What kind of person lists a stranger as their emergency contact instead of their own fiancé, editor, best friend, or mother? Me, apparently. That’s the kind of person I am.
My first video call with Jonus was supposed to be quick. I was working on the follow-up coverage to the Anna Kim story—the whistleblower who’d exposed a massive university fraud scheme with the help of some orcs in Maine. Jonus was coordinating media for his family, and I needed a quote.
Fifteen minutes, I told myself. An hour later, I was still on the zoom call, laughing at something he’d said, and completely forgetting to take notes. This orc had appeared on my laptop screen in the middle of the night—I’d been working late, as usual—and he was nothing like I expected. Yes, there were the tall black horns that burst out from the top of his forehead, the tusks jutting up from his bottom lip. All that green skin, the muscles and the deep voice.
I’d never met an orc in real life and expected to be intimidated, but Jonus had this smooth, easy way of talking that made me feel like the most important person in his life.
Classic media handler energy.
But when I called him on it and said, “You’re very good at this Mr. Irontree, but I’m not here for soundbites. I want the real story”—something shifted in his expression. Apparently, no one had ever called him out before. I could see it in his face. And instead of getting defensive, he let out a genuine laugh. “Fair enough,” he’d said. “And please call me Jonus. What do you want to know?”
And then he actually told me real stuff, not the sanitized version of the story he’d told everyone else.
After that, we kept talking. First it was about the story, then it was about other things. I learned he was very easy to talk to and in fact charming. He’d text me at weird hours and I’d text back and we’d laugh, talk about life, the universe and everything. I realized we had a lot in common and I became close friends with the orc media handler.
At first, I told myself it was professional. Just a good source. Networking. But when I filled out that emergency contact form…I wrote Jonus’s number without even thinking. My hand moved automatically.
And I wonder if anyone’s called him.
Does he even know I’m missing?
And what about Ryan? I wonder if he knows I’m gone and if he cares that I didn’t write him down as my emergency contact. I should probably feel worse about him than I do, considering I was supposedly going to marry the guy but when he proposed, it felt less like a romantic moment and more like a business merger. “It’s time,” he’d said. “We’ve been together long enough. Let’s just do this.” I suspect I said yes because I was thirty-two and my mother kept asking when I was going to settle down and give her grandkids. And because Ryan was perfectly fine and maybe fine was enough.
But as sit in this fetid mud, worried that each day is my last, I’ve come to the deep-seated realization that I deserve better. In fact I can get better. And if I don’t ever find better, I’d rather be alone than settle for less. I’ve only got this one life to live and dammit, I’m going to live it to the fullest.
I let out a deep sigh, thinking of my best friend who is probably losing her mind right now. She’d always hated Ryan and thought he wasn’t good enough for me. I’ve known Lucy since our freshman year of college. Lucy Rodriguez was my roommate. A quiet, bookish girl who organized her textbooks by color and had a truly alarming number of cat memes. Meanwhile, I was the loud one, always chasing some story for the campus paper, always forgetting to eat or sleep.
We balanced each other out.
She became a librarian for the freaking Library of Congress and lives a quiet life with her cats and her books. She’s soft, warm and kind in all the ways I’m sharp and prickly. Lucy doesn’t understand my need to chase dangerous stories, but she’s never tried to change me either.
Unlike Ryan or basically everyone else in my life.
When I told her about the Colombia trip, she didn’t lecture me but just said, “Be careful. I have a bad feeling about this one.”
“I’m always careful,” I’d told her.
Famous last words.
I exhale and shift my position in the dirt, trying to get comfortable. I’m hoping that Lucy has called everyone by now—my editor, my mother, the State Department—and organized some kind of search committee. That’s who she is—the type who shows up and refuses to give up anything truly important without a fight.
I hope she’s not blaming herself for not stopping me and I hope I get to see her again.
The stupidest part of all this is that I know exactly why I’ve been kidnapped.
It’s all because of Larry Aldridge, the real estate billionaire, the same asshole mastermind behind the university fraud that Anna Kim exposed. Senator Vance got arrested for her crimes, David Klein cut a deal, but Aldridge managed to slip away. His crimes weren’t just domestic and his money didn’t only come from crooked real estate deals. Aldridge’s money came from Colombia, from working with the Reyes cartel. And I found the paper trail that can finally take that asshole down. I discovered the shell companies in Panama, the wire transfers through Cayman banks and real estate purchases in Miami that were obviously money laundering. It was all there, if you knew where to look.
I’d been chasing this story for months. Jonus warned me it was dangerous. My editor was nervous about the expense report. But I had a source, a local guy who said he could connect me to someone inside the cartel who wanted to talk.
It was a setup. Obviously. I see that now. I was sloppy and eager and wanted the story so badly I ignored every red flag. And now I’m in a pit in the jungle, and Larry Aldridge is going to make sure I never publish what I know.
I’ve heard the guards mention his name twice.
“Aldridge wants this handled.”
“Aldridge is getting impatient.”
And earlier today, the scary one said something that made my blood run cold.
