No one had any reason to stop by. Much less knock on my actual door.
It occurred to me to scream. This might be my best—my only—chance to alert someone I was being held here against my will. I sucked in a breath?—
“Oh no you don’t!” Dennis slapped a hand over my mouth before I could even get it open.
“Shut up,” he hissed. “Shut up until whoever it is goes away.”
But whoever it was didn’t go away. A minute passed. Then…
A second knock. Louder. Fist pounding the wood.
Dennis tensed.
The thought must have hit him at the same time it hit me.
Maybe it was his “associates.” The ones he’d been yes-manning on his burner phone since getting out of prison.
“Dammit,” he muttered under his breath. “The whole point of staying in this crappy apartment was so they wouldn’t know where I lived.”
He fiddled with something out of my sightline—something I realized was duct tape when he plastered it over my mouth, making it so I couldn’t scream for help.
I could only watch as Dennis grabbed the gun from where he’d laid it on the nightstand.
He tucked the weapon behind his back and stalked out to answer the front door, closing my bedroom one behind him.
I heard the faint creak of hinges as the door opened.
A pause.
Then a deep, rumbling voice said: “I’m here to talk to Bell Winters.”
“BellJordan.” Dennis corrected the stranger before his voice turned suspicious. “And what’s this about? What do you want with her?”
Even now, he wouldn’t use my real name, and his voice dripped with jealousy, as if I’d somehow invited this stranger over while being held hostage for six months.
“She here?” the gruff voice asked.
“No,” Dennis lied. “What did you say your name was again?”
“You don’t need that information. But I do need to talk to BellWinters.”
My name.
My real name. The one I’d put in the paperwork to go back to as soon as they hauled Dennis out of that courtroom in handcuffs.
I was trapped, silenced, helpless. But still, my chest warmed at the way the stranger at the door refused to call me anything else.
Dennis doubled down.
“Like I said, she’s not—hey, what’re you doing? You can’t come in here!”
A heavy stomp of boots, followed by, “Where is she?”
Dennis lost it. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, man, barging into my apartment, pushing me around? You better not mess with me! I know how to defend myself!”
I couldn’t see Dennis, but I could easily picture him pointing the gun at the stranger.
“Get out or I’ll?—”
