31. Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter thirty-one
A my was waiting by the elevator, looking smug with an infuriating grin.
Melody had a bad feeling about it, but didn’t show an ounce of hesitation, just her disdain for the woman who thought she could steal another woman’s boyfriend.
Amy touched her fingertip to her bottom lip. “Those things he said while I was in his bed…”
“Were meant for me, not you,” she snapped. She wasn’t going to let the bitch think she was jealous when she was royally pissed.
The elevator arrived with a swoosh as the doors opened. They both got in. Melody jabbed the 1 button with her thumb and tried to ignore Amy.
Amy turned and stared at the side of Melody’s face. “He seemed really happy you were home. Damn was he ready to fuck you. And that cock…” Amy fanned her face.
Melody turned her head and locked eyes with Amy. “You should shut up now.”
The elevator doors opened.
Melody realized Amy never pushed the 2 button for her floor. She dismissed it in favor of getting the hell out of there and away from temptation. Because she really wanted to punch Amy in her self-satisfied face. She seemed proud of herself for disrupting things between Melody and Fox.
Amy followed her toward the lobby doors. “You don’t deserve him.”
She spun around just outside the doors. “Fuck you. I treat him with respect. You think you can just force yourself on him and take what you want.”
“I thought I wanted him,” she confessed. “Now all I want is the money.”
That set off an inner alarm. “What are you talking about?”
“You were supposed to run out of the apartment and building. But this works, too.” Her gaze shot past Melody. “I think he’s going to miss you.”
Melody turned just enough to catch sight of the van and the guy wearing a black ski mask jumping out of it.
Amy grabbed her arm in a death grip, trying to keep Melody from running.
Melody let loose her rage and swung at Amy’s face, hitting her in the jaw and mouth. Amy stumbled but didn’t let go, so Melody swung again, landing another blow to her eye.
Free, Melody tried to run, but the other attacker slammed into her back, sending her to the ground. She scraped up her knees and palms as she tried to catch herself, but the weight of the guy sent her sprawling onto the pavement and losing her breath.
He took advantage, threw a hood over her head, grabbed her arms behind her back, zip-tied her wrists, then wrapped his arms around her middle and pulled her up and into the van.
The vehicle engine roared as they took off, Melody falling back against the metal side as they made a right turn out of the apartment’s parking lot. She tried to suck in a breath, but it took several attempts to get any air.
The person who grabbed her off the sidewalk sat close beside her, his knees pressed to Melody’s thigh. She tried to inch away from him, but ended up knocking into someone else.
“You fucking bitch. You busted my lip and I’ll probably have a black eye.”
Melody kicked out at her, hitting her in the thigh. “You deserve worse, you bitch.”
But it was futile because the guy behind her grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Be still before you hurt yourself, or get hurt,” the guy mumbled, trying to disguise his voice.
Amy knew him, which meant he could easily be linked to her. And when Melody got free, she was going to make Amy and her accomplices pay for kidnapping her.
Until then, she tried to tamp down her fear, lower her racing heart, and think of a way out of this. “What do you want?” She had a feeling she already knew.
Amy’s breath heaved in and out against the hood’s fabric a second before she grabbed Melody’s chin and held it tight. With the hood over her face, she couldn’t see Amy, but she could feel the menace coming off her. “It’s simple, bitch. Fox won the lottery. Now it’s my turn to cash in. I wonder how much he’ll pay to get you back.”
Melody knew Fox would pay the ransom. She also knew he’d never let Amy and her coconspirators get away with this. “You had the perfect setup working for Fox. No doubt, you could have expanded that working relationship into catering gigs, even a full-time personal chef if you’d played your cards right. Maybe he’d have even asked me to hire you on at the new place we’re opening.”
“You would never hire me.”
“Not for you. But for him, I’d do anything. But after what you pulled in his apartment and when he finds out you kidnapped me and why, he’s going to ruin you. Not to mention make sure you’re locked behind bars as long as possible. You can kiss the rest of your twenties and thirties goodbye. You’ll be lucky if you aren’t a haggard, hardened mess when you get out, with no job prospects, an arrest record for kidnapping and sexual assault following you around, and forty-year-old eggs getting older by the second. While all your friends are getting married and having babies, you’ll be watching your back in the shower and hoping some beast of a woman doesn’t make you her bitch.”
Amy’s fingers tightened on her jaw. “Fuck you!”
Melody headbutted the bitch right in the face and heard the satisfying crack.
Amy wrapped her hands around Melody’s throat, shoved her onto her back, and tried to choke the life out of her. “I fucking hate you.”
Melody only had her legs free and used them. She kneed Amy in the side. Once. Twice.
Then suddenly the guy’s hand pushed down on Melody’s chest and Amy’s grip on her released as she fell away. “You kill her, we don’t get paid,” the guy snapped. “Now knock it off,” he shouted, his tone gruff and almost familiar.
“They’re going to let you take the fall,” she announced to Amy. “You’re the only one I can identify.”
Amy’s harsh pants and moaning ceased for a split second. Yeah, she understood now.
“You were just the means to get me outside and away from Fox. You thought after I found you in bed, I’d run out the door. They’d snatch me. But it didn’t work out quite that way, did it. You were supposed to be up in the apartment. Me and Fox, none the wiser you were the distraction.”
“You walked right out and into our trap anyway.” Amy didn’t sound so confident now.
“And you walked out with me because you just had to see it go down, didn’t you? Now Fox has it all on video, which includes your face, you holding me against my will, and you getting into the van.”
“Fuck you!” The expletive lost its punch when delivered with a heaping dose of pain and garbled pronunciation thanks to the broken nose and what Melody hoped was a fountain of blood dripping down her face. Leaving evidence in the van and on her.
Let her try to explain her injuries.
Though Amy could probably tell a convincing kidnap story, making herself out to be the victim. She liked to use whatever worked to get her what she wanted. So far, none of her plans had worked out so well.
Fox wouldn’t believe her anyway. Not now. Not ever again after what she did.
“Shut up and put this on your face,” the guy said to Amy.
“She started it.”
“Yeah, well, you’ll get what you want soon enough when Fox coughs up all that money. Until then, we need her alive and well to carry out our plan.”
Melody wondered what exactly they planned to do with her until they contacted Fox and set up the exchange.
What would they do to her after they got the money?
So far she’d held her own.
But what if Fox didn’t want to play their game by their rules?
He’d never endanger her life. But things could go wrong.
She hated that they hadn’t resolved things after that scene in his place with Amy.
What if I never get the chance to see him again and have the life we dreamed about?