It wasn’t time to admit it to anyone yet, but my thoughts have been filled with Bennett fantasies. And not just ones where his shirt is off. Okay, most of them were, but not the way Katy would suspect. Bennett mowing our lawn… shirtless. Bennett changing a lightbulb… shirtless.
There were also shirt-wearing dreams. Walking Liam to his first day of school — if that’s a memory Bennett would let me be a part of. Spending Christmas together. Maybe a vacation.
All those hopes and wishes could be dashed now. Who knows how Bennett will react to my colossal fuck up. Will he dump me? Yell? Never talk to me again? All options sound horrible, but I’d rather there be yelling than he give up on me completely.
“Zanetti has given us an hour. I’m on my way to the bakery now. Where is it?”
I sniffle and wipe away the tear running down my cheek trying to get it together. “The big cupboard under the island. Tabitha scared me when she walked in and I got nervous and threw the money in there. I swear I didn’t do it on purpose, Bennett. I would have told you. I didn’t mean to lie. I forgot.” I ramble on not sure when to stop explaining and start apologizing.
“You forgot you threw twenty thousand dollars in the bottom of a cupboard?”
He’s mad. I’m not sure there’s any way to make him understand the thoughts in my mind at the time. I’m not sure I knew what was going on in my mind at the time. Not fully. What would anyone do in that situation?
“Bennett, I’m so sorry. I’ll come to the bakery right now and meet you.”
“No,” his words stop the progress I’d made toward the exit door. “Frankie is pissed and on the warpath. You are safer at the club. We have a guy on you outside.”
My mouth opens, the question about what he means when he says “a guy outside” on the tip of my tongue. Before I have the chance to ask, my scream pierces the air in the little hallway. It’s short and more of a squeak, cutting off once I get a look at what scared me.
“Don’t move, princess.” A man, at least six inches taller than me looms over my body, backing me up against the wall. I have no idea how he entered the little hallway I’ve been talking to Bennett in, but there’s no mistaking the gun he’s pressed to my forehead. The metal warms as it dents my skin.
“Anessa!” Bennett yells into the phone. I’m too scared to respond with more than a small whine.
The tall man takes the phone from my hand and I do nothing to stop him. The plastic covered piece of metal slips away easily as I try my hardest not to move, allowing only my chest to heave up and down.
The man puts the phone to his ear, his smile stretching when he hears whatever Bennett yells on the other end.
“Tell Ridge not to worry about the money. I’m sure Mr. Zanetti will be more than pleased when I bring him this sweet little morsel.” His eyes rake me from top to bottom as his smile turns into something more resembling a sneer. His body presses against mine driving me further into the wall to keep my body away from his.
But it’s no use. I have nowhere to go.
There are muffled sounds coming from the phone, but none of it audible even though I turned up the volume to hear Bennett over the rumbling of the crowd.
My attacker turns his head to the phone, swipes a thumb across the screen, and ends the call. He drops the phone. It bounces on the tile floor and his now empty hand runs along my jawline. I attempt to flatten myself against the wall, my head scraping against the exposed brick, my hair pulling as I twist and turn to get away from him. He brings his hand back snapping it forward to slap my cheek. The force knocks my head against the wall, a brick scraping the skin above my eye.
“Let’s you and I get to know each other a little better, huh, sweetheart?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
His hand fumbles on my shirt collar, pulling the material out of the way. I bat at him, hitting it with mine as hard as possible.
“Knock it off.” With one tug the man sticks his hand in my shirt and pushes a piece of paper in my bra, the thick corner poking my skin. “Mr. Z wants you to have his card.”
A series of rapid pops comes from the other room. Like someone lit off a string of firecrackers.
But it’s not fireworks.
It’s gunfire.
I scream, this one loud and heartfelt. Forgetting about the guy and the gun, I drop to the floor and cover my neck like they taught us during a tornado drill in elementary school. It’s not going to save me from gunfire, but it’s the only plan I have.
The guy trying to kidnap me doesn’t shoot, but instead spits out a curse. “Dumbasses were supposed to go unnoticed.”
His eyes scan back and forth, examining the area between the two doors in the hallway. One leads back to the main room and the other down a flight of stairs.
“You’re not worth it.” He turns, flinging open the door, and escapes down the steps of the unlabeled exit.
The gunfire stops, or at least it’s no longer noticeable over the screams from the panic happening in the club. I’m frozen in this poorly lit hallway. If I run down the stairs, I’m chasing after a guy who held a gun to my head. If I go back into the club, I’m running toward gunfire. Right now my best option is to do nothing.
