She shrugged her shoulders, “Your fake relationship, of course. It was working too well.”
I scrubbed a hand across my jaw. “The notes? That was you?”
She nodded again.
“What did they mean?”
She waved me off, “Nothing. It’s some random passage I found in a book. I figured it would be enough to keep your focus on the hypothetical threat so that you wouldn’t notice me. I just added her name a few times and called it a day.”
“Goddamn,” I mumbled. “What about the rumors William Sr. was spreading?”
If she had wanted to destroy him, it didn’t make sense that she would work with him.
“It was a simple cost-benefit analysis,” she began. “I’ve learned a lot working with Bec. William Sr. would make a little headway on his mountains of debt, but not enough to make a real dent. He also wanted the same thing I did, just for different reasons. He thought he was manipulating me into working with him.” She laughed a hard, maniacal laugh, “He’s not very smart.”
I took a steadying breath, sliding back down the wall, my legs stretching in front of me, “So what now? You did all of this to get to me. What are you going to do with me now?”
She smiled again, “We wait.”
One Month Ago, December 28th
“Rise and shine, my love,” she sing-songed as she wandered into the room.
Andi was fucking crazy. I had always gotten a bad vibe around her, but had assumed it was just a harmless crush. Nope, she was in fact bat-shit insane.
“Let me out,” I demanded, for the forty-eighth time. Yes, I had counted; there was nothing else to do in here.
Andi laughed lightly as if it was all a big joke and not that she had held me in a glass cage for over a month.
With the ample thinking time I had been provided, I had deduced I was in an abandoned vet office or lab—something to that effect. I had learned that when Andi started working for Bec, she had just dropped out of veterinary school. With her whole rant when I first woke up in here, it was easy to assume the family business was a veterinary clinic of some kind.
I assumed we were in the very same building she had talked about being bought and later sold. The room I was in was sterile like a lab, the floors were a cold white tile, and the walls matched. The enclosure I was in was built for an animal, with spouts for water on the back wall that didn’t work, and anchors for chains were bolted into the floor.
The enclosure was driving me crazy. Since I had awoken that first time, Andi came once a day with food, water, and a change of clothes. I had readily accepted the food but had refused the clothes. It was my last stand against her crazy ass. I was still dressed in my blood-stained black dress pants and shirt. They reeked, but I had stopped caring.
“We have a grilled cheese, some veggies, orange juice, and milk… you need the vitamin D,” she explained as she pointed to the different items on the tray.
“You could let me out and I could see the sun and get the fucking vitamin D that way,” I mumbled as I slumped against the wall, sliding onto the floor, and stretching my legs out in front of me.
She ignored the comment. In fact, she had ignored half of the comments I had made. “I also have a few protein bars here; we don’t want you losing all those muscles,” she emphasized with a wink.
God damn, I was screwed.
She slid the food through the small hole to my side that I was unfortunately too large to fit through. Trust me, I had tried.
“Your funeral was today,” she began.
I pulled at the roots of my hair, “Stop it.”
I couldn’t think about what my family was going through, what Bec was experiencing. Andi had told them I had died. It was in the hopes of calling off any search for me sooner rather than later. From the bits and pieces she had dropped into conversation, I knew the search and rescue had turned to a search and recovery mission. Not that there was anything to recover. Because I was alive and in a fucking cage.
“It was a beautiful service,” she continued, ignoring me as usual. “You were buried next to your father. Oh, your mom was just beside herself.”
“Andi, stop.” I demanded again.
“Bec had Malachi and Alexandra with her the entire time. She’ll move on. I never wanted her to be hurt. She shouldn’t have fallen for you. This is all her fault, really…”
I cut her off as I threw the food tray at her with all the strength I had. It impacted the wall with a force strong enough to shake the glass, but it didn’t break. Clearly, it was built to withstand something stronger than me. “Shut the fuck up!”
