Chapter Ten - Kiara
Gasping, I shoot up from the nightmare. Is it a dream? I saw his face. Tanned, clean shaven, dark chocolate eyes with hands clenched around my throat. Touching myself, I find tender spots around my neck, shocked by how it feels. Strangled sobs escape my mouth. No, it wasn’t a dream. Akim inflicted his wrath on me. I’ve been kidnapped.
The wisp of a curtain skims the edge of my arm, capturing my attention. There’s an open window to my left, and I’m lying in a large queen-size bed. I can see the top of Chicago’s skyscrapers, hearing the street noises on the ground below, and immediately identify my surroundings.
I’m locked somewhere in Akim’s luxury penthouse. The same place he took me to after we first met. Fresh memories of his greedy hands trailing down my back surface, the warmth and tenderness of his kisses unexpectedly confusing me.
How can I think about him that way now? Throwing back the covers, I study my body searching for other undue injuries, relieved I find nothing else. I’m wearing the same clothes I was wearing this morning. An oversized pink hoodie and gray sweatpants. I try getting up, but a burning sensation fills my nostrils causing me to blink rapidly as I lay my head back down again.
Why is it burning? I keep touching my nose, waves of nausea coming over me as I think about what he could have done to get me to the penthouse. Poison—no. My body doesn’t feel heavy. I touch my nose again, grabbing a tissue from the dresser, realizing what he’s done. Chloroform. That’s the residue that has me woozy and nauseous currently.
Holding my neck, I open my mouth, but it hurts some. Assessing my options I stumble over to the open window but fail to see the trestle table under foot and banging headlong into it.
“Ouch!” Wincing and overwhelmed by entrapment, I crouch down, bending to hold my throbbing big toe for a second. I’m always thinking later and acting first. I’ve got to get out of this room—this prison palace of luxury.
On the table is a jug of water, Advil and juice. And snacks as well. Fancy sandwiches, crisps, dips and cheese. Grapes. Like some sort of grazing platter. Akim’s doing likely, but I wouldn’t put it past him to have put something in the food. Feeding me during the kidnapping? Wow, this guy is good. Angry about his sick game, I shove the trestle table of devil food out of the way.
Parts of my memory are taking a while to return, but as the murkiness clears, my plan springs back to me. That’s right. I demanded Akim help get my father out of jail. I don’t regret anything, even if I’m trapped in some kind of fancy room. In fact, I’m confident about my chances. I put my feet on the floor surprised I’m steady enough to stand, but I don’t want a chance to get familiar with my surroundings.
All I want to figure out is how to get out of this place quickly. I need to get a message to Asher. My friends. Or my father. Anybody to get me out of here. I can work on my plan better from the outside, but it’s not as if I didn’t see this coming.
Akim might think I’ve played out all my options. And that’s part of the plan too. I want him to think I’m dumb, but the plan I’ve hatched is multilayered, and it looks like I’m going to have to open the last page of the playbook.
My hand travels down to my pocket, and I’m even more shocked to feel my cell phone still intact. The monster let me keep it. What’s the game here? Confused, I check that all my apps are still on it, and they are. Nothing appears to be tampered with, but I’m sure he’s tracking it.
Don’t trust it. He probably has stolen all the information out of it. I wiped everything important from the device earlier, so, if he wants any information about me, he’s going to have to speak to me directly.
He doesn’t know. You haven’t finished…. Glancing up, I stare at the four corners of the room. There’s cameras in two of them. Grimacing, I think on my feet, heading into the bathroom, out of sight to try and make calls. It’s probably not going to work, but I’m going for it all the same. I catch sight of myself in the mirror, stopping to examine the red hand marks around my neck. Strangely, as I stare at them, I see Akim’s face again, his body and hips thrusting into the woman from the sex tape. Arousal stirs deep within me, making me disgusted by my own thoughts of wanton need. Abruptly, I turn from the mirror, the beat of my heart increasing. Nope. I can’t want a cruel man to take my virginity.
Now I’ve got even more incentive to take him down.
I tap my phone searching for my contact list. What if he’s deleted everyone in it? My head thumps thinking about it, but when I scroll to the list, I see everyone I want to be there, is. I call Asher, but it must be some sort of deceptive trick because what if the call doesn’t go through?
I’m proven wrong when Asher answers as sweat trickles down the back of my neck. This is a game. He’s probably listening in on the call. I can’t talk in code to Asher either because he doesn’t know I’ve been kidnapped by Akim.
I know I can’t speak freely. If I do, it’s only going to give Akim more ammunition against me. But I’ve had no choice; besides I’ve got the upper hand, but Akim doesn’t realize it yet. There’s multiple railroads of decisions crisscrossing through my brain, like all the pathways I create when I computer code. I can see them. X leads to Y, which leads to Z. The problem is, all the angles I want to run with are probably not going to lead to anywhere but death.
“Kiara, is that you? I’ve been trying to contact you all day. Is everything okay? We’ve got a crucial break in the case, and I think I’ve found an angle to reduce your father’s sentence,” he advises in a hurried, but excited manner. “Are we still scheduled for our meeting on Monday?”
“No. Everything isn’t okay,” I reply glumly, not wanting him to get his hopes up any more than he should. “I need your help,” I hiss desperately as a knock comes at the door. Pressing my eyes shut, I hold my breath for a second. Holy shit. That has to be Akim, and he can’t hear me trying to get a message to my lawyer. I’ve got to stay alive.
Hanging up the call, I glimpse at my own terror in the mirror, the cell phone almost tumbling out of my hands.
“Who is it?”
“Housekeeping, my dear.” Relief floods through me. Surely, they will help me. Rushing out of the bathroom, I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket addressing the older stoic woman dressed in a gray and white uniform.
“Hi, hi, what’s your name?” I gush, wanting to win sympathy votes so the woman will help me find a way out.
“Coraline. What can I help you with, dear? You haven’t touched your food,” she replies suspiciously, moving things around on the trestle table, seemingly oblivious to my panic.
“Coraline. Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming in. I need your help. Please. If you could… er—show me where the front door is, I can walk myself out of here.”
Convinced that Coraline is going to help me, I’m shocked by what comes next. She shakes her head, puffing up the bun on her head, wrinkles pulling together around her tightened lips. “No. I’m under strict instructions to keep you in here. This is a lovely room, and I’m sure Akim will see to it that you’re taken care of.”
Sobbing, I clutch on to her wrist out of sheer desperation. “No. Please. You don’t understand. He kidnapped me. He put my father in jail. You can’t let him keep me here. You’re going to be included as an accomplice if you do.” I pull out all the stops as the woman ignores me, whistling as she pulls back the sheets on the bed and I look on in horror.
“Would you like your sheets changed today or tomorrow?”
“What? Lady, I told you I’ve been kidnapped! What are you doing? Help me!”
“Nonsense. You’re a guest in the Utkin home. If you want to leave, you simply walk out of the bedroom and go.” A ghost of a smile hangs on to her thin lips as I cotton on to the fact, I’m not safe with the staff. I stare at the door, tempted to open it, but I’m sure there’s a guard standing behind it, so I don’t bother.
The lady pulls back the duvet, and rips the sheet out underneath, nodding her head to the door. “Go on. If you need to go—go.”
I march to the bedroom door for my own benefit, so I know what I’m up against. Turning the handle, it opens to a draughty hallway with the nozzle of a gun pointing in my face, a large pale-faced man standing behind it. “Can I help you with something, Ms. Jane?” He cracks a smile, driving my anxiety up a notch as I back down.
“No.” I can’t compete with a gun in my face. I’m going to have to rely on my wits mainly.
I turn to the maid once I close the door. “Why won’t you help me?”
“You’re going to be fine.” She changes the sheet in record time, pausing for a second. “I will bring clothes for you.”
“You won’t. I’m not staying.” Her eyes hold a glint in them. She’s one of them. She works here.
“Okay.” She leaves, hope leaching out of me with every breath. Akim is the only one who can get me out of this. It’s him I’m going to have to negotiate with.
I can’t help but be impressed by the décor. A double sink, a large enough shower to fit two people, and it’s set up as if it’s for guests.
This is a guest room.
I’m tempted to take a shower, but I don’t want Akim walking in on me. A twisted graphic pieces together in my head. Groaning, slippery hands all over me. I force the imagery out of my head, the stark reminder of his violence driving me back to sanity as I touch my neck. What’s worse is I don’t know what he’s going to do to me. He doesn’t want to kill me. If he did, he would have already done it.
I’ve got one more card to play. And it’s the biggest card of all.