Which means they want me alive.
For now.
I force my eyes open, blinking against the dim light filtering through dusty windows.
I'm in a living room.
That's the first thing that registers, and it's so unexpected that for a moment I think I'm hallucinating.
A living room.
Not a warehouse, not a basement, not some cold industrial space—a living room.
With a worn floral couch and a coffee table covered in water rings.
A fireplace with a mantle full of dusty picture frames—photographs of people I don't recognize, frozen smiles from decades past.
Faded wallpaper peeling at the corners, the pattern something floral and old-fashioned.
A grandfather clock in the corner, its pendulum still.
It looks like someone's grandmother's house.
Like a place where you'd eat cookies and drink lemonade on a summer afternoon.
There's even a crocheted afghan draped over the arm of the couch, moth-eaten and faded but carefully arranged.
It's the normalcy that makes it terrifying.
Except I'm tied to a chair in the middle of it.
And there are men with guns blocking every doorway.
I count four of them—big, hard-faced, wearing tactical gear that looks military-grade.
They're not looking at me.
They're watching the windows, the doors, the perimeter.
Scanning for threats. Professional. Disciplined.
The kind of men who've done this before, who treat kidnapping like a job with protocols and procedures.
My stomach lurches—partly fear, partly something else.
The nausea that's been plaguing me for days rises up, and I have to swallow hard to keep from vomiting.
The baby. Oh god, the baby.
I don't know how long I was unconscious.
Don't know what the chloroform might have done.
My hand strains against the rope, instinctively trying to reach my stomach, but the bindings hold fast.
"She's awake."
The voice comes from behind me.
