The last of the tape around my legs tears, and I go to work on the loops around my torso. This…is harder. Contorting so I can keep the rips under my free arm…so I can hide them from Noah if he comes back before I finish…and still having enough strength to punch through four layers… But…I’m close. So close.
The lock snaps, and I’m out of time. Shaking, still bound to the damn chair by an inch or so of tape, my shoulders slump, and I drop the pen on the table.
“I hope you’ve thought about what you want to say, Evianna,” Noah taunts as he rounds the table and drops a bag on the floor. He places my phone between us. “Unlock code, please?”
“Eight, two, nine, one, one, three,” I say, my voice stalling on the last word.
“There’s no service down here, but I’ll attach your message to the email I send her as soon as you’re gone.” Noah taps the screen a few times to launch the voice recorder. “Say anything I don’t like, and I’ll make your boyfriend suffer. He’s famous, you know. Dax Holloway? One of the only two Special Forces members to survive fifteen months in the worst of the Taliban interrogation camps? I can make him relive those days. Let Louie go to work on him, keep him tied up, starve him…for days. Weeks even.”
“Please,” I beg. “D-don’t hurt him. He was just trying to protect m-me.” A fresh round of tears spills onto my cheeks, and an icy ball of fear sits on my chest, making each breath harder than the last.
With one touch of the screen, he activates the recorder.
“Mom? I’m…I’m sorry. I…didn’t…don’t…want to leave you, but I can’t…I don’t have a choice. I did something. Bad.”
Noah gestures for me to get on with it, and I glare at him through my tears. “I love you, Mom. So much. I…don’t know how to say goodbye, but I…I love you.”
Tucking my phone back into the bag on the floor, Noah smiles. “So touching. But now…please finish the note so we can get on with this. I need to be seen by my doorman in an hour.”
“Please, Noah. I won’t tell…anyone. I’ll just disappear. You don’t have to kill me.”
“This will be the largest data breach in the world, Evianna. Big names. Business men and women, government officials, billionaires, foreign and domestic alike. Alfie records everything. Credit card numbers. Bank access codes. Over a few days, it’ll track patterns, passwords… I’ll have enough information stored to blackmail the rich and powerful for years. There’s nowhere you could hide.” Sadness wells in his hazel eyes. “I really didn’t want it to be you. But…it makes so much more sense than pinning the whole thing on Kyle. Now write.”
He unscrews the top on the prescription bottle and pours a dozen pills out on the table. I can’t tear my gaze away, and my hand shakes as I pick up the pen.
What I did was wrong. I know that now. I can’t keep pretending it wasn’t.
I look up, pleading with Noah one last time, but he arches a brow and gestures for me to continue.
The crash as the door slams open makes us both jump, and I feel the last bit of the tape under my arm give way. Louie rushes in and whispers something to Noah. Something that makes him very angry.
“Go. Now. I don’t care what you have to do, but make it hurt,” he growls.
Oh God. Dax.
As soon as Louie shuts the door, I shift my grip on the pen and lunge for Noah. The tip of the pen drives through his cheek—shit, I was aiming for his eye—and he roars in pain as blood spurts over my fingers. He rears back, and I lose my grip on the pen.
“You bitch!” Noah yells, though the words are a little muffled as he’s clutching his cheek and trying to pull the pen free. Ripping at the tape, I manage to tear it off my left arm and chest, but then Noah springs for me, and I fall—still in the chair—my head slamming against the ground.
Stars fill my field of vision, and Noah presses his entire forearm against my throat. I can’t breathe, and I buck my body, trying to get him off of me. My right knee is all I can really move, and I slam it into his balls. With a yelp, he curls in on himself, but he’s still half on top of me.
Something crashes to my left, followed by a low grunt. I can just make out his black shirt and pants. “Dax! He’s…on…me!” In my panic, I can’t figure out the clock time. “Go…a little right!”
“Get the fuck away from her,” he growls and springs for me. Noah turns just in time and tackles him, and both men land on the floor a foot away.
Fighting to free myself from the last of the tape, I stagger to my feet, grab the chair, and swing it—hard—catching Noah in the back.
Dax lands a sharp punch to Noah’s jaw, and shoves him to the side. “Is he unconscious?” he rasps. “Quickly, darlin’. I need to know.”
“Y-yes.” Dropping the chair, I’m in Dax’s arms in three steps. “You came.”
“I promised.” He kisses me hard, then pulls back to skim a hand over my hair. “Are you okay?”
“I think so. But…we have to get out of here.”
“Any idea where here is?”
“No. Just that we’re underground. Far enough there’s no cell signal. But—oh!” Extricating myself from Dax’s embrace, I reach for the black bag next to the table. “Vest, glasses, phones, your cane…they’re all here. No comms, but everything else.”
