Mine: A Romantic Suspense Thriller (A Back to Me Series Book 2)

by Brittany Taylor

  “Lena?” He sits back in his chair.

  I pull out my phone. A text from Lena pops up on my screen, telling me she’s at Abby’s. “I have to go.”

  “Where are you going?” Max stands. His expression turns to worry when he sees me walking out of the office. I can tell he isn’t angry at me for ditching him in the middle of the lunch rush. He follows me until I’ve reached the back door leading to the side of the building.

  “I have to find Lena. She’s supposed to be meeting Abby at her accounting office. She’s having a grand opening soon but wanted Lena to be the first to see it.”

  “Wait, you mean the office space she bought a few months back?”

  “Yeah.” I glance over my shoulder. He’s still following me. “Why?”

  “I drove by there the other day and the place looks the same as it did the day Abby claimed she bought the place. There’s no way it’s ready for an opening, much less showing Lena anything.”

  I stop and turn around. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.” He blinks, the worry in his eyes matching mine. “I don’t think Abby ever had any intention of turning it into an accounting business.”

  “Fuck.” A bad feeling seeps into my veins, shooting through me. None of this made any sense. The only part of it that did is me finding Lena. I had to find her. That much I knew.

  I push against the back door with as much force as I can muster, leaving Max in the kitchen. The hot sticky air beats against my face as I dial Lena’s phone number.

  It rings three times before connecting to her voicemail. I hang up and dial her number again. I hadn’t realized it, but my feet have already started carrying me in the direction of Abby’s office.

  When she doesn’t answer on the third try, I start running the three blocks to Abby’s office. My black shoes land against the pavement, heavy and weighted. Abby’s office isn’t far, but it might as well have been in another city. Three blocks is all that stood between the vibrant part of Seattle and the more desolate side.

  Rain starts to pour, the clouds growing from a light shade of gray, darkening as the rain pours harder. My chef jacket is soaked, water seeping into the fabric and onto my skin. When I turn the corner onto the street where Abby’s office is, I immediately spot Lena’s car parked alongside the curb.

  A piece of me relaxes but the sensation only lasts for a split second. I stop in front of Lena’s car and look inside. The car is empty. Her purse, keys, and phone are gone. I turn my head and spot Abby’s office three doors down. It looks just the same as when I had driven by it before. I clench my jaw, my stomach turning once again. It rises in my throat.

  I try dialing Lena again with no luck.

  In the year we’ve been married, Lena has never missed one of my calls. Especially now, after the threat of Julian’s return, I know she would never miss a single one.

  I stop in front of the building and catch my breath. The door and windows are covered in a thick film of dirt. It’s impossible to see inside. Hoping it’s unlocked, I pull on the front door. Oddly, it doesn’t budge.

  I try Abby’s phone, hoping that there’s an explanation as to why Lena didn’t answer. Maybe her battery died. I considered the possibility, hoping it could be a reason as simple as that one. But the more logical part of me knew that if her phone were dead, it wouldn’t ring at all. It would send me directly to voicemail.

  Abby doesn’t answer her phone either. Still unsure of what to do, I decide to walk around to the back of the building to see if there’s another way in. The alleyway is dark, the distance between the back of the buildings and the tall brick wall narrow. It’s just wide enough for a small delivery truck to drive through. The ground is covered in wet gravel causing my feet to slide with every step.

  The only entrance I find is a large metal door at the back of the building. Beside it is a small window. Standing up to the window, I cup my hands around my eyes, trying to get a better view inside.

  Dirt is covering the glass pane, obstructing my view inside. From what I can see, there’s a small dark hallway leading to the front of the store. But still, it’s too dark for me to make anything out, much less see where Lena and Abby are. I step away from the window and turn my attention to the door.

  With a heavy fist, I bang on the heavy metal. “Lena!”

  I stand back and rest my hands on my hips, hoping she or Abby can hear me. Thunder rolls in the clouds and I tip my head up to the sky. The clouds are nearly black and full of anger. They roll with the sky, churning like clothes in a dryer. Thunder rumbles again. This time reverberating through my bones.

  I wipe the excess rain from my face and bang against the door again. “Lena! Abby!”

  Again, no answer.

  I’m left breathless, not knowing what to do. My panic intensifies and it feels like my heart is going to beat right out of my chest. I swallow and take a deep breath. Moisture is thick in the air. It inflates my lungs, but I might as well be swimming under water. Everything about me suddenly feels heavy. A darkness washes over me. Deep in my core I knew Lena was in trouble.

  Although I still couldn’t make sense of what was happening, I started to fit pieces together.

  Lena and I had been followed for months, possibly longer. There was a part of me that sensed we never truly broke free from Providence like we believed.

  The email address Julian had been using to send Lena emails was also the same address Natalie had used to send Max her resignation letter.

  Abby had lied about her business and about being in a relationship with someone. She used the excuse of having a relationship to avoid Max’s advancesbut told Lena something different.

  Together, none of these situations were connected. But separately they made up a series of untruths. Untruths that didn’t settle well with me.

  I start to make my way back to the front of the building when my phone pings with a text. Water is splattered across the screen and my hands are still shaking with fear. It takes me several tries but finally on the fourth, it unlocks.

  Lena: Hey, I’m inside helping Abby. Sorry I didn’t answer. The back door is unlocked.

  Momentary relief drapes over me like a series of waves crashing onto the shore. I breathe out then hold my breath, tightening my chest until my lungs begin to burn from the lack of oxygen.

  I don’t wait a second longer before tugging on the door and opening it. Everything fades to black. The door closes behind me, shutting out what little light was able to filter through. As soon as I step in, I can hear Abby and Lena’s voices toward the front. I walk slowly, unsure of what I’m walking into.

  I place my hand against the old painted brick wall, steadying myself. The paint is chipped, bubbling out from the surface. My skin grates against it like sandpaper. When my eyes finally adjust to the darkness, I look down at my feet. Old newspapers and travel brochures are littered across the floor.

  I look back up, turning my attention to the front of the store. From where I am, I can see the two dirt-covered windows that line the front of the building. Every now and then a dark shadow flashes across the window. I assume they’re the shadows of the occasional car driving down the street.

  The open space of the building is eerily quiet.

  Chills prickle the back of my neck and my heart hammers inside my rib cage.

  Lena’s muffled cries reverberate, the sound pulling me down the hallway. I emerge from the end of the hallway to a scene I never thought I’d see in my lifetime.

  Even though I’d heard Lena’s cries, she isn’t the first person I see when I step into the room.

  To my left is a woman tied to a small chair. Her head is bent down, long black hair shielding her face. It isn’t until I see a black chef jacket with white stitching that I realize it’s Natalie. She doesn’t move and for a second I fear she might be dead.

  Fuck.

  My gaze shifts to my right. Lena is sitting in a small wooden chair, her arms tied behind her.

  My stomach climbs into my th
roat. I want to vomit. I want to run over to Lena and save her, but my feet are made of lead, rooted against the musty old carpet beneath them.

  Tears stain her cheeks in thick lines and when she sees me they widen, stricken with a fear I’ve only seen on her once before. The night Julian nearly beat me to death. My heart shatters into a million pieces.

  “Logan,” she cries. My name falls out of her mouth distorted, cracking with every syllable.

  “Lena.” I rush toward her but stop when I hear a loud clicking sound behind me.

  “Not so fast.”

  Lena’s eyes shift to whoever is standing behind me. I raise my hands up and slowly turn to see Abby standing at the end of the hallway. Her violet eyes are narrowed, staring straight down her arm to her hand. Her fingers are clenched around the handle of a gun.

  It’s in this moment that I realize this is worse than the night I almost lost my life at the hands of Julian. This time I might lose Lena too.

  Twenty-Eight

  Lena

  When I was a child, I feared my father. His rigid posture matched his rigid personality. He wore his narcissism like a badge of honor, for all the world to see.

  After I left Julian, sometimes I would lay awake at night wondering if I stayed with Julian because he was similar to my father. Other times I wondered if there was a piece of my soul that was broken, unable to weed out the decent men from the psychotic ones.

  Most of my childhood was spent striving to be the opposite of the woman my father wanted me to be. Maybe in some way, my choice to stay with Julian was my twisted way of appeasing my father, making up for the disappointment I had become to him over the years.

  It wasn’t until I’d met Logan that my life changed. He sparked a fire in me I didn’t even know existed. I began to see how my relationship was never mine and Julian’s. It had always been Julian’s.

  But when I wake up and a sharp pain jolts the side of my head, I remember the words Logan had said to me the moment he woke up in the hospital after nearly dying by Julian’s hands.

  He cracked open his eyes and held my hand in his. His left eye was still swollen. Blue, purple, and yellow stained his once flawless skin. Numerous cuts were scattered across his face. Some were small and intricate; others were held together by a few small pieces of thread. I cried, tears streaming down my face. If it hadn’t been for me, Logan wouldn’t have been where he was, in the hospital clinging to life. I apologized twenty times over, the guilt overwhelming me. I wished I was the person lying in the hospital bed instead of Logan. My weakness of allowing Julian to manipulate every aspect of my life was deserving of the pain Logan had endured.

  As if he could read the guilt on my face, he lifted his hand and swiped his thumb across the top of my cheek, gathering the tears that continued to spill. “Ten years from now,” he whispered. “Make sure you can say you chose your life and that you didn’t settle for it.”

  Gripping my head, he pulled me down and pressed his lips to my forehead. “I think it’s finally time you take back what was always yours.”

  I stared at him, confused by what he meant. A ghost of a smile appeared across his mouth, spreading the cut on the top of his lip. “Your life.”

  Pain shoots from the side of my head, shooting across my entire skull, as I try to turn my head. The musty, moldy smell from earlier overwhelms me, reminding me where I am.

  I suck a sharp breath in between my teeth and blink several times, attempting to open my eyes. My hair is fanned across my cheek, the strands sticking to my face. I pick my head up, the stinging sensation getting worse the more I move. It feels like a knife has been stabbed into the side of my skull.

  Liquid seeps from the same side of my head as the pain, dripping down my jaw and onto my shoulder. It smells metallic, the scent growing stronger the more it drips onto my skin. It mixes with the mold and dirt lingering in the air and I fight back the urge to vomit. I try to lift my hand to touch the wound on my head but my arm jerks from behind me. My arms are tied behind my back. When I tug on them to gauge how tightly I’m bound, my skin is pulled against rough strands of thick rope, tightening with every attempt to free myself.

  Realizing my arms are useless, I finally gather enough strength to lift my head. My tongue is dry, and the corners of my mouth are sore. There’s fabric tied around my mouth, keeping me from being able to fully breathe. I try not to panic, thinking of any possible scenario where I might make it out of this.

  My hair is still fanned across my face as I search the room. Slowly, everything pulls into focus.

  I’m still in Abby’s office building. Or what I thought was her new office. The last thing I remember before my life faded to black was the old donut sitting on the desk and Abby’s face. After that, everything is a blur.

  I scan the room, searching for any hint that Abby’s still here. My breath is caught in my throat when I see Natalie. She’s tied to a chair, much in the same way I am. Her hair is curtained around her face, her head resting against her shoulder. If it wasn’t for the chef jacket she’s wearing, I wouldn’t have known it was her. Blood seeps out from the side of her head and I can only imagine that’s how I look as well.

  Natalie’s name is stitched into the corner of her chef jacket, near her left shoulder. White thread stitched into the thick fabric to form the letters of her name. Natalie Weston.

  Tears line my eyes and my vision blurs. I wasn’t sure how Natalie fit into all of this but if she was tied to a chair like me, I knew it wasn’t good. Even from across the room, I can tell how young Natalie looks. My heart cracks, remembering how Logan said Natalie had always dreamed of becoming a world-renowned chef. I wasn’t entirely certain where Natalie fit into this mess with Abby, but my stomach sinks knowing in some way I’m at fault.

  “Natalie?” I whisper her name, trying to stay as quiet as I possibly can. There’s still no sign of Abby but to be on the safe side, I keep my voice down.

  Natalie doesn’t answer me. Aside from the subtle rise and fall of her shoulders , I’d think she was dead.

  “Natalie,” I whisper again. “Wake up.”

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

  I dart my head to the left and hold my breath. It gets lodged in my throat and I fight the urge to cough. Abby steps out from the end of the hallway into the open space where Natalie and I are, a gun in her hand. My eyes move across her black painted fingernails to the tan skin of her arms. Her silver hair is hanging loose around her shoulders, waving at the ends. She has all the components of my best friend, the features I recognize as Abby’s. But the expression on her face makes me realize Abby is gone. The woman I’m staring at is a stranger. Darkness clouds her once violet eyes. The corner of her mouth curls and it’s a motion I’ve never seen on her until now.

  Abby slowly walks across the space, turning the gun over in her hands. She’s pretending to inspect it, pulling the magazine out, counting the number of bullets before shoving it back in.

  She frowns then lifts her gaze. She stops five feet from where she’s left me tied to this chair. My chest rises and falls, significantly faster than Natalie’s at the moment.

  Abby tilts her head in Natalie’s direction. “Don’t worry about her.” she sneers. “She isn’t worth your time anyway. Girl is as stupid as a bag of rocks.”

  “Abby.” I breathe. “What’s going on?”

  Her eyes narrow and she slowly walks toward me. The gun is still gripped in her hand, but now she has it resting on her side. She’s carrying it like she would her phone, or a bag of groceries. Nonchalant and unimportant.

  She stops in front of me and lifts her leg, sliding it between mine. I clench my thighs, not wanting her to get any closer. The effects of being knocked out are still slowing me down and I simply don’t have the strength to fight back. She presses her knee to my flesh, forcing me to spread my legs apart. My ankles strain against the rope tied around them. I groan and squeeze my eyes shut.

  Inhaling a sharp breath, I lean back when Abby places her face d
irectly in front of mine. She’s leaning over me, her eyes studying my body. Her violet eyes spark with a fire. Her gaze digs into me, chills breaking out across my skin.

  At what point did my best friend’s eyes turn from kind and caring to this? Evil and dangerous.

  She lifts her hand, the one with the gun and points the barrel at my chest. “I always thought this sweater looked better on you than me.” She drags the gun down the line of my collarbone, drawing a path down between my breasts. She stops on the spot over my heart.

  My heart beats against the barrel of the gun and when I look down, I realize what Abby’s talking about. I’m wearing the sweater she had given me back in Providence.

  I swallow, my breath catching in my throat. “You were the one who broke into my house?” Tears are now falling down my cheeks, splashing onto the fabric of Natalie’s sweater. It smells fresh of cigarettes, the same familiar scent of the specific kind she smokes. Tobacco and mint.

  “What was that?” She tilts her head closer to my mouth.

  I sob as the fabric tied around my mouth digs deeper into my skin. Abby’s eyes scan my face before landing on my mouth. She pouts. “Oh, I’m sorry. Does this make it hard for you to talk?”

  I don’t answer her. My body is cold and stiff.

  “Here,” she says, wrapping her hands around the tie. “As long as you promise not to scream. I’ll remove this.” When she moves the fabric and it drapes around my neck, she lifts her hand and tucks my hair behind my ear. The gesture is odd and causes the knot in my stomach to twist even more. Her fingers graze against my cheek. “Now, what was it you were saying?”

  I swallow. My tongue clings to the roof of my mouth and it takes several attempts for me to speak before the words finally come. “I asked,” I croak. “I asked you if you were the one who broke into my house.”

  “Wow,” Abby scoffs. “I guess I didn’t give you enough credit, Lena. You aren’t completely clueless after all.”

  I stare at Abby, my eyebrows dipped in confusion. What is she talking about? I’ve known Abby for years but this woman isn’t Abby. I don’t know her at all.