A small ping rings from my pocket followed by a vibration. My eyes spread wide when I realize it’s my phone. Abby’s expression matches mine as both our eyes move to my waist.
I slam my back against my seat, not wanting her to attempt to reach for my phone. Deep down, I know it’s Logan. And if Logan were here I’m not sure what she would do.
Abby must know it’s Logan as well because her hands are suddenly gripping the arms of the chair, pulling me back toward her. She keeps the gun pointed to my chest. With her free hand, she slides her arm between us and reaches into my pocket. I’m crying as soon as I see my phone wrapped up in her hand. It feels as if she’s pulled at a string tied around my heart, constricting me.
Abby’s holding my phone in the palm of her hand. She lifts it and turns it to show me Logan’s name flashing on the screen. He’s calling me again. Then again.
She ignores both calls, focusing back on me.
Her purple painted lips open, words resting on the tip of her tongue. My phone rings again, interrupting her. She rolls her eyes and groans. “Always in the way,” she mutters, pulling her knee out from between my thighs.
My stomach turns, I’m completely confused by Abby. So many questions run through my mind. Why is she doing this? What does Natalie have to do with me and her?
Abby’s phone starts to ring from inside her pocket and when she pulls it out, her cheeks blush red with anger. She ignores it, sliding her phone back into her pocket.
I inhale a deep breath, hoping Logan will come to the office. He knows I will always answer my phone, no matter what.
Abby leans into me once again. This time she grips the back of my chair, placing her chest in my face. She hovers over me, her face within inches of mine. I refuse to tip my chin up to face her.
I stare at the necklace dangling from her neck and close my eyes.
“Look at me, Lena.”
I don’t move, refusing to give her the satisfaction. Then suddenly her hand is gripping on to my chin. Her fingers press into my flesh as she forces me to look up at her. I squeeze my eyes shut as she drags the pad of her thumb across my bottom lip. Heavy bouts of breath escape the small gap between my lips. Her thumb continues to slowly drag across my mouth, tracing around the curves of my lips. She stops when there’s a loud knock on the door.
My name is shouted from the back of the office and a part of me internally sighs with relief. It’s Logan. He knew I was here, and that something was wrong.
“Lena,” he yells again.
I open my mouth, ready to shout back to him when Abby’s hand stops me. She presses her hand against my mouth, her skin burning against mine. I sob as she dips her head and starts to lift the fabric back over my mouth.
“Shut up,” she seethes.
I shudder as the tears fall down my cheeks. She tightens the knot at the back of the fabric then backs away from me, heading toward the back room. She still has my phone cradled in her hand and I watch in silence as she types out a text.
She’s already halfway to the back room by the time she’s finished with the text.
“Abby,” I try to speak around the tie. “No.” I shake my head, terrified of what she’ll do to Logan.
“Wait here,” she says over her shoulder. Then she disappears into the darkness of the hallway.
My chest feels like it’s going to explode. Not knowing what to do, I start darting my eyes around the office searching for anything that might help me get off this chair. But I come up empty.
Several minutes pass when I hear footsteps coming from the back room. I hold my breath figuring it must be Abby returning. Instead, my heart sinks into my stomach when I see Logan. He’s relief and fear all rolled into one. I want to yell at him to leave but at the same time, I’m relieved he’s here.
“Logan.” I sigh, my shoulders relaxing.
He immediately starts moving toward me, but stops when Abby comes out from the hallway, cocking her gun. “Not so fast.”
Logan freezes and holds his hands up. He slowly turns around and tilts his head to the side. “Abby.”
“Yeah.” She nods. She keeps her gun pointed at Logan as she walks toward me, never breaking away from Logan. “Who did you think it was?”
Logan opens his mouth, but Abby stops him. She raises her finger to her mouth and glances up to the ceiling. “Oh, let me take a guess. Julian?”
She’s now standing in front of me as she was earlier, before Logan came into the room. She moves behind me, wrapping her arm around my chest. She leans down and brushes my hair aside. She still has the gun pointed at Logan. I can see the pain written all over his face.
His jaw tightens and his face flames red. He clenches his fists at his sides and his chest stills, as he struggles to take a breath. I maintain my focus on him, trying not to pay attention to Abby.
She brushes the hair from my cheek and leans down until her mouth is in front of my ear.
“Julian isn’t here. You’re safe with me.” She ghosts her mouth along my ear and chills prickle the back of my neck. A tear falls from my eye when she kisses the hollow of my ear. It’s a foreign feeling, one that terrifies me more than anything. It’s intimate and lingering as she keeps her mouth pressed against me for several seconds before finally deciding to pull away. She yanks on the tie around my mouth, pulling it down again. I inhale a deep breath, feeling the air fill my lungs.
“I don’t understand, Abby,” Logan says. He breaks her attention away from me. She doesn’t completely leave me alone, but she does move her mouth away from my ear. She stands behind me, placing her hand on my shoulder.
“Of course, you don’t, Logan. I didn’t expect you to.” Her voice is laced with anger and sarcasm. She keeps her gun pointed at Logan. “How about a little story time then, shall we?”
Logan nods once never breaking his eyes away from mine. I keep my focus on him as Abby pushes me closer to Logan. Our attention is alerted to Natalie when she starts to groan. She rolls her head, finally looking up. Her eyes spread in a panic, clearly not remembering where she is.
She frantically looks around the room and bucks against her chair. My heart sinks, knowing she’s just as trapped as I am.
“Logan?” she says once she spots him. He inches closer to her but Abby keeps him in check.
“Step any closer and I pull the trigger.”
“Okay.” Logan breathes out, holding his hands up once again.
She turns her attention to Natalie. “Well, well, well. Look who finally decided to join us for story time.”
Natalie doesn’t have a tie wrapped around her mouth and a part of me wonders why. Was Natalie special to Abby or did she not expect her to need one as I did? Logan and I always knew there was more to Natalie than what she had portrayed, and I guess now was the time when we would find out.
Either way, Natalie looks frightened as if she wasn’t expecting herself to be tied to a chair, staring down the barrel of a gun.
“Now,” Abby says. She backs away from me and walks toward the middle of the room. This time she allows Logan to walk toward me. She keeps her gun pointed at him and he keeps his hands held up. “Let’s start from the beginning.”
She paces the space between the three of us, never once lowering her arm. My eyes move from Natalie to Abby then Logan. He’s only standing three feet away from me but he still feels too far away. I want to wrap my arms around him and leave. I close my eyes briefly, picturing the shed in my back yard. I think back to the times I’ve spent back there. The sounds. The sunlight beaming through the windows. The bright green grass outside.
When I open my eyes again, tears pour down my face, realizing I’m nowhere near the safety of the shed.
“Lena was always meant to be mine.”
Twenty-Nine
Lena
Abby’s words hang in the air like a soaking wet piece of laundry hung out to dry. My head pounds as I narrow my eyes, unsure of her meaning.
Lena was always meant to be mine.
&nbs
p; “What?” I ask her. My voice sounds hollow and empty. “What do you mean I was always yours?”
She narrows her eyes and grins. Her white teeth shine against her matte lipstick. “You were always meant to be mine.” Slowly, her smile fades, replaced with a frown. Her perfectly manicured eyebrows slant in anger. “But then that asshole, Julian showed up and ruined everything.” She swipes at her cheek, a tear slipping from her almond-shaped eye. There’s agony lingering in her violet eyes. A small sliver of pain buried underneath all the anger, layer upon layer. I hold my breath as she continues.
“I met you first. You were beautiful. The first time I saw you, you had your hair tied back into a loose braid and I watched as you ran your fingers through the end. You took my breath away, Lena.” She stares at me, a ghost of a smile forming in the corner of her mouth. Her emotions are back and forth. One second, she’s angry, the next she’s enraptured.
There’s a pause that fills the gap between us. Her arm slowly lowers, the gun now pointing toward the wall behind Logan. She frowns and it’s as if she’s reliving the moment. I can see it in her eyes as she reminisces back to the day we met. “I loved you and you hadn’t even spoken a word to me. It was then I knew I had to have you. You were mine until Julian showed up.” Her eyes narrow then shift to Logan before landing back on me. “I helped you, Lena. I helped you let Julian go and break free from him. He didn’t treat you the way you deserved.” Her lips thin as she breathes in, pointing to her chest. “He didn’t treat you the way I would have treated you.”
“Abby...” I tilt my head to the side in disbelief. My chest tightens into a knot, twisting with each of her words. Abby was in love with me. My mind is still trying to wrap around that detail of our friendship.
“No,” she yells, her chin quivering with her tears. “I thought you would see how I loved you when you left Julian, but you walked right into someone else’s arms.” She points to Logan using her gun. Her hand shakes and she winces. “He nearly died and when he survived, you left me and went back to him. You tossed me aside like a fucking piece of trash.”
Her voice has risen even higher, her anger boiling over.
“I’m sorry, Abby.” I try to console her, hoping if I stay calm, she’ll back down. “I had no idea you felt that way.”
“Of course, you didn’t,” she screams. “You’re oblivious to everyone but yourself. You don’t care about anyone but yourself.” The air in the room is sucked out like a vacuum.
I swallow, keeping the bile rising in my throat from escaping my mouth. I bite the inside of my cheek, hoping to pull myself together. My entire body hurts. My shoulders, elbows, and head pulsate with the pain coursing through my body. Not only do my muscles ache from being restrained, my heart bends for Abby. The longer I stare into her eyes, the more I realize my heart aches for a friendship I thought I had. It’s as if our entire friendship has been a total lie. And that pill is a bitter one to swallow.
Abby steps forward, tears sliding down her cheeks. “I tried everything.” She breathes out, her shoulders falling. “I wanted you to think Julian was back. I left you the note and T-shirt. You were supposed to come back to me. Instead, you ran away with him and got fucking married. You left me behind.”
“You were the one who broke into my apartment, not Julian?” Logan asks, clearly trying to make sense of what Abby is telling us.
“Yeah.” She sneers. “If you guys had dug a little deeper in your research you would know Julian lives in Dallas now. He’s nowhere near fucking Seattle.” She walks over to the desk and opens the top drawer. She pulls out a stack of papers and throws them at me and Logan. One of them lands at my feet and I quickly read the headline to the article.
Brown University graduate set to be head curator at the Dallas Museum of Art, youngest in the history of the museum
I search the top of the page for the date of the article.
It’s from three weeks ago. Just after I’d stopped looking for Julian.
Abby laughs, bringing my attention back to her.
“You’re so fucking selfish and ignorant, you didn’t even realize Julian doesn’t care enough to follow you all the way to Seattle.” She swallows. “But I did. I found out you and Logan had moved to Seattle, so I did what I had to.”
Abby spins around and points to Natalie. “Go on. Tell them.”
“Tell us what?” Logan asks, clearly eager to find out where Natalie fits into all this. To be honest, I’m anxious as well.
Finding out that Julian was never after me is like a punch to the gut. Here I was, thinking Julian was following me and Logan, when it was Abby all along. She was here, pretending to be my ex-boyfriend, hoping I’d leave Logan and run straight into her arms. My head spins and my throat seizes. Abby has manipulated every single aspect of my life and I was too oblivious to see it.
I hold my breath and wait for Natalie to explain. Was she a part of Abby’s plan or was she an innocent victim? As soon as my eyes meet Natalie’s, and tears spill down her face, I realize she’s simply an innocent victim.
“I’m sorry.” Natalie’s chin quivers as she trades glances between me and Logan. “I’ve known Abby since high school. She came back home and offered to pay me if I came up here and tried to have an affair with Logan.” She turns to Logan, her chest quaking with sobs. “I’m so sorry, Logan. That was before I got to know you and Lena. That was before I knew I’d actually love working at Bistro. I didn’t know the extent of what she wanted me to do. All she said I had to do was stay in Seattle for the summer and flirt with you. That was all. I thought it was an easy way to make some money.”
Abby points her gun in Natalie’s direction. “And you fucked everything up. You were supposed to convince Lena that Logan was having an affair and you failed.”
Natalie sobs, squeezing her eyes shut as Abby draws closer. “Abby, please,” she begs. “I’m so sorry.”
Although I could feel myself falling apart, learning my best friend had been deceiving me our entire friendship, I could feel the puzzle pieces starting to click together. Everything from the note left at the apartment to Abby’s sudden reappearance in my life. Abby had hired Natalie to destroy my marriage and when it didn’t work, she grew angrier. I start to think back to all the time I’ve spent with Abby these past few months. Everything was a front, a ploy to bring me closer to her.
I’m so focused on Natalie that I didn’t even realize how Logan has inched closer to me. Abby’s broken her attention on us long enough for Logan to close the gap between us. Suddenly I feel my wrists loosen slightly against the rope. The rope isn’t completely untied but I definitely have more motion with my fingers. Enough to manipulate the end of the tie and undo the knot.
I turn my head and glance at Logan. He doesn’t move and keeps his focus on Abby. He must have loosened the rope quickly while Abby kept her full attention on Natalie.
I start working the end of the rope, blindly following it to push it back through the loop. To keep Abby preoccupied while I work the rest of the rope, I decide to keep her talking.
“Abby,” I say. “You were my best friend. How could you do this to me?”
“I didn’t want to be your best friend, Lena,” she screams. “Don’t you get it? I’m in love with you. Always have been. The only way I’ve been able to keep you close, is the nights you let me come over.” Her eyes swirl with darkness. “You sure love your wine, don’t you?”
I think back to the night Abby came over and shared a bottle of wine with me. I’d fallen asleep on the opposite side of the couch from her, but somehow woke up with my head in her lap, not remembering how I’d gotten there. Shocked, I look up at Abby. “You drugged me?”
“I did what I had to do. I love you and no one will ever love you like I do.” She points to her chest, her violet eyes engulfed in anger. She tightens her jaw and steels her gaze, walking backward. She stands behind Natalie. “And I’ll continue to do whatever it takes to make you mine.”
Abby lifts her gun and poi
nts it to the back of Natalie’s head, pressing it against her head.
“Abby, no!” My scream claws its way up my throat, burning from the inside out.
Natalie’s eyes squeeze shut, tears sliding from between her closed lids. I close my eyes, waiting for Abby to pull the trigger. My stomach turns, bile rising in my throat. I’ve never felt more helpless in my entire life than I do now. I open my eyes wide when I hear Logan’s footsteps move beside me. Then, in a rush, Logan lunges toward Abby.
They say when you experience an adrenaline rush, your body goes into survival mode. Fight or flight. Just as Logan’s instinct to save Natalie from Abby kicked in, mine came when the rope fell away from my wrists. I jerk my entire body to the right and fall to the floor. My shoulder lands against the carpet, pain shooting straight through the muscle. I hold my breath and look up.
Logan and Abby are now on the floor. Abby’s body is on top of Logan, her legs straddling him. From what I can tell, both of their hands are fighting over the gun.
My heart hammers away in my chest, afraid for Logan. This was bad and I needed to get out of this chair. But my ankles are still tied to the bottom. I scoot my shoulder across the floor, bending to reach my feet. I ignore the pain radiating all over my body. My head wound is still bleeding. Blood spills and pools on the carpet below my head. The carpet squishes as I press into it, reaching down to my feet. My fingers shake as I try to untangle the knots keeping my ankles tied.
Every few seconds, I glance up to see Logan and Abby and each time they’re in a different position. Natalie’s still tied to the chair, her sobs blending in with Logan and Abby’s groans.
The blood drains from my face as I catch a glimpse of the gun pointed at Logan’s chest. Logan rolls on top of Abby, then Abby rolls on top of Logan. Logan struggles to take the gun from Abby, their hands clenched around the barrel. I move my fingers faster, the knot finally starting to unravel. I look up again and this time Logan’s back on top of Abby.
Mine: A Romantic Suspense Thriller (A Back to Me Series Book 2) Page 24