Chapter 55
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
I try to open my eyes, but a coughing fit causes me to wince in pain.
What the hell happened, and where am I?
My cheek is against a dirty concrete floor as my senses start to come back online. The coughing causes a metallic taste to flood my mouth. When did I split my lip open—and on what?
Wherever I am smells musty and damp. My eyes slowly blink open, but the darkened room has minimal light, until a flood light is turned on, blinding me as the creak of a metal door opening echoes off the concrete walls.
“Oh, good, you’re awake. I’ve been waiting, Ryan.”
I squint in the direction of the voice, but there is no recollection of who the hell this person is. He’s tall, maybe a little over six feet, lean but fit with wide cheekbones and an angular jaw.
He may know my name, but I have no clue who this asshole is—other than I hate him already.
I try to reach up to wipe the blood from my mouth, but my hands are restrained behind my back. I give them a quick tug, and I would guess zip ties by the resistance and size of bands digging into my wrists.
Well, that’s not great.
The asshole claps his hands three brisk times, but he might as well have hit me over the head with a baseball bat with how the sound strikes my ears, bouncing off the concrete walls, and causing an immediate headache.
“Fuck!” I didn’t mean to let him have any reaction, but clearly this amuses him as he laughs at my pain.
“Just had to make sure you were awake. You took quite a nap there on the floor. It looked extremely uncomfortable.”
“Yeah, well, zip ties will do that to you.”
“Eh,” he tilts his head back and forth, “it wasn’t so much the zip ties as it was the taser followed by a dose of ketamine.”
The fuck? He drugged me? Where did that happen?
I’m trying to recall where I was before waking up in this damp and cold room, but I only remember leaving the airport and walking to my car, then … nothing. It’s blank.
Wait. It’s not totally blank. There was a searing pain in my body, and I lost control of my limbs. He did tase me … I hope I didn’t piss my pants in the process. I know it’s not guaranteed, but I remember reading that getting tased can cause some people to piss themselves.
Who the fuck is this guy?
“It’s logical to assume you’re trying to piece together everything that’s happened here, but have you put the big puzzle together yet?”
“Big puzzle?” I manage to cough out. My throat is exceptionally dry, and it’s hard to talk. How long was I unconscious?
He nods and starts to slowly walk from one side of the windowless room to the other. The room is coming into focus a bit more as my eyes adjust, but it looks like a nondescript warehouse storage room, which doesn’t help me identify anything that could get me out of here.
“You tried to take something that is mine, and I couldn’t stand by any longer. I’m an incredibly patient man, especially with something as precious as this, but tsk, tsk, the ring was too far.”
Ring.
Harlow.
This psychopath is implying Harlow is his? The hell she is.
I take a deep breath to try and calm the rising anger. My martial arts training may not physically help me right now while being detained, but this asshole is playing a mental game, and I’m not going to lose, not to him.
And sure as hell not when Harlow is on the line.
“You aren’t worthy of someone like her. You—ha!” He laughs as though he just told the best joke of his life. “Oh, heavens, you’re so beneath her it really is comical. You couldn’t even be bothered to be intentional with her. Typical red roses for Valentine’s Day? How boring and uninspired.”
He tilts his head ever so slightly that it feels more controlled than natural.
“I saw her face when she opened the exclusively curated bouquet of her favorite white flowers and there was no competition,” he sneers as he looks off in the distance. “Although I am still annoyed she thought Aisha sent them. Her friend sent a box of chocolates—not a three-hundred-dollar bouquet!”
The man pauses and takes three deep breaths while looking at the ceiling before turning back to me. “And yet, you still had the audacity to play along with her parents’ games? After everything they have done and failed to do as parents?”
Valentine’s Day? Her parents? “What are you talking about?”
“Harlow is a magnificent creature, but her parents are social-climbing leaches. I thought the stunt at the Christmas event was enough to shake them up, but it didn’t really affect them much. Not when you swooped in and took her away.”
“Do you mean when she asked me to come and bring her home?”
“No!” He stomps over and leans down to point his finger in my face.
“No, she did not ask you to come! You took her. You took her away when she could have stood up to them and let all of those people see how terrible they are. When someone is a terrible parent, they need to be corrected. They should be revealed to the world. And you stole that chance from her.”
“And how would you know how her parents treat her?”
He leans back and moves toward a chair against the opposite wall. “That’s honestly adorable. I know everything there is to know about Harlow Lane.”
I contract my abdomen muscles enough to sit up and scoot back to lean against the cold concrete wall, but it’s better than having my face on the floor. I need to keep him talking, and then I’ll try to figure out how the fuck to get out of here. “Oh, yeah? And what is that you think you know?”
“Well, I know there won’t be any trips to Iceland for you and Harlow. In fact, you won’t be going anywhere with her ever again.” My brows furrow as I replay the words in my head, not sure what this man is talking about until it clicks.
And a new wave of dread crashes over me.
“What…” I clear my throat that suddenly feels tighter. “What did you just say?”
“Iceland. The Northern Lights.” The man tilts his head, faint amusement in his eyes, as he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “A surprise once-in-a-lifetime getaway, I believe you called it?”
How would he know that? I’ve only talked to Jack about it and that was just a few text messages.
“The Iceland trip? Ironic, really. It’s a dream for her.” His slow smile contradicts his cold, calculating eyes. “But for you, it’s delusional.”
That message to Jack was the same week my phone started acting up.
It wasn’t the software from the board compromising my device.
It was him.
He had access to my phone, to my texts, to … everything.
And worst of all? I made his access to Harlow easier. “You were in my phone.” I’m not asking him a question—it’s a statement of fact.
“Come now, Ryan, you’re still thinking too small. I mean, to be expected with you, but it’s not about just your phone. I’ve been everywhere.”
My teeth clench and I inhale deeply, trying to control my brewing rage. “Hacking information does not give you the right to anything, let alone her.”
The man huffs in annoyance, his bravado wobbling momentarily before his smug expression slips back into place. “You still don’t get it. Her dreams—like the woman herself—belong to me.”
While that statement is actually delusional, the reality is that so long as this guy is out there, Harlow will never be safe.
He adjusts his cuffs and picks at an invisible piece of lint. “She has been under my protection and care for years.”
The. Fuck.
“You don’t believe me?”
“How can I believe you when I don’t even know who you are?”
For the first time since I woke up, this man looks genuinely shocked.
“What do you mean? Of course, you know who I am. Harlow has talked about me, and at great lengths, I’m sure.
See? You don’t even listen to her. You don’t even know the people that are important in her life!
And you think you get to marry her? No, that’s impossible. That simply will not do.”
“Why don’t we start with you telling me your name, and then I can tell you if Harlow has ever talked about you?”
“She talks about me!” he yells at the top of his lungs as spittle flies out of his mouth.
“She appreciates me and sees me for who I am. We both know what it’s like to be overlooked by our parents.
My own mother underestimated me. She never thought I was capable of pushing her back.
But look who got that last laugh there.” He barks a short, frustrated laugh then runs his hands through his disheveled hair.
Okay, so he cares a lot about what Harlow thinks. That could be helpful.
He’s also crazy, which is … not helpful.
“I have known Harlow for years. I saw her long before anyone else did. She is brilliant, she is a genius, and most of all, she is mine.”
The man is wearing black dress slacks and a button-down dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, but I’m almost positive I’ve never seen him before. He looks like someone you’d pass on any street in the country and not look twice.
I know Harlow has a lot of professional contacts and colleagues, but the people she actually considers friends are a very short list, and I know everyone on that list. And this psycho claiming my girl is his? He didn’t make the cut.
But … my girl.
Harlow must be worried by now when she couldn’t reach me, but I trust her and her team—and I trust Liam and his team.
Someone will find me. I just have to keep this guy talking until they show up.
The alternative is not something I am willing to consider, and there’s no way I am letting this asshole win, and no way in hell he is ever getting near Harlow again.
Although I’m not convinced he has ever been near her in the first place because reality is not something this guy is familiar with. I try to place where in her life she could have crossed paths with him, so I didn’t see it coming.
It’s my fault for not paying attention to the loon as he stood and walked closer, but it made the kick that I didn’t see coming land that much harder to my gut. I wasn’t flexing, and I felt it everywhere.