Chapter 8
DANYL
Iknow something is wrong the moment I step into the quiet hallway.
It’s the silence.
The ballroom behind me is a thunderstorm of sound, glasses clinking, polite laughter, political lies dipped in honey. But out here, the noise drops away too quickly, like I’ve stepped through a doorway into another world. One where shadows breathe and the air feels colder on my skin.
I lift my phone to my ear.
“Dad?”
“Sweetheart,” he says, breathless, urgent. “I need to see you. Right now.”
His voice hits me like a jolt. It’s too desperate and I know something is very wrong.
It’s already been pointed out several times tonight that I’m out of my league at an event like this.
I can’t deal with my grifter dad tonight.
Can’t deal with another reminder of how far below Danyl and his wealth I am.
“Why are you calling me here?” I whisper, glancing back toward the ballroom doors. “What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain when I see you. Just… please. Come outside. Hurry.”
Something inside me twists, tight and uneasy. “Dad, I’m at a political fundraiser. You can’t just—”
“Liza.” His voice cracks. “Please. It’s life or death.”
My stomach drops. He’s a master manipulator, but he’s never used those words before. “Okay,” I say and he hangs up without another word.
I move down the hall, past gilded frames and velvet drapes. More opulence. More reminders of how this is not my world.
As I push the door open, cold night air washes over me.
He’s standing beside a long black limo, waving me over. I frown. Since when can he afford a limo?
He looks smaller than I remember. Thinner. His face hollowed out by desperation and cheap whiskey. But his eyes, those bright, frantic eyes, are the same.
He smiles like he’s relieved.
“Dad,” I breathe, moving toward him. “What’s going on?”
He gestures toward the open door. “It’s a surprise. Look.”
I lean into the cavernous interior of the car. Dad pushes me from behind and I turn around to tell him to stop. But then an arm from inside grabs mine and I’m pulled inside.
A cloth slams over my mouth.
My scream dies in my throat as I’m yanked down to the floor. I claw at the hand holding the cloth against my face, but there’s something sharp and chemical on it. Something that burns my throat with every breath.
I try to twist around. I want to see who’s hurting me.
And what I see causes more pain than I could imagine.
My father, watching from outside through a crack in the door.
Not helping. Not screaming for them to let me go.
He looks at me with wide, trembling eyes.
And then, he looks away. Like he can’t bear to witness what he’s done.
The betrayal rips me clean in half.
“Dad!” I choke out, my voice muffled. “Help me.”
He flinches, but doesn’t look at me. Instead, he closes the limo door with a final click.
I keep fighting, but my energy depletes as whatever drug was on the cloth overtakes me.
I get a glimpse of my captor. He’s huge, wearing a leather vest. I gasp, coughing on the chemical sting in the cloth, my lungs fighting for clean air.
My head hits the man’s knee and white light explodes behind my eyes.
But before consciousness slips away entirely, one thought cuts through everything else. Dad betrayed me, again.
I wake to darkness. Not the soft kind, not a room with the lights out. This is thick, choking darkness. Like a tarp over my head.
No, it’s a hood.
Panic explodes in my chest so fast I choke on it.
I try to move, but my wrists are tied. Rope, maybe zip ties, digging into my skin. My ankles too. My legs are numb from kneeling too long.
My breath comes fast. Too fast. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. I can’t—
Calm down, I tell myself. Think.
The surface beneath me is rough concrete. I smell, gasoline, cigarettes and old beer. Maybe motor oil. A garage? A workshop?
A door slams somewhere. Heavy boots approach, more than one set.
My pulse beats loudly in my ears, it’s too fast, like the heartbeat of a trapped bird.
Then a voice, rough, smug, and too close. “Well, well. Sleeping Beauty’s awake.”
The hood is yanked off and light blinds me. It’s the harsh fluorescent kind that makes everything look sickly and cold. I squint, blinking until shapes form.
I’m kneeling in the middle of a large garage. Broken motorcycles line the walls, and mechanical parts litter the floor. Two oil drums sit in the corner, one dented. A pool table is shoved to the side. Graffiti tags cover concrete pillars.
A man kneels in front of me. He’s got a shaved head and neck tattoos. His leather vest is the same as the man in the limo wore. “Morning, sweetheart,” he says, like we’re lovers waking up together. “You must be Liza.”
Three men watching from the edges of the room chuckle.
I swallow against the terror clawing up my throat. “What do you want?” My voice cracks. “Please just…just tell me what you want.”
He smiles, revealing yellow teeth. “What we want,” he says, “is payback. A little bird told us you put a knife in one of our own.”
My stomach drops. “It was an accident,” I stutter. “He attacked me.”
The biker slaps me across the face so hard my head snaps sideways. Pain bursts along my cheekbone. Tears spring to my eyes, hot and immediate.
“You don’t get to explain.” He grabs my jaw, squeezing until my teeth grind together. “You took one of ours. Now we decide what happens to you.”
My whole body trembles. “Please,” I whisper. “I didn’t want to kill him.”
“Don’t care.” He releases my jaw with a shove.
The other men laugh.
I shut my eyes, just for a second, because the panic is turning into something too big, too sharp. It’s swallowing me alive.
My father’s face flashes in my mind. Him standing outside that limo. Not lifting a finger.
Just watching.
My breath comes in a ragged gasp, but then something in me flips.
Not calmer. Not stronger. Just colder. A coldness I’ve never felt before.
“He sold me out,” I whisper, the words breaking apart as they leave my mouth.
The leader tilts his head. “What was that?”
“My father,” I say, louder this time, the truth slicing me open. “He sold me to you.”
The men exchange amused looks. One shrugs. “Technically he sold you to someone else. We intercepted.”
“Debt’s debt,” the leader says. “We don’t get involved in family business.”
My vision burns with tears that don’t fall. My father isn’t family. He’s a parasite wearing a familiar face. A man who’s always seen me as currency. But how did he know about the stabbing? I never told him.
“He guessed it was you,” the man on the floor with me says, answering my unasked question. “We knew Micky had been to the Meridian and that there had been some trouble with a server. When we put out your description, your father came to us.” He laughs. “And you just confirmed it.”
I pull air into my lungs. Slow. Careful.
I can’t let them think I’m helpless. Because I’m not.
I survived him, the man who calls himself my father. I survived what that man tried to do to me in the alley.
And I will survive this. No matter what they do to me, I will survive. I force my chin up, even though my hands are shaking.
The leader smirks. “Look at that backbone. Almost a shame we have to break you.”
The others laugh again.
I close my eyes for half a second. Just long enough to picture Danyl. His hands warm on my waist. His voice low in my ear. The way he looks at me like I matter.
Like I’m his. Like he would set the world on fire before letting anyone lay a hand on me.
And with that remembrance, certainty fills my mind. He’ll come for me.
I know he will. But will he get here in time? And if not, will Danyl want me after what they’ll do to me?
Can’t think about that now. That will break me.
They’ve move me from the center of the garage to a chair in the corner and just leave me there. Hours pass. Or maybe minutes. Time has no meaning when terror rules you.
My shoulders ache from my wrists being tied behind my back. My cheek throbs from the hit.
The leader and two others are playing pool, occasionally glancing over at me like I’m some kind of pet they’re half-forgotten about. Another man is cleaning a gun piece by piece, metal glinting in the harsh lights.
I shiver in the cold room. My dress, my beautiful, expensive, elegant dress, feels ridiculous now. Like a costume.
I hear a motorcycle rev outside. Boots stomp in and another biker enters, tall, broad, and covered in road dust. “Boss,” he says. “We got word.”
The leader doesn’t look up from his pool cue. “Yeah?”
“Bratva is looking,” the man says. “Hard.”
My heart jumps. Danyl is looking for me.
“He already showed up to her apartment,” the biker continues. “Nearly caught two of our watchers.”
Hope rise in my chest.
The leader finally glances at me. “Your boyfriend’s making a fuss.”
I keep my face blank and don’t bother correcting him. Inside, my heart beats fast. My husband is looking for me.
The biker cleaning his gun laughs. “Bratva will meet their end today, finally. We have the upper hand on our turf.”
Ice floods my veins. What if they hurt Danyl? Even a strong fighter will be brought down by a bullet.
Suddenly, the leader stops mid-game.
Another biker stands slowly, cocking his head to the side, listening.
A faint sound reaches my ears, a vibration in the concrete floor.
A deep mechanical hum. Engines. Multiple engines.
The leader’s eyes sharpen. “Shut up,” he snaps, and everyone goes still.
We listen.
I hear it clearer now. Engines approaching fast.
Not motorcycles. Cars. Big ones.
My pulse hammers. He’s here.
My husband’s here.
The leader straightens. “Get your weapons.” Adrenaline spikes through the air like electricity.
I close my eyes. Not because I’m scared.
But because I believe with all my heart that when Danyl gets to the other side of that door there is nothing in this world that will stop him from going through and find me.