Oh, screw it! She didn’t care what they figured out about her. No doubt she was going to die, anyway.
She might as well do it while hugging her whale.
But as she pulled him toward her, she saw it wasn’t just Wally sitting there.
Angie sucked in a breath. “Wallina?”
Okay. This had already been weird. Now, it was super weird. Who had taken her?
Wait. Zander wouldn’t do this in order to get her to come back to the compound, would he?
Surely not.
Hmm. Actually . . .
“Zander, if you’ve kidnapped me to prove a point, I’m going to kill you.”
Nothing.
Great. Not Zander then? He’d probably already be lecturing her if he was the one who had done this.
Crawling up the bed and ignoring her poor throbbing toe, she grabbed both toys and then climbed under the covers.
If anyone was watching her, she didn’t want them to see her hugging her toys. Or sucking on the tips of her fingers. She had no idea why she did that rather than sucking on her thumb.
It was just something that brought her comfort. She kind of liked the sucking sound that it made when she comforted herself with her fingers.
Also, she’d found that hiding from your problems was really good therapy.
Well, maybe not therapy. Perhaps it was just a really good way of ignoring the fact that she had issues.
She didn’t know how long she lay there, but she didn’t think it was long until the door opened.
“Well, of all the scenarios I thought of this wasn’t one. I figured you might be angry or scared. Maybe that you’d yell or cry,” a low voice said.
She tensed while trying to remain still and quiet.
That voice was familiar. It tickled something in the back of her mind.
“Kicking the door was kind of dumb, wasn’t it? What were you hoping to achieve? Did you really think that you’d be able to kick it down? Dumb move. You’re in bare feet. And did you break your toe? Yeah, that was a really dumb thing to do.”
If he didn’t stop calling her dumb, she was going to kick his ass.
Yeah? You and whose army?
Suddenly, the blankets were ripped off, and she stared up into the face of the man standing there.
She wasn’t surprised. Around the second time he’d said the word “dumb” she’d realized who it was.
But was North acting alone? He was Jared’s assistant.
Which likely meant that Jared Bartolli was the one who had kidnapped her.
She’d always known that a Bartolli would end her life. She just wished she’d had the chance to live it first.
She hadn’t wanted anything spectacular. She didn’t need to be famous or powerful or rich.
She’d have been so happy with something truly ordinary.
