Chapter 19
Waking up to a massive headache wasn’t the best way to regain consciousness, but considering the fact that having a headache meant I wasn’t dead, I’d take it.
It felt like I had about ten hangovers stacked on top of each other as my eyes fluttered toward the light of wakefulness.
A chill slithered up my spine, feeling the brisk temperature thriving around me as I tried rebooting my system.
When I finally lolled my head from its backward tilting position and straightened out, I saw two women standing through my blurry vision.
I squeezed them shut tightly, willing my vision to clear so I could try to identify my assailants.
I recognized the one donned in all black as the woman that had knocked me out in the alley.
She had the same wavy blonde hair that skimmed past her shoulders that I vaguely recalled before my impromptu nap.
Her green eyes shone with wickedness, the crossing of her arms as I came to more evidence of her malignant feelings toward me.
To her left was her exact mirror. The blonde woman next to her shared the same face, same alabaster skin, same green eyes that told of disturbing tales they’d effaced from memory.
But while the wavy one was wearing her hair down, this one had hers pulled back in a ponytail, and it was more straight than her mirror’s.
Her apparel was different as well, wearing a dark green leather jacket and matching shirt as well as pants that stole the shade for itself.
Even the leather gloves she was wearing seemed to color match.
The wavy one stepped forward, leaning down so that her face was hovering inches away from mine. She had a tiny mole on the right side of her face. With a quick glance at her mirror, I saw that the green one had one on the left side of her face.
I scoffed to myself. What were the chances that I’d get kidnapped by twins when I was one myself?
“It’s about time,” Wavy scoffed, rearing back to her previous stance, crossed arms and all. “I thought we’d actually have to wake your ass up.”
Taking the reprieve of her speech, I looked around me now that my usual sense of self was coming back to me.
We were clearly in some type of abandoned warehouse, long forgotten machinery laying on their sides with layers of dust blanketing them.
Other than the fallen equipment, the only thing other than us in the vast room was the chair they’d tied me to, flexing my arms and confirming the restraints I’d assumed were already in place, and at the end of the room there was something that looked like a manager’s office.
I couldn’t feel my phone in my jeans so I figured they’d either trashed it or, if I was lucky, it was lodged in that manager’s office. If I had any hopes of getting the fuck out of this situation, that was my perceived destination. But first I wanted to know why the fuck I was here.
“What’s going on?” I started, switching between staring at both of the twins. “What’s this all about?”
“You know exactly what this is about.” Wavy uncrossed her arms and sauntered over to me, clutching my jaw in her palm and jerking it upwards to stare at her intentionally. “But I like the long hair. Nice touch.”
The fuck? I pondered on her words, but Ponytail sighed deeply and took a few steps forward.
“I want to get this over with. Just tell us what it’s going to take to get the family money back, Troian. And then we’ll let you leave with your life.”
“The fuck we will.” Wavy protested, throwing my face back so I rocked in the chair, grunting at the dismissal of physical contact. “Warren wants him fucking dead. You know that.” She gave her twin a stare that could have killed an army.
I wasn’t sure if it was the concussion or what, but I was struggling to keep up. Clearly they thought I was my brother, but I couldn’t quite grasp who the fuck these women were and why the fuck they’d dragged me off the street in broad daylight.
“I don’t care what Warren wants.” Ponytail sighed again, crossing her arms and shifting her stance from one foot to the other. “I’m tired of this bullshit.”
“Just tell me what this is really about and we can part ways.”
They both stared at me at those words. Wavy gave me an incredulous glare, like I was the stupidest piece of filth she’d ever come into contact with. Ponytail just looked at me like she’d rather I stop talking, but realized that I had to speak for things to be finished.
“Enough bullshit, Troian.” Wavy cracked her leather gloved hands again, just like she had in the alley.
I was liable to tell her anything she wanted to avoid those fists again.
She looked like she was barely five foot five, but fuck if she didn’t have a mean hook on her.
“You’re going to give us back the Rhodes family money that Alec left you.
And then we’re going to make sure you never have another chance to convince Madison that you deserved it at all. ”
Well, that cleared up a lot. Troian had told me that Madison, the mother of his late husband, was the only one in the family that wasn’t crazy and thought he deserved the money Alec had left him upon his death.
He’d told me that Madison warned him to be careful just in case they tried something, that they weren’t going to let up.
Clearly, the Rhodes family had decided to play their next move.
Which brought me to these two assumed Rhodes twins.
They thought I was Troian, and I could play this one of two ways.
I could pretend to be my brother, buy myself some time to play with the restraints binding my arms and hands and hope that I’d find an opening to dash toward the office in the back and pray that my phone, or any working phone, was in there so I could call for help.
Or, I could tell them how fucking stupid they were and they’d nabbed the wrong twin.
Which would either end with their anger over their mistake leading to them discarding the spare twin and trying to go after the real Troian.
Or, just maybe, it’d cause enough disturbance between the two sisters for me to also work on my restraints.
I was getting the indication that Ponytail wasn’t as dedicated to their mission as Wavy.
Judging by the fact that one of them was earnestly bloodthirsty and the other was indifferent was something that I could work with to make sure I walked out of this nightmare alive.
A third option appeared in my head as a fleeting thought, but I held on to it as the best option. Why choose between two viable alternatives when I could combine them?
I turned on my best impression of my brother, tapping into his usual brooding but playful nature, and tried to buy myself time.
“You came all the way from Massachusetts for me? I’m touched. Thanks for making me feel like a real part of the family.”
Without hesitation, Wavy plunged forward and punched me in the jaw, sensations of raw pain jackhammering through the rest of my face.
My nose suddenly felt like it was on fire, making me think that it was at least on the verge of breaking from my previous run in with Wavy’s fist. My head rocked back as I grit my teeth, trying to keep from fainting again.
“Shut the fuck up!” Wavy shouted. “We’re here for the fucking money. So tell us where it is.”
After squaring my shoulders, I saw that Ponytail was sighing to herself, her crossed arms telling me that she wasn’t as antagonistic as her sister was hellbent on being.
“Where the fuck do you think it is?” I took the growing blood in my mouth from her punch and spat it out by her boots on the dirty floor. “It’s in the bank where it belongs.”
“It belongs with the family.”
“This is fucking stupid, Cheyenne.” Ponytail said, finally giving me more insight to what their real names were. She walked over to her twin and forced her to look at her. “We should just leave while we can.”
“What do you mean, leave?” Wavy said back. “You want us to just keep him here? This is what we do, Casper.”
I broke out into a quiet laughter, earning me a look from both of them.
Now that I knew there was enough discourse between them, as well as learning their names, I could switch to the other half of this dual-part plan.
My laughter bubbled up, and I could still taste blood in my mouth as I truly began to cackle.
Honestly, I should be gifted an award for this portrayal of Troian.
I wasn’t nearly this playful or dramatic.
“And just what the fuck is so goddamn funny?” Cheyenne said, flexing the black leather covering her hands.
“I’m sorry,” I said between my dying down laughter, still putting on the front as best I could as I drove my way to my verbal destination. I needed to make sure it was just perfect so I could truly rattle them. “It’s just really hilarious, considering the fact that you’re also twins.”
“What are you talking about?” Casper said, surprising me with her interest as she put her hunter green leather hands on her hips. “What does us being twins have to do with anything?”
“I know you guys can’t be this bad at your job,” I guffawed, sighing deeply to match Casper’s previous energy. “You had to know that we’re twins too.”
“Of course we know about your brother. Thayer, is it?” Cheyenne smirked, thinking she had the better of me. “You want us to bring him in on this, Troian?”
“That’s the thing, I’m not Troian.” I watched in delightful distracting glee as both of their faces became mirrors of wonder and disbelief. “You’ve got the wrong twin.”