Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
This can’t be happening. She crouched in the woods, peering down at the half dozen men in the driveway alongside the cabin Travis had rented.
She had been right all along. She’d die in the woods.
Afraid running would make too much noise, she opted to stay in place and be as still as humanly possible.
Her fists had remained locked tight in front of her lips, and she’d stifled a scream upon witnessing Travis surrender his gun and sink to his knees on the snowy driveway.
He hadn’t put up much of a fight, and for some reason, that surprised her. From the moment she’d laid eyes on him, she’d taken him for a man who wouldn’t give in so easily.
Bait? Did he want to be taken? It didn’t make sense. But what the hell did she know?
Three sets of headlights illuminated the driveway: two SUVs and what looked like a rental truck people used for short distance moves.
One of the masked men forced Travis’s hands behind his back and began nudging him in the direction of his cabin.
Other men were already inside, and every light had been turned on. She assumed they were tossing the place, but what were they looking for?
Her shoulders jerked at the sudden sound coming from . . . shit, from her. Her cell phone was still on and inside her purse. She’d almost forgotten she had it.
Curses came from the driveway and gunfire sprayed the woods.
She wasn’t on set.
These weren’t fake bullets.
No! She snatched her phone from her purse, turning off the call from her brother Harrison, and kept low as she ran, trying to dodge the bullets.
She tripped and fell, hitting her head on something hard as a loud voice boomed, “STOP!”
Eva had to get back upright so she could move again even though the gunfire now ceased.
Her breaths were shallow and tears streaked her cheeks, but her legs felt weighted down by lead as she rose.
She gasped when someone grabbed her from behind. “No. Let me go.” She struggled, trying to break free, but two more people swooped before her.
“Stop resisting, or I’ll kill you now.” An accented voice found her ears and her knees buckled.
“Please, let me go,” she cried, even though her plea would be in vain. She was up against three figures in the dark, and they were probably armed.
Within ten minutes, she found herself back at the cabin, being pushed indoors.
Her palms landed on the floor, her knees banging against the hardwood. She slowly lifted her head to find Travis’s blue eyes pinned to her face.
He was on his knees, his hands behind his back, and he was shaking his head ever so slightly as if disappointed. “Don’t hurt her.” His gaze veered to an armed, masked man off to his right.
“Why shouldn’t we?” the man asked, his accent unrecognizable to her.
“She’s important to me.” Travis looked at Eva again, as if he were trying to send her a message with his eyes.
But she wasn’t receiving it. “No, I—” One of the men pressed something hard into her back, forcing her flat against the floor now. She turned her cheek to try and prevent her glasses from breaking. They pressed hard against her face, digging into her skin.
“If she’s special to you, all the more reason to put a bullet in her head.”
Oh, God. She squeezed her eyes closed, preparing for death. But how does one do that, exactly?
“She works with me. She knows everything,” Travis rushed out.
Peering out of one eye, she caught sight of the man’s dark shoes as they inched back a couple of steps from her body.
“Malik will want her brought in with me,” Travis added, making things worse in her eyes.
“She doesn’t matter. Kill her,” the man said so casually she couldn’t comprehend his words.
“Ender, wait!” Travis yelled. “The USB’s been destroyed!”
The sentence held no meaning to her, but she prayed to God it’d somehow keep her alive.
“Who has the code?” He pointed the gun at her and then switched it to Travis.
“She knows five digits of the code, and I know the other five. It keeps us both alive,” Travis said.
Code? A foggy haze secured itself in her mind like a self-defense mechanism that would protect her from pain if a bullet pierced her flesh.
“And how do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“You don’t. The question is can you take the risk?” Travis’s self-assured tone with not the slightest waver in it, almost comforted her.
Murmured voices in another language continued as she thought about all of the things she still wanted in life and might never get a chance to experience.
“Get her up,” the man growled, and her stomach muscles banded tight.
She struggled, floundering like a wet fish on the dock as they lifted her. “Get your hands off me!” she begged once standing.
The man referred to as Ender removed his mask, and she shut her eyes.
Wasn’t seeing someone’s face the kiss of death—or was that only true in Hollywood?
“Strip,” he demanded in a low, guttural voice that had her skin crawling. His black brows dropped as his dark lashes lifted, his eyes traveling the length of her body.
“No.” She looked at Travis, hoping for a savior, not sure what the hell kind of mess she’d gotten herself into.
“You didn’t make me strip. You can pat her down with her clothes on.” Travis’s voice was rough and intimidating, but the man cocked a gun her way and angled his head, ignoring him.
“Fine. Tell me the code, and she can stay clothed.” The man edged closer to him.
“Sure, so you can kill us both, here and now?” Travis’s face tightened, and a slow creep of redness spread up his throat and then deepened as if anger had burst through and he could no longer hold himself back.
The man redirected his attention to Eva after a breathy huff fell from his lips. “Strip.”
“Don’t make her do this.” Travis started to move in her direction, but two masked men roped their hands around his arms in an attempt to hold him back. He simply dragged them along with him. “Don’t disgrace a woman like this.”
“Make her do it, or she’ll die. We’ll roll the dice as to whether you lied about the code or not.” Ender’s lips twisted into a grim sneer.
“They’re making sure you’re not wired,” Travis said a moment later in a softer voice.
“You can leave your undergarments on,” Ender said.
She swallowed the rise of bile in her throat. The pain in her stomach traveled north and into her chest, and her entire body began to hurt. “Okay,” she surrendered.
Eva slowly removed her jacket and bent forward to unzip her knee-length brown boots. Her fast pulse pricked her neck as she went through the motions of stripping down in front of complete strangers.
The men forced Travis back to his knees. It took four guys to get him there. While he’d dropped easily in the driveway earlier, for some reason, he’d become more of a lion inside the cabin—ferocity filled his eyes.
Her cold fingers reached for the hem of her long-sleeved sweater, and she nervously lifted it over her head. She immediately clutched it in front of her chest, but the man—Ender—stepped in and grabbed it from her. “You hiding something?”
“No.” She could feel Travis’s eyes on her, but when she looked at him, he wasn’t staring at her body like she was sure the men in the room were—no, his eyes were burning with hate, with something dark and primitive.
It was as if he were ready to charge at the men in the room and tear them to shreds.
“Pants, too.” Ender motioned for her to hurry.
As she unzipped her jeans, another masked man at her side began speaking in a different language. He held two phones in his hand, the one Travis had given her, plus her personal cell.
Shit. “See, I’m okay.” She opened her arms wide as Ender circled her.
She flinched when he snatched her glasses from her face and stomped on them with his booted foot—and then snapped a photo of her with his phone a moment later.
“Get dressed. We’re going.” The burn of Ender’s gaze was like a hot iron on her skin.
She scrambled for her clothes as the men forced Travis back to his feet.
He whispered, “Sorry,” as he brushed past her on the way out.
Sorry was reserved for spilling coffee on your blouse or for deleting your favorite show from the DVR.
Sorry was not for getting you kidnapped and probably killed.
Ender escorted her to the rental truck once dressed, and Travis was already sitting inside. His ankles were tied and his hands were behind his back, attached to something that appeared bolted to the floor.
Before she knew it, she was positioned in the same way, but directly across from him.
The door fell shut a moment later, and they were left alone in the dark.
With her chin tucked against her chest, she closed her eyes and tried to come up with a plan. But she had a feeling she couldn’t write herself out of this mess. This was a serious plot twist in her life, and she was damn sure there’d be no happy ending.
“Are you okay?” Travis asked once the engine purred and they were on the move.
“Of course I’m not,” she hissed.
“I’m sorry,” he said a minute later. “You were never supposed to get dragged into this.”
“Four days early. Why did we have to finish filming four days early?” she whispered under her breath.
She tilted her head back and squeezed the emotions down her throat, trying to find some sense of calm, but it was damn next to impossible.
“Why’d you lie to them about me?” Tremors shot through her arms.
“To keep you alive,” he said softly. “Otherwise they’d have put a bullet in your head and burned your body.”
“Burned my . . .” She couldn’t even finish the sentence.
She wasn’t on a TV show, she reminded herself. This was reality. But how could this possibly be her reality?
She was boring.
Flannel pajamas–History Channel–and–black coffee boring.
Everly Reed was glamour, not Eva. And she hadn’t been Everly in three years.
But God, after tonight, she’d give anything to have her old life back if it meant she’d live to see another day.