Chapter 43 Willow
WILLOW
The trunk is small and cramped, and no matter which way I try to squirm, I can’t move much.
The bag over my head makes it hard to get enough air, and each breath I take is shallow and panicked.
My heart is racing so hard that I swear I can hear it over the hum of the car engine.
I have no idea where my captor is taking me or what he wants, but my mind flashes back to Ransom talking about X and the guys saying that they needed to keep an eye on me in case he decided to lash out at them by hurting me.
Is that what this is?
There’s no way to know, and that makes it even worse.
I pat around in the trunk as well as I can with my wrists tied behind my back, trying to find something, anything, to grab on to and use as a weapon. Maybe once whoever abducted me lets me out, I can fight my way free somehow.
I try to keep track of how long we’ve been driving, to see if I can figure out how far away he’s taking me, but it’s so disorienting in this trunk that it feels like it’s warping my sense of time.
When the car finally stops, it could have been an hour or ten minutes, as far as I know.
I hear a car door open, and someone gets out. I can make out the sound of footsteps coming around the side of the car, and adrenaline spikes in my gut, making me nauseated. When he opens the trunk, I’ll have just a small window of time to try to get away.
As soon as the trunk pops open, I push myself up and hurl myself forward. Not being able to see makes everything so much harder, and I stumble on the way out of the trunk. I hit the ground hard and try to scramble away, but someone grabs me before I can get any distance.
I’m yanked backward, a strong hand tightening around my arm and torquing my shoulder. I struggle, trying to find some slack in my binds, but then I recognize the cold press of something hard and metallic at my back.
A gun.
Instantly, I freeze, dread and fear rising up in the back of my throat like bile.
The trunk slams closed, and then the gun presses more firmly against my back.
“Walk,” someone says—a deep, masculine voice that I don’t recognize.
I don’t have any other choice but to do as he says, so I take one step and then another, letting him lead me somewhere I can’t see. Our footsteps echo around us, and it feels like a big, open space.
Maybe a parking garage? Or something like that.
He marches me along for a few minutes, then grunts out, “Stop.”
I do, and he reaches around me to open a door. The surface beneath my feet changes as we step through, going from echoey concrete to what feels like linoleum.
We’re in a building of some kind, I guess.
For a second, I debate about screaming for help, but then dismiss that idea. It can’t be worth it in the long run, and this guy wouldn’t be marching me along at gunpoint if anyone could see us.
He prods me up three flights of stairs and then down a hallway. We pass through another door, then I feel the man grab my shoulder. He shoves me down, and I panic for a second, my body tensing in anticipation of hitting the floor.
But instead, my ass lands in the seat of a chair, and he ties me to it before yanking the bag off my head.
Light floods my eyes, blinding me. I blink rapidly, trying to adjust to the sudden flood of brightness after spending all that time in the dark.
As my vision starts to adjust a little, I realize there’s a large light pointed at me from a short distance away.
It’s the only light in the space, and it makes the rest of the room seem dark and indistinct.
I can see the shadowy shape of my captor moving around, but I can’t make out his face in the darkness. I hear him muttering to himself, and then there’s a clicking sound. After a few seconds, it hits me that it’s the click of a camera.
Is he taking pictures of me?
My skin crawls, and I look frantically around the dim, shadowy room, trying to figure out some way out of this. I can’t see much, and the ropes are tied too tightly for me to get free.
No. Not again. Please, not again.
I barely escaped my encounter with Ilya in one piece. It was truly only luck that the fire started, trapping him under a beam as the building burned and allowing me to flee. I won’t be so lucky a second time, I know it.
Terror builds up in me, putting a sour taste in my mouth and making my stomach roil. Being kidnapped once was bad enough, and the first time doesn’t make the second time any easier to handle. If anything, it’s worse—because I know how bad my odds are.
The chair I’m in this time isn’t wooden, it’s metal. So there’s no chance of breaking it to escape like I did before. I have no idea how to get free.
My throat is dry, and I have to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth so I can speak. I peer into the light, squinting to try to get a better view of the man in the darkness.
“What do you want with me?” I demand, trying to stop my voice from shaking with fear.
“I would’ve thought that was obvious,” the man says, snorting. “Blackmail.”
He takes a few steps forward as he speaks, and even though his face is partially shadowed outside the light that’s shining so brightly on me, I can finally make out his features.
There’s nothing special about him from what I can see. He looks like any guy on the street, dark haired and dark eyed. His nose looks like it might have been broken a couple of times, but he doesn’t have anything that makes him stand out.
For a wild moment, I have the strangest sense of déjà vu, though. There’s nothing remarkable about him, but I feel like I know him, even though I don’t know why or from where.
I stare at him for several long seconds, and then it hits me in a rush, making my stomach drop.
He’s… the man from my dream.
He was there, in my dream of being kidnapped by Ilya.
In most of my nightmares, all I could see was an indistinct shadow in the flames, and there were moments when I felt like there was a monster in the shadows.
And in one version of the nightmare, I remember seeing a second man’s face, someone besides Ilya—but I couldn’t place him.
I couldn’t distinguish him from the long list of men who have done horrible things in my life.
But I saw his face. This man’s face.
There’s no way my mind could’ve conjured up an image of his features weeks ago if this is the first time I’m actually seeing him.
Which means he was there that night. He must’ve been.
I was probably still too out of it from the drugs and too deep in my panic attack to really register it. But my subconscious did, apparently. He was in that old building, hidden in the shadows somewhere.
“It’s you,” I whisper, the words coming before I can stop them. “You were there that night. I remember you.”
The man’s face hardens, and he glares at me. “I wondered if you saw me. Not that it matters. I won’t make the same mistakes that Russian did. I’m going to use you as leverage, and I won’t let you escape like you did that night.”
The confirmation that I was right leaves me reeling. Goosebumps break out over my skin, and I shake my head.
“No. You can’t—”
My words break off as he steps closer and backhands me across the face. Pain explodes through my cheek, and I’m left gasping, spots dancing before my eyes.
“Shut the fuck up,” he snarls. “This isn’t about you, and no amount of begging will help.”
“I’m not begging,” I say, my jaw aching from his slap as I force the words out. “I’m just—”
He backhands me again, going for the same cheek. My head whips sideways, a cry of pain bursting from my lips.
“I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to distract me.
Like you distracted the Russian, tempting him until he let his guard down.
” The man’s face twists into a grin, savage and threatening.
“Well, luckily, I won’t be so easily swayed.
Although I’m sure a whore like you who likes to take three men at once knows her way around a cock, I’ve got other plans for you. ”
My eyes widen, my breath sticking in my throat at his comment about me taking three men at once. I haven’t actually done that, but this means he knows about me and the Voronin brothers.
“What are you going to do to me?” I ask hoarsely.
I know it’s risky to keep pushing him by asking questions. I’m not sure how many more hits I can take before I pass out, but I need to keep him talking. I need to know what he’s planning.
He raises his hand again, but this time, instead of hitting me, he grips my chin tightly, forcing me to look up at him as he lowers his head a little.
“The Russian wanted vengeance, and so do I. Unfortunately for him, I couldn’t let him kill you that night. I had to stop him, since you were needed for another purpose and those fucking brothers refused to let you go.”
My mind races as I try to process everything he’s saying, and I my voice is barely a whisper as I ask, “You stopped Ilya?”
“Of course.” The man snorts. “It never struck you as odd that you, puny little thing that you are, managed to escape, while that Ilya guy died in the fire? I knocked him out, then let the flames do the rest.”
I feel like I’m spinning, or maybe the room itself is spinning. Everything I thought I knew about the night of my abduction is unraveling, disjointed images and memories whirling through my head.
“Why did you save me, then?” I breathe. “Why save me only to kidnap me now?”
He tightens his grip, his fingers digging painfully into my skin.
“Here’s a little lesson on how the world works, girlie.
The best way to get what you want from someone is to threaten a person they care about.
And that’s exactly what I’m gonna do.” He chuckles, the sound tinged with vicious cruelty.
“And once I’ve gotten what I want? Well, hell, I think I’ll just kill you anyway. ”
My stomach clenches, and I squirm in his grasp, trying to wrench my chin out of his hold. He’s still staring at me, his face only a foot away from mine, and as I look up at his strangely familiar features, a sudden terrifying certainty hits me.
This man is X. He has to be.
He knows the Voronin brothers are attached to me. He’s probably known it ever since they refused to turn me over when he demanded they give me to him.
He must’ve found out that they’re planning to double-cross him. Maybe whoever he sent to do the pickup spotted the hidden camera Malice planted at the drop site, and he’s realized they’re trying to figure out who he is and take him out.
So he’s going to use me to stop them.