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He barks out a laugh and my nose wrinkles at his sour cigarette-tinged breath wafting down on me. “A benzo. Midazolam. You must be a lightweight, princess, that shit’s mild as fuck.”
I grit my teeth and lean back when he bends to my level. He clamps a hand on the back of my neck and it feels nothing like it does when Fox holds me like that. A protest leaves me as he keeps me still while he lifts one of my eyelids, squinting at me.
“Probably still have some of it in your system. Be good and I’ll give you some water in a bit. Can’t have the pretty princess suffering.”
I glance around the room. “And where will I pee? I don’t see a bathroom.”
He snorts and motions to the corner. “Right there.” His eyes gleam and my stomach turns. “I like to watch.”
The breath I draw in through my nose to calm myself is shaky. I squirm, feeling the bite of the plastic zip ties around my wrists and the scrape of rough rope rubbing my thighs raw. How the hell am I getting out of this?
“Why am I here?” I repeat, unsure if I want the answer.
The thug laughs again, like this is a game. “You’re bait to catch your little boyfriend. One of our guys is waiting to catch him when he comes looking for you at that burger joint.”
He turns away to grab another folding chair I didn’t see before. There’s a gun tucked in the back of his jeans. Raking my gaze over him while he’s distracted, my heart sinks. I can’t tell if he has my phone on him or not. Coming back, he pops the chair open in front of me and kicks back in it as if we’re just chilling.
“Besides,” he adds after stretching and folding his hands behind his head. “Two birds with one stone and all that.” The amusement drops away, stripped back to the cruel nature beneath. “We’ll use you to teach your mom a lesson about what happens when orders aren’t followed.”
My pulse races and my palms tingle with the horrible dread pouring over me. I thought my parents would let me go easily, and maybe they would have if I didn’t get involved with plucking apart the threads of their empire, but I didn’t stay away. I took charge with Fox, forcing Dad to resign, getting federal investigators to take a closer look.
Stalenko Corp has built up their operation over the last decade and all it took was Fox and I to make it wobble.
They wouldn’t have touched me if they didn’t think we were a threat.
Licking my lips, I push to see if he’ll keep talking. “What sort of lesson?”
“Ransom. See?”
He digs out his phone and I tense when he pulls mine from his pocket, too. He shoves it away and I pray it’s still turned on. Find me, Fox.
The photo I’m shown makes bile rise in my throat. I’m tied to the same chair as now, unconscious, my head pulled back by this guy while he takes a goddamn selfie angle photo.
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It’s sent to Mom’s number. The read receipts are on. The message is marked as seen. No response.
Mom knows I’m here, in danger, but she hasn’t done anything. The last remaining shred of hope she ever cared for me turns to dust. At whatever expression breaks past my mask of indifference, my kidnapper chuckles as if we’re playing a game.
“Your mom was told to bring you to heel when you and your little boyfriend started poking around. Our security detail already knew about him, but we saw you on the surveillance feed sneaking around here. Once we realized who you were, we connected you back to your parents.” He clicks his tongue in disapproval. “Naughty princess.”
“What happens if my mom doesn’t agree to pay the ransom?”
The ugly grin he gives me makes me wish I hadn’t asked.
“Then,” he says, taking a fistful of my hair and wrenching my head back.
I cry out, squeezing my eyes tight. Waiting until they open, his grin widens at the moisture clinging to my lashes. I press my lips together, refusing to let the thousands of protests past my lips like he wants when he forcefully fondles my breast through my tank top. I will not give him more power over me by crying and begging for this to stop, no matter how bad I want him off me. He watches the determination in my gaze and moves his rough touch lower, down my side, plucking teasingly at the waistband of my cutoffs. Disgust bubbles like acid in my stomach at the hunger in his gaze.
“Then you’re all mine,” he promises.
Thirty-Seven
Fox
The last text response she sends cuts off in a string of unintelligible letters and autocorrected phrases that make no goddamn sense. One minute she’s flirting and painting a sexy as fuck picture, the next it’s like a switch is flipped. It immediately twists my stomach with a bad feeling that I confirm as soon as I hack into the CCTV feed for where she’d been.
The street in front of the beach-themed burger place where she met Holden is empty, no Maisy in sight. The Charger is still parked. There’s no way she disappeared. She was just texting me five minutes ago.
