Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
DAPHNE
No... Not again.
My stomach churns as the woozy effects of the drugs clears from the foggy edges of my brain. My mind’s overwhelmed with questions, and the familiar, sickening feeling churns my stomach, threatening to bring up whatever’s left.
All the who, what, when, where, and why questions flood my brain like someone opened the gates of hell and let every demon out.
Where am I? Who did this? Why am I here?
Did he… did he hurt me too?
Through the lingering haze, I don’t feel hurt. I’m not sore. There’s no tenderness between my thighs like last time.
I don’t feel sticky like last time either.
Fuck, I hate thinking about that. Seriously, where the hell am I?
Don’t panic. Don’t panic! Daphne, do not fucking panic.
But how can I not? I’m chained up in a room I’ve never seen before, for Christ’s sake. The metal attaching me to the wall slinks across the laminate floor as I pace.
There are no windows, and the only door is at the top of the stairs. I already tried running for it, but the chain stopped me three feet from the bottom step.
I can make it everywhere in the room except for the stairs before the chain holds me back.
This doesn’t look like the setting for a scene in a Saw movie. I’m not caged. It’s not freezing cold, and I’m not boiling hot either. It’s cozy.
I can reach the bathroom, even the shower, but the vent is small, so there’s nowhere for me to climb out. Those stairs are my only escape.
Seriously, this room is a fire hazard.
Nothing hurts. My clothes are on—including my underwear. He didn’t… nope, not going to go there. If I let myself fall down that rabbit hole, I’ll trigger a panic attack. Now’s not the time.
As I pace, waiting for my captor to show up, my stomach gurgles. I check the minifridge, but it’s stocked with only bottled water and a two-liter bottle of Pepsi.
Okay, this guy’s definitely a psychopath. Who drinks Pepsi over Coke?
Think, Daphne. Think! You work for one of the oiliest men on Capitol Hill. You should be able to negotiate your way out of this.
God, why did kidnapping sound sexy in my dark romance books? It’s fucking terrifying in real life.
As I rack my brain for any scrap of an escape plan, the door creaks open and heavy footsteps thud downstairs. A pair of combat boots appears. Then long legs covered in black denim. Finally, I see a black hoodie covering the man’s head.
And a mask.
A Guy Fawkes mask turns slowly, those glossy black eyes staring at me.
Great. I’ve been kidnapped by a Pepsi-loving, V-for-Vendetta psycho. If this is a nightmare, please let me wake up.
I pinch my arm hard and wince.
He rushes forward, his hands raised. “Don’t! Please don’t hurt yourself.” That voice. The same gravely voice from Blondie at the bar.
He’s the fucker who kidnapped me?
“Just checking to see if I’m awake,” I mutter.
Guy nods, his mask moving up and down enough for me to catch the faintest glimpse of dark brown hair under that hoodie.
So, Blondie isn’t blond after all?
“Are you going to shoot me?” I ask.
The mask tilts slowly. “I don’t use guns. Sorry, but, um, this isn’t how I normally do things.”
“Excuse me?”
He lingers out of reach, but from a few feet away, I stare up at the mask. Black mesh covers the eyeholes, but I can’t make out the color of his eyes. Are they really brown? He looks paler, too. This can’t be the same guy.
But his voice…
“I don’t usually bring people back to my house. Kidnapping isn’t my forte.”
Then what is?
Nope! I don’t want to know.
“But you drugged me.”
“Sorry. It was a necessary precaution.”
God, he says it so matter-of-factly that I want to punch him. Does he not realize how damn traumatic that is for someone? To wake up not knowing where you are, or what’s happened to you? To lose chunks of time with no memory at all?
To be at someone else’s mercy?
I need to get out before this escalates. Blondie may not have a Sleeping Beauty fetish, but I’m still chained to his wall, and even with my self-defense classes, I don’t think I can take down Blondie one-handed. He looks too strong. Too lethal.
I need to get out before he hurts me.
“Why don’t you let me go? We can chalk it all up to a misunderstanding.”
Negotiate. I can negotiate myself out of this, especially since this guy seems uncomfortable with me being here.
He rubs the back of his neck over the hood.
“Sorry, Daphne, but I can’t do that.”
Maybe if I play dumb, he’ll give me something I can work with to get the hell out of here alive. “You know my name?” I ask, hoping to sound genuinely surprised.
He drops his hand to nod. “I did my research. I knew you had an appointment with Connor McArthur tonight, so I arranged everything.”
He knew where I’d be? That… what? How? Anger pulses in my veins.
Violated. The thought of some psycho stranger knowing where I’d be makes me feel violated and exposed. And I don’t like anyone seeing me exposed.
“So, you admit that you planned on kidnapping me?”
He gives me one solitary nod.
Unbelievable. This can’t be happening.
“I do intend to let you go,” he says. “So, please don’t hurt yourself while you’re here. It’ll make my job a lot easier.” He says it with the utmost sincerity, like he genuinely doesn’t want me to get hurt during a goddamn kidnapping.
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it.
“Easier? Why the fuck should I make your job easier? Just let me go. I won’t tell anyone I was here.”
“Sorry, Princess. That’s not going to happen.”
Princess? Oh, he did not go there!
“Don’t call me that. And what’s your end game? Is it money? We have ransom insurance. Up to three million. Ask for it, don’t back down, and my dad will give it to you.”
He crosses his arms, and I can see the sleeves of his hoodie tighten around thickly muscled forearms.
“This isn’t about money, Princess. This is about something much, much bigger than a few million dollars.”
“And what’s that?”
“The health insurance bill your dad’s pushing to get through Congress. The one your boss is trying to corral votes for.”
“The bill…” Sifting through the slight haze, I remember Senator Furt talking about meetings with members of Congress to push through a bill that would put him in my dad’s favor. “You mean the Bradshaw Health for Americans Act?”
“Ding! Ding! Ding!” He raises a finger in the air with a flourish. “We have a winner.”
“What’s so special about it? I haven’t even read it.”
There’s an invisible shift in the air. Whatever it is, I immediately know I said the wrong thing. I put my proverbial foot in my mouth, and it tastes like Pepsi.
“You’re arranging meetings to get it passed, and you didn’t read it? Do you even know what that bill’s threatening to do?” There’s venom in his voice and, for the first time since waking up, I’m scared of this man.
My body shrinks as I shake my head.
“Princess, you’re the dumbest smart person I’ve met.”
If that’s true, he hasn’t spent much time in Washington. If he wants me to be dumb, I’ll play dumb. I can Legally Blonde myself out of this.
“My job keeps me so busy,” I say with an extra softness in my voice. “I don’t have time to read dry legislation. I’ll read it right now if you want me to. And I’ll stop arranging meetings. But please let me go.”
“Do you think arranging meetings is what I care about?” He scoffs. “Princess, you’re not that important.”
“Stop calling me Princess!” I snap. “And if I’m not important, then why the hell am I here?”
He shakes his head at me slowly, and there’s something menacing about that cold, unseeing mask. “We’re going to send a message to the President that, if he doesn’t stop this bill, his daughter will end up at the bottom of the Potomac River.”
The blood drops from my face to my feet. “But… but you said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“And I won’t. I need him to think I’ll hurt you. Killing you won’t help the cause.”
If I weren’t chained up in his basement, I’d laugh in his face. However, I might need a soapbox to stand at eye level with him.
“My dad? He doesn’t give a fuck. He’d rather pass a bill and use my kidnapping to his advantage. You’d have better luck kidnapping our dog.”
“I wouldn’t hurt a dog, either.”
“Oh, good. Liberty will be relieved to hear that her furry behind is safe from you.”
There’s a long pause, and I can almost hear the gears in his head grinding as he thinks.
So, I continue. “Me getting kidnapped is going to boost his agenda. Why do you think I have the bare minimum Secret Service? My dad wants something bad to happen to me. Do you know how much sympathy he’d garner if I died?
Everyone will pity the man who lost both of his daughters, one to a deranged psycho.
So, let me go before anyone realizes I’m gone.
They’ll think I dodged a bad date with Connor and be none the wiser that I ended up in V-for-Vendetta’s basement. ”
“Guy Fawkes.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s what the press is calling me. The ‘American Guy Fawkes’.
It would be less embarrassing if it weren’t for those 4chan idiots wearing the mask like a fucking Halloween costume.
Man, I tell you, you use gunpowder one time to blow up a Supreme Court justice, and the press can’t even give you an original name. ”
Blow up… Wait. No! This can’t be the guy.
“You… You’re the one who killed Diane Toner? The Justice my dad nominated?”
“Boom!” His fingers clump together, then separate like a mini explosion before the fingertips of his gloves touch together again.
Holy shit. This guy’s a murderer. My heart hammers so hard against my ribs like it wants to escape and abandon the rest of me.
“How many?” I don’t know if I want to know, but I feel like it’s something I should know.
“Just four.”
“Just four!”
He counts on his fingers. “Governor Stanton, Justice Toner, Senator Green, and Senator Mindi.” He drops his hand.
“Toner was the first time I used gunpowder. Mindi was my second. I liked it as a signature, but it’s redundant to refer to me by some historical figure most Americans know nothing about. ”
“You’re worried about being remembered?” Don’t serial killers want to be memorialized in some way?
Oh, why wasn’t I one of those women who got into true crime? I laugh at horror movies, but can’t stomach serial killer documentaries—and look where it’s gotten me.
Guy shakes his head. “I don’t care if I’m remembered, so long as those players are wiped off the board before they can ruin any more lives.”
My stomach growls. How the hell can my body want food when it feels like the blood’s been drained from me?
“You must be hungry,” he says. “I was going to order takeout. What would you like? Chinese? Thai? Pizza? There’s a KFC around here, but they tend to run out of chicken on Friday nights. Pretty bad business for a chicken franchise.”
I shake my head at him. “Um… I don’t know. Surprise me?”
He nods before turning his back on me. “I’ll be back once the food’s here. Make yourself comfortable.”
He thuds his way back up the steps.
Guy stops halfway and ducks his head down to look at me. “Oh, and you can scream when the driver gets here if you want, but they won’t hear you. I have an iron-enforced door, plus the walls are heavily soundproofed. Like I said, please don’t hurt yourself doing something stupid.”
He disappears upstairs as the heavy creak of an iron bar slips into place.
Fuck. I’m trapped.
Thank God for bobby pins.
That itchy wig and wig cap are tossed into a corner of the bathroom, and luckily, amateur Guy Fawkes forgot he put bobby pins in my hair.
Granted, I have no idea how to use one to pick a lock, so I’m fumbling as I try to pop the lock on my cuff. How do they do this in movies?
After ten minutes of messing with the lock in the safety of the bathroom, finally, the metal falls away with a heavy clunk on the floor.
My wrist aches as the weight falls from it. I tuck the second bobby pin in my bra, just in case, and discard the used one beside the open cuff.
I don’t know how long it’s been since he went upstairs, or how long it’ll take for food to get here, so I work fast. Checking the door, I see it locks from the outside. Damnit, there goes my only way out.
So, I’m going to have to wait for Guy to return.
Gripping the chain, I drag it deeper into the bathroom so it looks like I’m occupied. Then I crouch under the stairs.
And I wait.
The door finally creaks open.
His boots thud overhead. I only have one chance at this.
“Daphne, I hope you’re hungry.”
As he steps down and into the room, adrenaline shoots through me. He takes a couple of steps into the room, his back to me.
I dart out and go to kick the back of his knee to drop him to the floor.
But his hands are empty. There’s no food.
He whips around, jumping out of reach before grabbing my wrist. He spins me around, and my back slams into his chest so hard it rattles the breath in my lungs. My ass presses into him and… oh my God. Is he turned on? Or is that a gun?
His free hand circles around my head, and a tea towel covers my mouth.
I scream.
Everything goes dark.