I put my leather jacket on and followed the rest of the team out the door, praying to whatever gods there were that we would get to Greg in time.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
GREG
My head was pounding, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Where was I? I was sitting in an extremely uncomfortable chair. How did I get here? I leaned forward, intending to get out of the chair, but my forward motion was stopped by something wrapped around my torso. I put my hand to my chest and felt a leather strap going across it. I moved my hand down my torso and found three more straps holding me in place.
“What is happening?” I whispered.
“Ah, you’re finally awake.”
I went rigid. I knew that voice. Paul Jameson. I’d met him at Café Roma. The memories flooded back and my lip curled up in a snarl. “You son of a bitch. You drugged me, you coward.”
“Tsk tsk. That’s not very polite.”
“Fuck polite. You don’t deserve politeness.”
A hand grabbed my hair and yanked my head back. I saw a flash of steel and felt the edge of a knife blade press against my throat. He leaned in close to my face, his pale-blue eyes wide with rage. “I’d watch my mouth if I were you,” he said through clenched teeth.
I went very still. My heart was racing, and I felt sweat trickle down the back of my neck. But I still stared right at him. If he was going to kill me, he was going to have to look me in the eyes.
He finally let go and pulled the knife away. “You’re not at all what I expected. I suppose that comes from hanging around your thug of a boyfriend.”
I wanted to burst out laughing, but I managed to keep silent. Tony was the sweetest, kindest man I knew. Tears pricked the backs of my eyes as the thought came to me that I might never see his beautiful face again.No. Stop thinking that way. Tony will find you.I took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart.
The sound of something dragging across the floor drew my attention, and I finally looked at my surroundings. I was in what appeared to be an empty bedroom, judging by the closet on the far wall. There was a single window covered with a dark cloth. An air mattress covered with a sheet lay in one corner. The only light came from a bare bulb overhead.
The dragging sound I heard was Paul pulling an electronic keyboard mounted on a metal stand across the room. What. The. Fuck? He adjusted the instrument’s position until it was centered right in front of me. I stared up at my captor. “What the hell is this?”
“Surely you recognize a keyboard when you see one.” I wanted to slap the smug expression off his disgusting face.
“Of course I know it’s a keyboard,” I snapped. “Why is it here?”
“You’re going to play for me,” he replied simply.
I was speechless for a long moment. “Play for you? Are you serious? You have me strapped to this chair, and now you’re demanding I play the piano for you?”
“That’s right,” he said, his lip curled up in a sneer. “I even made sure your arms were free so you could play. I have beenfollowing you for months. You play for everyone else but never have time to play for me.”
I felt like I was going crazy. “I never even met you before today! How could I not play for someone I don’t know?”
“I’ve been at City Lights every Saturday night since you started working there. Every time I asked for a song, you didn’t have it.” His aggrieved expression and whiny tone would have been hilarious under different circumstances. Now he just looked like a lunatic.
I clenched. “I don’t have every piece of music ever written memorized or on my tablet.”
He propped a tablet against the music stand on the keyboard. “That won’t be a problem today.” He brought the tablet to life. On it was a piece of music whose title was vaguely familiar. He turned on the keyboard and pulled up a second chair I hadn’t noticed. He sat directly across from me. “Now play for me.”
A burst of anger blew through me, and I thought about refusing until I caught sight of the knife laying across Paul’s lap. In that moment, I don’t think I could have hated anyone more than I did him. I pressed my lips together and looked at the music in front of me. I focused my thoughts on Tony and began to play.
I played one piece after another. Many of them I’d never heard or had known existed. I couldn’t begin to know where he’d gotten the music. I’d lost all sense of time in the darkened room. I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious. I didn’t know what part of the city I was in. The street sounds were muffled, so I couldn’t tell if we were in a busy part of the city or not.
I finished another piece and put my hands in my lap. My wrists and arms were aching, mostly from tension and the unnatural position I was sitting in.
Paul straightened up. “What are you doing?”
“Taking a break,” I replied. “My wrists hurt.”
He glared at me, and I thought he was going to demand that I start playing again. Finally, he shrugged. “I’ll allow it.” He looked at his smartwatch. “We’ve been here for over three hours. I knew planning this for when your boyfriend’s personnel extraction team was out of the country would give me all the time I needed to make you mine.”
