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30
Mare
Iached. A bone deep throb radiated from my temple down through my body. An involuntary groan left my lips as I tried to shift. Only … I couldn’t. Forcing my eyes open, fighting against the heaviness that seemed to be lingering, I found myself sitting and looking at my lap.
As soon as I saw the rough rope wrapped and knotted around my wrists, all of the lingering grogginess washed away in a flare of adrenaline. The knots were tight and complicated. There was likely no way I’d manage to slip my wrists out, but I pulled anyway. And like I predicted, there was no give. The scratchy material dug into my skin painfully, and panic swarmed my mind as I remembered what had brought me here. I’d been at Brutello’s. I’d just quit, and I’d gone to the bathroom to escape Donny and then…
My eyes trailed across the room before looking further down the rest of my body.
While my ankles had been tied together, they were thankfully not bound to the chair. Hesitantly, I tried to stand, but as soon as I put weight on them, I began to teeter and wobble. It was difficult, but I managed to keep upright, barely, and started shuffling forward in tiny increments. Only a foot into my task, I stopped and sniffed the air, breaking into a wheezing cough as something foul and horrid infiltrated my nostrils. It was an old stench, I realized—one that had obviously been lingering in the air, rotten meat and decay mixing around me until I had to hold back the gag that nearly choked me.
“Hello, America,” an accented voice murmured from behind me. Whipping my head around despite the pain, my body wavered and fell back. A jolt shot through my ass as I touched down on the seat I’d left previously. I hadn’t managed to get very far from it, which I guess was lucky or else I might’ve landed on the floor. I tried to glance back at the speaker—the man who’d attacked and kidnapped me, I assumed—but I couldn’t turn far enough to see him. “Glad to see you’re finally awake.”
“Who are you?” I demanded, looking over my other shoulder as footsteps approached. “Wait … you …” My breath left my lungs, jaw dropping when I realized who stood before me. “Ben?”
“Nathanial, actually,” he told me. He sounded completely different than he had before. When he’d spoken to me all those times at the restaurant or when I’d run into him at the library, I would’ve said he had the cadence of a man who’d lived his entire life in the Midwest of the United States. Now, though, his accent was thick and foreign. I wasn’t necessarily good at pinpointing accents, but it was most certainlynotAmerican—Russian, maybe? It sounded possibly eastern European.
“I … don’t understand,” I mumbled. A sharp pain radiated through my skull—the pounding of a headache that I was firmly trying to ignore—mixed with the physical soreness of my limbs and ass made my entire body ache. I wasn’t sure if it was all of that, or if it was the grotesque stench making my brain stop working. Either way, I couldn’t understand how Ben, my frequent customer, had anything to do with this.
“I was hired by your father to kill you,” he said, giving me a smile that was too gentle for a man who just claimed to be a hired assassin. No emotion colored his words as he nonchalantly shrugged like it was just business and not my life on the line.Oh, of course my asshole father did, I huffed. My brain was finally starting to come to life even through the headache.
I didn’t look away from him, knowing I needed to focus on what he was doing and saying to see if there was any indication ofexactlywhat he had planned for me. Even if I didn’t want to think about it. Would I be tortured first? Was he waiting for a payment? Would my father be coming here? The questions that I needed answered flitted through my head at rapid speed.
Somehow, some fucking way Iwillget out of here, I vowed silently.
“You’re so beautiful, America,” he murmured, stepping forward so that he stood right in front of me. Dark brown eyes stared at me unblinking, the mintiness of his breath washing over my face as he got closer and leaned down. When his hands brushed my forearms, a shiver worked its way through me. Fear iced my veins, a lead weight solidifying in my stomach. “I may have been hired by your father, but when I first saw you, I knew you were innocent. You were a creature of such sunlight—beaten down. When you smiled at me, our souls aligned, and I knew you were made just for me. After that, I protected you from everything possible that could tarnish or hurt you, like the treasure that you deserved to be treated as.”
What. The. Actual. Fuck?
He touched me, his skin cold as if he were a dead body walking around, spouting the most insane bullshit I’d ever heard. I kept my lips shut. “I was just watching you at first,” he admitted. “I wasn’t even a customer yet, though I’m glad you quit. You’re too good for that place. You don’t need to worry about money anymore. As soon as we get where we’re going, you won’t ever need to work again.” He stroked my cheek, and I stiffened even further, eliciting an understanding smile from him. “Don’t worry, I could never hurt you. I love you too much for that.”
Schooling my expression into a blank mask, I forced my shoulders down from around my ears. I held back the urge to snap at him or call him a psycho as my mind raced with what to do. If I played along for a while, I could hopefully get out of here with minimal injuries. My strategizing was interrupted when his hand dropped back to my arms, the fresh touch of cold startling me. His thumbs rubbed soft circles there, his thin lips curling up into a grin. It was odd, seeing the smile on his face and hearing him talk as if he cared because his eyes were hard. Empty.
“I did so many things for you,” he continued after a brief moment of just … staring at me. His tone was still light, but a hint of ice threaded into it as he continued. “I mean, do you recognize where you are?” It was then that I truly looked around me. The worn hardwoods and ornate window frames were familiar, but it wasn’t until I saw the dented metal of the mail slot that I realized.
“We’re above my apartment,” I murmured in sickening shock.
“Exactly. Your landlords were constantly screaming and yelling. Then they raised your rent—I’d planned on offering you a place to stay, working into your life in that way, but then others got to you first. Convinced you to go to thatclub,” he sneered. The pleasant mask he wore cracked for just a moment, but I saw it. The rage. Ben …Nathanial, I corrected myself, was dangerous. Beyond admitting that he was a hitman for hire, he’d been fuckingstalkingme. He wasn’t normal—despite how he’d seemed. This man was unstable, switching from niceties to menacing threats like it was nothing. I needed to tread very carefully with him.
I cleared my throat. “I thought they’d gotten over their relationship problems...They’d been so quiet lately. Did you make that happen?” I asked, partially because I wanted him to keep talking as if I was truly interested in what he had to say and partially because until he’d mentioned it, I realized I hadn’t even considered that my normally obnoxiously loud landlords had been in trouble. My stomach rolled, knowing he had been here, right above me, for God only knew how long, but I forced the sensation to settle and willed myself not to throw up.
“I’m so happy you noticed.” He perked up. “I’ve done a few other things for you too. Can you guess what they were?”
“The notes … and flowers … and bear?” I hedged a guess, realizing every romantic gesture that I thought had been the guys had been him. The blinding clarity made me feel violated and sick. He’d been in my apartment, touching my bed and probably everything else I owned.
“You’re so smart, America,” he praised, his hand coming to pat my cheek. Forcing myself to stay still, I gave him a half smile. As much as I wanted to scream and fight, playing along was the only option I had at the moment, and if anyone could fake being friendly, it was a waitress.
“Unfortunately, though...” Nathanial continued, his hand slowing until he was cupping the base of my skull as he momentarily trailed off. Acid built in my throat, the stabbing pain in my head growing as his fingers started to dig into my skin. “I know you’ve been unfaithful, fooling around with the three of them. I’m sure they appreciate the slut you’ve been, but I donot.” With each word, his grip tightened. My eyes started to water as nails jabbed painfully into my scalp, cutting my skin.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted. He was a ticking time bomb, and the sooner he was calm the better, so I kept talking. “I was lonely, and I didn’t know when you’d come for me.” His grip tightened even further, his dead eyes narrowing, so I scrambled to find something else to say. “I wanted to make sure I was good enough for you.”
My statement gave him pause, and his hand loosened slightly. The reprieve nearly made the tears leak out onto my cheeks, but I blinked them away, willing them back as I gave him the best apologetic and innocent expression I could muster.
“I’m not incredibly experienced, and I was s-so lonely. After being in this city for five years, I’ve never dated anyone … I didn’t know if I ever would and wasn’t sure what to do if a man ever came along. I wasn’t knowledgeable about that stuff, and I needed to be,” I lied, soothing him back into a state of calm. A smile split his face, his hand returning to pat my cheek.
“I appreciate your thoughtfulness,” he told me brightly. “But I can teach you everything you need to know. I know you have experience, now, though. Don’t think I didn’t see that beautiful night when you stripped and fucked yourself on the bed. You were practicing on yourself for me, weren’t you?” My eyes widened.The cameras! Holy shit.I’d forgotten the guys had installed them in everything, and as if he read my thoughts, he kept going. “Of course, I don’t know if you know this, but they were recording you. Don’t worry, though.” His harsh grip lessened, and he patted my head. “After that night, I cut the feed to their cameras and replayed old footage of you doing small things. Cooking. Sleeping. They had no clue, and they didn’t need to see you doing that again. I didn’t like that they saw you at all, to begin with.”
His eyes grew distant as he frowned, obviously upset at the thought. After a moment, his eyes turned down, and I tried to force a small smile. It must not have come across the way I wanted it to, though, because in the next instant he bent closer, his brows lowering. “Are you feeling alright? I didn’t hurt you too badly, did I?”
