"Clear! Package secured!"
Package.
That's all I was to them. Cargo. An objective achieved.
Through the thinning smoke, I saw him approaching.
Senator Richard Caldwell.
The suit was still expensive—charcoal, perfectly tailored—but the man wearing it had come apart at the seams.. Hair styled with precision. Shoes polished to a mirror shine, reflecting the scattered glass and blood.
Completely wrong amid the violence and destruction. And yet he'd come himself. That's what told me how far gone he was.
His face twisted with desperation and rage—not the smooth politician I'd known during our engagement. Something feral lurked underneath now, all pretense stripped away.
I almost married him, I thought with surreal detachment. I nearly walked down an aisle toward this man.
The thought made bile rise in my throat.
He walked toward me while his contractors held me down against the cold tile.
"You stupid girl." His voice shook with the effort of keeping it level. "All you had to do was play your part."
He crouched close, invading my space. I could smell his cologne—expensive, cloying, the same scent he'd worn on our dates. It had seemed sophisticated then. Now it made me nauseous.
"You've destroyed my career. My reputation. Everything I built." He grabbed my jaw, forcing me to look at him. Eyes red-rimmed. Unslept. "The FBI froze my accounts, seized my assets. I'm finished wither way. My entire life is burning to ashes because of you."
That's why he'd come. Not strategy. Spite. He had nothing left to lose, and he wanted to watch.
"Good," I spat, voice hoarse from screaming. "You deserve worse."
His hand cracked across my face.
Stars exploded behind my eyes. The taste of copper flooded my mouth, thick and warm. My cheek burned.
"I'm going to make sure your boyfriend knows exactly how you suffered." He leaned closer, breath hot against my ear. "Every. Single. Detail."
The anticipation in his voice—the pleasure he'd take in my pain—sent ice water through my veins.
Alessio, I thought desperately. Please. Please find me before—
But Alessio was miles away at his meeting. Didn't know any of this was happening.
Caldwell gestured sharply to his men. "Get her in the van. We're gone in sixty seconds."
They hauled me up with my bound arms, shoulders screaming in protest. My legs wouldn't work properly, my muscles turning to water by shock and terror.
They dragged me anyway—my slippers torn off in the first few steps, bare feet scraping across broken glass and blood-slick tile. Each step left red footprints.
Through smoke and bodies toward the entrance. FBI agents down everywhere, some moving weakly, some terribly still.
"Alessio!" I screamed with everything I had left, voice cracking and breaking. "Alessio!"
I knew he couldn't hear. Knew he was too far away.
But I screamed anyway because what else could I do?
They dragged me through the doorway into sunlight that stabbed my smoke-irritated eyes.
