by Scott, S. L.
As soon as he hangs up, he’s on another call, telling someone what happened. Tapping me on the shoulder, he signals to go left. The SUV speeds down the alley, coming to a stop in front of us. The locks are popped because apparently now they’re fucking using them, and we get in.
The driver reverses as Lars relays what happened again. I hear him say Aaron’s name. That means Ethan’s gotten wind. My phone buzzes, and I huff before answering. “Thought we weren’t supposed to call each other?”
“I’m on an untraceable phone.” I expected a lecture, but that’s not what I get. He says, “I don’t know what to say, Bennett. We’re gearing up.”
“I promised I’d protect her. I promised her, E.”
“I know. Aaron’s tracked your vehicle and is tapping into cameras to find the van. We already have a photo of it. We’ll find her.”
When we drive away from the area, I collapse onto the seat, knowing there’s no chance of finding her now. “What just happened? She was here, right where I am, and then she was gone.”
I’m not asking him anything, but he says, “We’ll find her. I promise.”
“Before she’s dead?”
“You can’t think like that. I’ve been there, and it won’t do you any good. I need you to focus. Are you with me, Bennett?”
“I’m with you. I’m here,” I say, raking my fingers through my hair.
“I told Lars to take you—”
“I’m not going to the secret location. I can’t sit and hide while she’s . . . Fuck. I’m not resting until I have her back.”
“I was going to say you’re going to the operations center. You can sleep in the panic room while the glass is being replaced on the building.”
“I just met her, but . . .” She more than matters to me. I love her.
“I know, Ben. She does too. I’ll touch base soon.”
“Okay.” I hang up, and lying on my back, I stare out the far window as the tops of buildings flash by. “Where are you, Winter?” I whisper, closing my eyes as I try to summon the connection that was built out of the blue. My heart reached for hers, and hers danced with me in the moonlight of a Parisian bistro. It was the perfect setup for romance; something she’d read in a book but instead shared with me. “Where are you, ma chérie? Stay strong and please believe that I’m coming for you.” I send that into the universe, hoping it lands with her wherever she may be.
“ETA—two minutes. Don’t waste time. Be ready to get out. I don’t know if the building has been secured since we were going to do that after dropping you off at the secret location,” Lars says.
I sit up, and my shoulders fold forward; her loss is a defeat weakening my muscles. The SUV comes to a stop in the garage, and I hop out at the same time as Lars. The operations door is open, and we step inside.
The metal door slams shut, and a bolt is turned, locking us in, and the world out. I step up behind a security guard I don’t recognize. Lars has never been good with introductions, but if he’s here, he’s on the team.
The guy points at the lowest monitor on the wall. “We hacked into the city’s camera system. You never saw the van come up beside you because it came from this T-street. From the lobby, our SUV blocked them entirely from view.” He looks up at me. “But here’s what puzzles me. There was no way for them to track you. This SUV is unmarked and recently went under complete inspection, bulletproofed, the whole nine yards.”
I say, “It was her father or her brother.”
I’m working this out in my head, but Lars says, “Depends on what they would gain from that. Is she worth more to them dead or alive?”
“After what we just witnessed, we know the answer.” We bend to get a look at the video capturing the van at different points, but then it disappears. “How can it vanish even from the camera?”
The silence builds as he rewinds and then replays it. Lars says, “Again.” Again. And again until Lars points at the screen. “Pause it right there.”
“What is it?” I ask, leaning in closer.
“The van.”
“Where? I don’t see it.”
“That’s just it.” His heavy sigh brings our attention to him. With his hands on his head, he walks to the other side of the room. “They were right fucking there. They turned their lights off, and we drove right by that alley.”
“What?” My head whips back to the camera. “Play it again.”
He rewinds the footage again and plays it in real time. The camera covers the alley from one end to the other. When it pivots back to the where the van was last seen, the lights are cut just as they turn. “Fucking, fuck, fuck, fuck!” I slam the bottom of my fists against the wall. There will never be a pain like the loss of Winter, so the blood caused by the jagged edges of the concrete means nothing to me. “I could feel her near.” I scrub my hands over my face. “What have we done? If she dies . . .” I struggle to say the words, but the truth hurts, and I’ll take every ounce of this guilt. “It’s because of me.”
* * *
After two hours of watching the same footage, we still have nothing to go on. The camera never caught the van leaving, but after sending a team to investigate the alley, we’re still left empty-handed.
Ethan arrives just after midnight. He looks tired, but he’s here. “Any leads?” he asks. The door closes behind him, and he walks straight to the monitors.
“None so far,” I say.
Lars, looking worse for the wear, sits in a chair with a laptop. “We’re coming up empty. We checked with the Noblemans but even threats didn’t ruffle them. We did retrieve a text message between Braden and McCoy just after we arrived at the building, though. But we haven’t broken the code.”
“What does it say?” Ethan asks.
He changes screens. “Season’s Greetings.”
“I’ve read it a hundred times and nothing.” Bolting out of the chair, I smack my head. “You say it, and I just solved it.”
Ethan crosses his arms over his chest. “And?”
“Winter. The season. She’s the season. Greetings means she’s there. They’re seeing her, greeting her downstairs. Her brother fucking tipped the kidnappers off. That’s how the van was there so fast. They were already plotting it.”
Beginning to pace, Ethan works through things. “They tried to shoot her or you, maybe both, through the window of your apartment. But you got out.”
“He called my phone, but I didn’t answer.”
“He still couldn’t track your phone.”
“So he lured us in.”
Ethan says, “They didn’t get you in the apartment, so they were ready for you when you left.”
“They knew her weakness, and they used it against her,” I add.
Lars leans back. “Her mother.”
Nodding, I sit down. “The box was a decoy . . . the bait like she was. She showed up, and her brother texted them.”
“Boom.” Ethan exhales, exhausted. “They were there and got her, but where will they take her?”
“Wherever McCoy is.”
Lars asks, “We tracked him. He’s still not stateside.”
“Fuck.”
Ethan stares at me. “Where is he?”
I say, “Paris.”
32
Winter
My lungs constrict, and I rise, gasping for air, but am jerked down by restraints. Blackness fills my vision except for the dim light that filters the outline of the mask covering my eyes. I reach, but my arms ache in response, the restraints around my wrists confining them above my head.
Wild heartbeats thump against my chest as panic sets in. I’m tempted to cry out, to scream in hopes someone will hear me, but fear of who that might be is stronger. I pull my hands toward my body again, but I’m stuck. The low rattle of metal makes me think handcuffs, but the wide bands around my wrists make me realize it’s the kind for sexual play.
Oh God.
I wiggle my legs, and they’re free. When I spread them wide, I discover I’m on a large m
attress covered in soft and silky sheets, the luxurious kind that covered my bed in Paris.
Closing my eyes, I try to focus on something happier—Bennett’s handsome face and great laugh when I stole his fry—and regulate my panting breaths to calm my heart before it explodes from my chest.
“You can relax,” a female voice says with distance between us. “You’ll be fine.”
I’ll be fine? Fear sprints through my veins. My mind ticks through what happened while I was out. Soft fabric stretches over my breasts, but bra straps don’t cut into my skin. The sheet slips over my legs with ease, but I can feel a pair of underwear covering me. I try to remember what I was wearing when I was awake last.
New York.
Night.
Yoga pants. Sports bra. T-shirt.
Bennett’s face before the door closed and I passed out.
Drugged . . . Kurt.
I’m careful with my words, not sure who or what I’m dealing with. “Where am I? Who are you? Why am I tied up?”
“I expected something more original. Those questions are boring.”
“Not to me.” I try to sit up again. When that’s too hard to do, I rub the side of my head against the pillowcase to get the mask off to no avail. “Let me go. Please.”
The mattress dips beside me, sending my pulse to skyrocket through the roof. A hand lifts my mask, but I don’t find the relief I was expecting. Her smooth hair is shinier up close, her eyes greener, her skin tanner. “Chelsea?”
“We’ve not officially met.”
I glance down at my chest, suddenly feeling more exposed than before. A vintage Blondie T-shirt I bought on the left bank is covering me. That’s when I look past her and around. My apartment . . . Paris. Oh my God! My heart picks up the pace again. I never woke up on the plane this time. I don’t know why that bothers me. I should be happy to be alive, even if only long enough to beg for more time.
My thoughts turn, and I focus on every part of my body, taking inventory of any unwanted sensation. I exhale, closing my eyes, thankful that I don’t feel violated beyond my current situation.
“I dressed you,” she says, “but you even make street clothes look good.” I’m not sure how to respond, so I stare at her, waiting for the ambush. She removes the mask altogether and runs her fingers through my hair to the very tips letting it fall gracefully down around me. I can’t read her eyes. The pupils are large, but they’re void of emotion, maybe resigned. Drugged? She adds, “I’ve heard enough about it to want to feel it for myself.”
Angling away from her, I say, “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.” Sitting there, she appears to contemplate her next move. “I’m never enough for him.” She walks across the small one-room apartment and looks at herself in the mirror. I recognize her dress as the Agostino I bought out of spite last month. It was five thousand dollars, and I didn’t bother having it fitted. I never intended to wear it because it could walk the line between evening and wedding, and I never wanted to give Kurt the wrong idea. I just wanted to burn through his money. He never said a thing.
She says, “I can appreciate a beautiful woman.” Turning back, she looks at me. “But how do I compete?”
The dress doesn’t fit her properly, the small cap sleeves keep dropping. “What are you talking about? Why am I restrained?” I yank at the chains again, my wrists beginning to burn from the tight cuffs rubbing against them.
With my head lifted, I watch her open her clutch and pull out what appears to be a tube of Chanel lipstick. When she starts to apply it, slowly, so she doesn’t color outside the lines, I realize it’s the same color I wear. My gaze flicks to the vanity where I always kept everything organized and notice the empty space. Holy shit, she’s a psycho. Is she single white female-ing me? “Please let me go, Chelsea.”
“I didn’t like this idea, but you know Kurt.”
“What idea?”
Without missing a beat, she continues, “He’s always such a drama king.” She snaps the lid closed and drops it back in her purse. “I won’t be the one who kills you, Winter.”
My head bolts back up. “Kill me?”
“I may be second best, but I’m willing to stick this out until I’m first.” Waggling her hand, she displays a huge diamond ring on her finger. The one that gutted me the first time I saw it on the society page. “I got the ring. Eventually, I’ll own his heart.” She stands and comes to the side of the bed to gaze down at me. “In the meantime, we have dinner plans.”
“We do?”
Laughing, she pats my arm and then turns away. “No, silly.”
While she’s walking to the door, she looks back after snapping up her purse. “I see why he’s fixated on you. Maybe we can spend some time together when I come back to study your personality.”
“Study?” Is she . . . trying to become me? “Chelsea, don’t leave. Let me go. Please don’t leave. Who’s going to kill me?”
The psycho stops and turns around. “That is for you and your god to decide, not me.” She walks out of view, and I hear the door open. “Please,” I shout, tears stinging my eyes. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me like this.”
Then the door slams closed, and I drop my head, tears sliding over my temples into my hair. Kill? Someone is going to kill me?
I won’t welcome it. I’ll fight until my last breath is ripped from my chest because for the first time in my life, I have something to live for. Someone to live for. I squeeze my eyes closed and let thoughts of Bennett meander through my veins to settle my mind so I can think clearly.
Looking up at each wrist, I tug once more to see how hard it would be to break from the bed. The posts are at least five inches thick. My wrist will break before those will. I’m stretched too far to reach either cuff with my head or teeth.
“Fuck!” I shout frustrated, digging my head into the pillow and kicking the covers off.
That’s it! “Help me! Help! Help! Help!” I shout at the top of my lungs. “Help—”
The door opens and my words and breath stall in my throat. Kurt comes around the corner like he lives here. “Winter, shhh. You’re going to get us in trouble.”
“That’s the point.”
He smiles, and it actually appears genuine. When he sits next to me, some kind of strange emotion invades his dark eyes. “Oh, God.” Happiness. That can’t be right. He’s happy to see me? I remember that expression from when we first met. My body shrinks away as much I can when he reaches to touch my face. What the fuck is happening?
“Yes, I’ll be your god, Winter. I’ll be everything. For you.” He looks down at my shirt disapprovingly. I find an ounce of pleasure in his displeasure.
“What are you doing with me?”
“Such a loaded question.” Running the tip of his finger up the middle of my belly and dragging the shirt with it, he stops just before he exposes my breasts. His gaze flicks up to my eyes. “It was good having Chelsea by my side and you in my bed—”
“That was never my choice.”
He laughs humorlessly. “We see things differently. I remember a woman with potential in her eyes asking for a job. Who gave you that job?” When he runs his hand under my shirt, my body recoils from his touch.
“Joyce in HR.”
“I did!” he snaps, pressing on my bruised ribs. The rejection apparently stings, despite me thinking he couldn’t feel anything but contempt. He stands to examine my face and then frowns. “The bruises are healing, but I didn’t mean to hit you so hard.” Grabbing my face, he squeezes enough to cause pain as his thumb digs into the bruise on my jaw. “You make me crazy, and I lose myself.”
“There’s no denying who you really are anymore.” I try to turn away from him, but he holds me there. “Why am I here?”
“Because I miss you,” he replies, leaving me exposed on the bed.
“You have Chelsea.”
“I don’t want Chelsea. She’s predictable.” Ironically, I got the exact opposite vibe from her.
&n
bsp; I shoot daggers with my eyes. I hate everything about him, even the way he walks across the room like he’s actually the god he believes himself to be. “What do you want?”
Unscrewing the top from a bottle of scotch that he always keeps stocked here, he glances at me over his shoulder. “You.”
Everests and me. I don’t dare utter their name, hoping he’s been sidetracked enough to forget about them. I’ll take the hit for all of them, and for Bennett, I would do anything. “You didn’t want me. That’s why you proposed to Chelsea.”
He pours the liquid into a crystal glass and turns around again. With his eyes locked on my body, he swallows, drinking me in with the liquor. Running his thumb over his mouth, he catches the extra drop that escaped the glass and licks it.
Setting the glass down, he moves to the other side of the bed and lies next to me. Staring up at the fabric canopy, the back of his hand rests against my hip. I would move, but I have no doubt he’d find me again. “I made a mistake,” he says, rolling to face me. “If I apologize, will you take me back?”
“What?” I spit that response before I have time to compose a less violent reaction. “This is coming out of the blue, Kurt.” I’ve never seen this side of him. He’s almost . . . human.
“I know. It disappointed me as well. I think I might have a heart, after all, and I’m willing to give it to you to care for. That’s romantic. You like that, right?”
I’m stunned. I even raise an eyebrow in disbelief. Kurt McCoy is a narcissistic psychopath who’s more deluded than his crazy fiancée. I need to outsmart him, which means staying calm and sounding strong . . . Take control of this situation. This is life or death. “What about Chelsea?” I ask, trying to sound unperturbed as if I’m glad he wants me and not her. Play the game, Winter. Play the game. But don’t acquiesce or he’ll know. “Chelsea loves you, Kurt.”
“She has no spine. She doesn’t have an original thought in that head of hers. Not like you. No, she doesn’t have your spirit, the fight to survive, or a soul that’s tainted like mine. I knew you were made to be mine when you took that first step into my office. Darkness attracts darkness, ma princesse ténébreuse.”