The live stream on her primary platform had ended. Or been shut off due to violence?
Oh God.
What if I’m too late?
Images flashed through my mind: Mathew with that knife, Dakota’s terrified face, the way she’d looked so small, tied to that chair. What if the last thing I’d see of her was through a phone screen?
I charged up the stairs even faster, my lungs burning, and finally bolted down the hallway toward her apartment door.
Please don’t be too late. Please, please, please.
The hallway stretched endlessly in front of me, each step echoing off the walls like gunshots. Her door was just ahead: 3B. A place that had been her sanctuary.
Now it was her prison.
I reached for the handle.
Locked.
64
DAKOTA
Mathew shoved me to the ground.
I fell to my knees, the impact jarring through my bones, but quickly spun around. In a heartbeat that felt like the expanse of eternity, I registered the pure fury rippling across his face. His lips curled back, revealing teeth like a snarling animal, and one of his hands was balled into such a tight fist that his knuckles had gone white while the other gripped the knife like a lifeline.
He grabbed me by my much shorter hair.
With a yelp, I tried to fight him off, clawing at his arms, but he was stronger. So much stronger. His rage seemed to fuel him, making him superhuman as he held me with one hand and used his knife-yielding one to prop the chair back upright.
Then he slammed me back down onto it.
The breath whooshed out of my lungs as my spine hit the hard wood.
“You want to show your authentic self?” he snarled, moving into position behind me. The blade of the knife kissed my jugular, and I could feel my pulse hammering against the sharpsteel. It was the only thing that kept me perfectly still now. One wrong move, one twist in the wrong direction, and I would bleed out on live stream. “Let’s show them the real you. Scared, helpless, not the strong, independent woman you pretend to be.”
This is it. This is how I die.
“Mathew, please.” My voice cracked, barely a whisper.
“You wanted raw? You wanted real?” His breath was hot against my ear, and I could smell the metallic scent of blood, mixed with his sweat. “This is as real as it gets, baby.”
Tears cascaded down my cheeks, hot and unstoppable. The salt stung the raw patches where he’d scrubbed away my makeup. With the cameras still rolling, recording every second of my humiliation, the knife pressed deeper into my skin. I felt the sharp bite of metal, felt a warm trickle slide down my neck.
The social media empire I built. The thing I was so proud of.
It had attracted this. A deranged man who’d fallen in love with a fantasy. A man who believed he was responsible for all my success. A man who believed he owned me.
And now it would cost me everything.
Axel, I’m so sorry. I love you.
Mathew’s grip tightened in my hair, and the blade pressed deeper.
“Say goodbye, Dakota.”
65
