Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Saylor
I wake up in a room that looks like a medical clinic. The strangers are gone, and I’m completely alone.
My brain aches as I try to remember where I am and what happened, but it’s all a big blur.
I was at the club with Avery and decided to head back to the hotel… I know a group of men grabbed me, but the rest is a black hole of nothingness.
My jacket, dress, and shoes are gone.
In their place are a pair of gray grippy socks, bright orange pants that look like prison attire, and a white T-shirt. Even my bra is missing, and my stomach rolls.
If someone violated me… I would know, right? Like, I’d be able to feel it? There would be pain or some way to tell. Even knowing someone stripped me out of my clothes while I was unconscious feels like a pretty significant violation.
My mind races with different ideas and scenarios, but the drugs they gave me are obviously tempering my ability to think clearly because none of the possibilities makes sense.
I groan, struggling against the bindings on my wrists. I’m gagged, but not blindfolded, and the room leads me to believe I’m in some kind of hospital or clinic.
There’s no way to know how much time passes as I lie here, trying to make a plan, but it feels like hours. A loud clanging fills the air as the door slams open and a man comes inside.
Speaking around the gag, I try to tell him I can pay him well if he helps me, but either he doesn’t care or he doesn’t understand.
He undoes the buckles on my feet and wrists and yanks me off the table.
My legs wobble, and I fall toward the bed.
He gives me no time to catch my bearings before dragging me over to a door.
He points, and I try the handle.
For two seconds, I have some delusional hope that he’s here to help me escape, but once the door opens wide enough, it becomes clear that’s not the case.
The faint smell of urine and bleach makes my nose wrinkle. It’s not a pleasant scent, but my bladder is so full, I’m not sure I should pass up the opportunity to use the bathroom.
The man says something I can’t understand, and I jolt, getting myself together and slipping inside. His booted foot ends up in the way before I can close the door. He snarls another command, and I know he’s not going to leave me alone, no matter what I say or do.
I handle my business with an audience, still foggy and out of it.
The faucet water is freezing as I wash my hands. There’s no mirror above the sink, and I’m counting myself lucky there was even toilet paper.
No paper towels or hand towels are available, so I dry my cold, dripping hands on the pants I was put in. It’s such a violation, but I can’t even focus on that. I need to make a plan and try to get him to start the ransom process immediately.
My entire body jolts as he grabs my shoulder, pulling me back into the examination room.
“Not very smart if you didn’t even try to take this off.” He rips the gag from my mouth. “That was your opportunity to drink, but you missed it. Hands in front and together!”
He knows English?
This cannot be my life.
“Now!” he snarls.
“I have a number you can call with your ransom demands—” I hiss as he snatches my arms, tugging them together painfully.
I was bound to that table long enough for my hands and feet to go numb.
I’m just getting feeling back in my arms as he cuffs my wrists together in front of my waist and drags me out of the room and into a nondescript hallway.
Fluorescent bulbs flicker overhead as he pulls me down the concrete block corridor. The walls are white, and the floor has some type of cheap ancient linoleum tiles.
Why would my kidnappers bring me here?
Either they know who I am and they want to ransom me, or… An even more terrifying thought crosses my mind.
What if they don’t know who I’m related to ?
If they only snatched me because I’m an omega…that means they’re probably about to traffic me. They’ll sell me to the highest bidder, simply because I’m an unbonded omega.
The man yanks on my cuffs, turning right at the next hallway.
My brain throbs as I desperately try to remember the pattern of turns we take, but I wasn’t conscious when I got here, so I have no way of knowing where the exit is.
Getting back to the exam room, where they did God knows what to me, is not high on my priority list. I need to find a telephone or maybe an office that will have information showing where I am.
He jostles me around without an ounce of care, and panic rises in my chest as I stumble over my feet.
Going out tonight or yesterday or whenever that was, was a terrible idea, and my terror only increases the closer we get to the door at the end of the corridor.
“If you want a payday, my father will meet your demands. You just have to give him the chance,” I choke out.
“Shut up,” the guard snaps, slamming my shoulder into the wall.
I stumble and try to right myself, but I’ve never been in handcuffs a day in my life. Not even for fun sexy activities, which feels like a real misstep.
I’ve always followed the rules. I’m well-behaved and generally do everything in my power not to be an embarrassment to my father.
This is definitely going to tarnish his good name.
He and my stepmother are going to be so pissed.
If I live.
If I die in this hellhole, they’ll probably just be sad. And yeah, a little angry at me for doing something so ridiculously stupid, like blowing off my highly paid, highly trained personal security.
“If you would just listen to me, I can give you a phone number to call that will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.” I nod, trying to will him to believe me. “They’ll pay you if I’m unharmed.”
He snatches a handful of my hair, pulling me through the open doorway.
I squeak and dance around on my toes. He doesn’t even have the decency to tug close to my skull, and it feels like he’s about to rip out a huge patch of my hair if I don’t keep up.
“Please, at least tell me what you think I’ve done,” I beg, struggling to keep up with his long strides. It’s not easy, when he’s pulling me forward at an angle while my hands are cuffed. Normally, I would put my arms out for balance. “Are you trying to sell me? Because you can sell me back to my family!”
He spits a string of words in that other language.
Strangely, I don’t need to speak it to understand he’s not calling me nice names. The tone and inflection indicate he’s saying some vile things I’d probably rather not know.
I’m so confused.
Is this a setup?
Do they know I’m the daughter of a senator?
Or did I stumble into an omega trafficking ring?
I don’t know where I am or if I’m even in the same country.
My stomach lurches.
After my mom died, my dad brought in full-time personal security. He wanted to make sure no one could ever hurt me. Not that she was kidnapped or murdered.
She died in a car accident.
One minute, she was there, and the next, she was gone. It was the most traumatic thing I’ve been through—until this.
I thought my father was grossly overreacting by opting for a live-in team.
By the time I was fifteen, I had been through multiple sets of handlers, but Leo and Shaw stuck around. They were by far the best guys Shadow Security assigned to me, and not just because they were pleasant to look at.
They never let me out of their sight.
It might be unfair to blame my current team, considering I snuck out on purpose, but I did the same thing to Leo and Shaw back in the day. They found me within an hour, though again, that was under completely different circumstances.
Leo was also the only bodyguard I’ve ever had who would sit down and go over the kidnapping protocol with me on a monthly basis, despite never having any direct threats made to me personally.
My mom came from old oil money, and her trust left nearly everything to me.
If she and my dad had been able to have more children, I would have split it with them. Well, after my dad got his ten percent. Even inheriting ten percent was an astronomical amount of money that he seemed to be satisfied with. After all, it’s not like he grew up in poverty, and he always told me that the money was meant for me.
My stepmom is the one who was unsatisfied to learn what she and my dad missed out on. She’s never been good at holding her tongue, and some of her comments over the years have been downright hurtful. The one that bothered me the most was when she told me it wasn’t my dad’s job to pay for my college tuition. After all, they have twin boys that he’ll need to put through college one day.
And it’s not like I mind paying for my own things, but I don’t gain access to my trust until I turn twenty-one. I get half then and the other half when I get married. It really ate away at me to hear her talk about me like I was a drain on their family finances.
I plan to give my dad a check for every penny he’s paid for my tuition once I gain access to the trust.
The man drags me down the dimly lit hallway and stops near a door. He propels me into the wall, using his hold on my hair as leverage. My shoulder takes the brunt of the impact against the brick wall, but my cheek and lips slam into the coarse surface when I don’t stop myself in time.
If I live through this, I’m going to make this asshole pay.