I hoped he knew. I hoped he understood I hadn’t meant for this to happen. That if I could have chosen, he wouldn’t have been involved.
I was going to hold on to my word if that was the last thing I did.
If I was going to die—and that thought made me whimper—I had to make this right. I had to try. He didn’t deserve this.
“Please leave him alone! We barely know each other! He was a one-night stand!” I wailed, sounding like a fucking crazy person, but… but… I was.
What if this was the end?
“I’m sorry!” I shrieked, my voice breaking as I tried to move my arm, tried to reach for him, for something… but nothing budged.
Oh my god, I was so scared.
But he had to get out of here. He had to survive. “I’m sorry! Live a long life!” My voice just… broke, and I gasped for a breath that hurt so bad my eyes watered even as my ribs, back, and all my joints cried out in protest from how roughly I was being carried. “Be safe!”
I was on my own.
Like I’d always known I would be.
I screamed.
I screamed for help. For my future. Like my grandma had told me to if a stranger ever tried to abduct me.
I screamed for them to please let me go.
Please and please andplease.
I didn’t want to die.I wasn’t sorry, and I didn’t say I was sorry. And I didn’t say I would do anything to keep on living, because that wasn’t true either. I wouldn’t betray him. I had nothing left but my honor.
I screamed, hoping for mercy maybe. For my life.
I wished I could have done the sign of the cross. I tried to remember the prayers I’d said thousands of times.Our father, who art in heaven….
Big, fat tears pooled in my eyes and onto the floor. No one listened as they carried me down a hall with more concrete floors and through another heavy door. I was pretty sure I heard someone laugh, maybe more than just a single someone.
My shoulders and hips hurt as blood rushed to my face and into my nose, making it hard to breathe. Eventually, they stopped in front of another door. Then, just like that, these fuckers let me go, dropping me onto the hard floor. For some reason, my eyes instantly went to the sink in the corner, to a hose attached to it and dangling to the floor.
A moment later, my arms were grabbed again and tucked behind my back, and something sharp bit into my wrists.
I cried out as they tugged them up, forcing me to sit up, jerking even more at my shoulders.
I dipped my head back to find the faces of two men looking at me with hard, solemn expressions before a voice said, “That was a lot more dramatic than I’d expected.”
It was a woman. She had dark brown hair and was dressed in gray slacks and a black button-down shirt. She looked just like a person who worked in an office. And she was short. She could have been anywhere between her thirties and fifties. Pretty.
She looked fucking bored. This bad energy came from her as well. My stomach didn’t like it.
I pressed my lips together to keep from making another peep.
“Don’t waste my time. You know what we want. Make this easier on both of us and just tell me where it is,” the woman straight-up said as I sat there, sniffling because my nose was burning from all the blood that had rushed to my head. “Don’t make me ask you again.”
So this was how they were going to do this. No beating around the bush. I didn’t know what to do.
I swallowed hard before tipping my chin up and flicking my gaze from her to the two men looking down at me. I hated all three of them. I really did. “I don’t have the money, and I know you aren’t going to believe me anyway, but it’s the truth,” I replied slowly, sniffling, knowing I needed to buy The Defender time, and pissing her off wasn’t the right way to do it, but….
She stared at me for a long time with dark brown eyes, and I just stared back.
I hadn’t taken the money from her. From them. I hadn’t asked for any of this shit.
