my vision blurs at the fast movement, and bile rises up my throat. Sucking air in through my nose, I get the nausea to fade away, and after a few more seconds pass, my vision fully clears, and I can make out the person in the driver’s seat.
What the hell?
“Ber… ah, I mean… Milton? What the hell are you doing?”
His eyes find mine in the rearview mirror, “I’m really sorry, Harlow, but you weren’t safe at the house, and it’s my job to keep you safe.” His eyes fall back to the road. There isn’t an ounce of remorse or regret in his voice, and I have to wonder how sane he is right now.
Is this a joke? Some sick twisted bullshit my father is doing.
“So, you drugged and kidnapped me to keep me safe? Seems like the opposite if you ask me!” I try to keep my voice even, but patience escapes me, and it comes out as a yell.
“I’m sorry about the chloroform, but I needed to get you out of the house fast, and I knew you wouldn’t have come with me willingly,” he explains further.
He is right about that, I wouldn’t have come with him because by leaving I’m endangering the people I love, but Milton doesn’t know that, or if he does, he doesn’t care. My gaze swings around the blacked-out SUV and then out the window. It’s so dark, I can’t make out where we’re headed.
“Why do you think I wasn’t safe at the house?”
“It’s not that I think you’re not safe. I know it.”
“Explain, tell me, make me understand because right now you look more like the person trying to hurt me than anyone else.”
With a loud exhale of breath, he starts to speak, “Remember at the rehearsal dinner when I bumped into the waitress, making her fall and your food went everywhere?”
“What the hell does a waitress tripping and dropping my food have to do with you kidnapping me?”
“It has to do with the fact that someone was trying to poison you. I saw someone put something in your food as it was being brought out.”
I blanch, the realization of what he’s saying sinking heavily in my stomach.
Grasping at straws, I say, “Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe you saw wrong?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not wrong, Harlow. I’ve been protecting you for a long time, and I’ve been doing this kind of work even longer. I’m trained in this kind of stuff, and I saw someone put something in your food. There is no wrong when you witness it with your own eyes.”
Oh, god, maybe he isn’t wrong. Maybe I am. Maybe someone is trying to kill me. It makes sense, the brothers told me someone was trying to hurt me, but I never wanted to believe it. Why would anyone want me dead?
“Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you tell my father?” I yell while moving toward the door.
I’m scared and angry. I don’t understand why someone would want to hurt me. After everything I discovered tonight about my father, and the Bishops, there is very little room left inside of me to deal with anything. I’m exhausted, both physically and mentally.
“Because I don’t know if your father was involved or not. I need more information.”
All of this is insane, completely insane. As badly as I dislike my father right now, I need to go to him, to tell him what happened, there is no way he could be involved, is there?
“You need to take me back right now,” I order, but Milton continues driving like I didn’t say anything at all. “I mean it, take me back!” I’m seconds away from kicking the back of his seat to get his attention.
“I can’t, and I won’t. I told you it’s not safe.”
Clutching a hand to my stomach, I feel the overwhelming need to vomit.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere that you will be safe.” Great, that doesn’t tell me anything. Folding my arms over my chest, I just sit there pouting like a teenager, because really, there is nothing else I can do. Not with the car going down the highway at sixty miles an hour.
