The video rolls on.
It gives her every bit of information she needs to temporarily keep this ruse going.
Representative Armani panics consistently through out the footage as Viktor blackmails him with assault allegations that are against his own daughter.
I didn’t expect that to be what returns the money to our boss, but it works nonetheless.
It is disgusting.
I’m not even a father yet. Even so, I can see how fucked up that is, and that is one hundred percent surprising considering I make a living ignoring worse.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chloe
The zip-tiesaround my wrists fall to the floor, the burn from being bound for hours fading to a dull ache.
“You’re really going to send me back with him?” I ask quietly, letting my voice carry a smudge of anger in it.
He doesn’t answer immediately, instead I can feel his eyes on me, though the mask makes it impossible to read anything beyond the tilt of his head.
“Truth be told, I don’t like it any more than you do,” he replies. “But the terms were clear. He tells us where the money is and you go home with him. End of discussion.”
I let out a humorless laugh, wincing as my sore shouldersprotest the movement. “And I’m supposed to just.. what? Obey?”
He straightens, his presence behind me solid as he walks me toward the door. “You’ll have a choice,” he says as he opens it and guides me through. “Don’t misunderstand me. When I’m saying you’ll go with him, that’s true. But if you want out of that situation, truly out, you have to fight. Don’t let him use fear to control you.”
I continue forward, trying to understand fully what he’s saying.
He stops in his tracks and pulls me by the arm so that I’m standing in front of him. “You never let him think he has the upper hand again.”
“Why bother?” I ask quietly, glancing over my shoulder. “He has too much power. There’s nothing I can say to change that.”
He pauses, tilting his head, and I catch the faintest hint of tension in his shoulders. “Nothing you can say, sure. But is there something you can do? That’s up to you.”
I swallow a dry gulp before speaking. “Why are you telling me all of this? I mean, seriously. You’ve been abusing me into submission the past few days and now you’re telling me to fight the only thing I’ve ever known?”
The world goes dark the moment someone behind me slips a bag over my head. The coarse fabric presses against my skin, cutting off the sight I had before.
“I’m a lot of things, Chloe. I cross a lot oflines. But I couldn’t live within myself if I set idly by while you went back into the hands of your poor excuse of a father.”
I nod and let out a dark-humor filled laugh. “Literally.”
He doesn’t reply. I know he’s still there, but I have a feeling he doesn’t understand what I’m saying.
“Get it? You’re shoving me back into his hands. ‘Cause he touches me.”
You find ways to get through trauma, and dark-humor was just one of those things for me.
After a brief second, he chuckles lowly. “I think you’re a bit fucked in the head, love.”
Someone then grabs my arm, pulling me away from my captor. I know it isn’t him because this grip feels.. different.
After a few more steps, I’m pushed into the back of some type of vehicle. I don’t know where we are, but I know where I’m headed.
I feel movement beside me. “Chlo-Bear. Is that you?”
A sickening feeling surges through me and I keep repeating my kidnapper’s words again and again in my head as the vehicle begins to move.
