Chapter Seven
Abbott
If I had to make a guess, I would assume Rian is speaking to someone about me.
He’s paced the porch, dropped his head back against a pillar…
watched me. I’m sure they’re planning what to do with me.
I still don’t get why he was following me or how I ended up in this situation in the first place, but it’s clear that he didn’t know who I am.
He didn’t plan to kidnap the governor’s son, but now he has me, and that—and by that, I mean me—is a huge problem for him.
It’s a whole lot easier to get away with kidnapping and murdering someone who doesn’t have the kind of reach my father does.
While we might not get along, and I’m not the son he wishes for, he will never let an opportunity pass to gain sympathy or attention from any story.
My kidnapping will be no different. While it might take a few days for anyone to realize I’m gone since I’m off work, once they do, I’ll be all over the news.
That has to work in my favor, right? I have to find a way to hold out until then.
I watch as Rian pushes away from the pillar and comes into the house. “You should let me check your wound,” I say as he closes the door behind him.
“I need a list of everything you’ll need to treat me.” He grabs paper and a pen from the drawer in the kitchen.
“Oh, are we having guests? I’m beat after being up all night. I’ll need a nap and a shower before I can entertain.”
He smirks. “A sense of humor, huh? Who would have thought?” He nods toward the paper. “Write.”
I do as he says, partially because I’ve got to at least try to get on his good side.
If I can get him to trust me, that will give me more of an opportunity to escape, but also because I really had been telling the truth earlier.
Despite the situation, I don’t have it in me not to try to help him to the best of my ability.
I hand the list over, and Rian takes a photo.
“Do you have any allergies?” he asks.
“Huh? Aren’t I the one who should have asked you that?” What’s wrong with me? Why hadn’t I asked?
“I meant food. You’ll have to eat, and I can’t risk you going into anaphylaxis.”
“Not until you’re ready for me to die, at least.”
“Obviously. I have to get my use out of you first.”
“Or you could just let me go.”
Rian sighs. “You’re too smart to pretend like you think that will happen.” He’s right. I am. I know how this turns out for me. “Food?”
“No allergies,” I say. “I can eat anything.” I look away, trying to ignore the hatred filling me.
I don’t like feeling that way, don’t like letting that kind of ugliness fill me up, but this man is disgusting.
He takes people’s lives without a second thought.
Many of them, if I had to guess, and I’ll be the next on his list.
But then…why is he also so worried about what I’ll eat? Why is he making sure all the options are safe for me when all I would have to say is no if he brought something into the house that I couldn’t have?
I shake my head, not willing to let myself try to turn this man or his actions into anything other than what they are.
He’s not a good person, even if he does do something thoughtful.
I’m sure the evilest of men have had moments where their malicious behavior doesn’t shine through, but that doesn’t change who they are. “I have to piss,” I tell him.
Rian sighs, takes the pen back, then disappears into the garage. He comes back a moment later with keys, freeing me, but leaving one cuff still attached to my wrist.
His gun is in his pants, there for me to see, even though he’s not holding it. He points toward the hallway. “This way.”
I walk first, Rian behind me, until I find the bathroom.
“Door open,” he instructs me, waiting in the doorway, not giving me his back, but not looking at me either.
I’m still in scrubs—though I’d changed them after my surgery and hadn’t seen another patient afterward—so I lower them, pull my dick out, and do my business. I wash my hands, before he says, “My turn. Don’t move.”
He slips around where I’m standing at the sink, leaving me closer to him than he was to me when it was my turn.
Rian pulls his gun from his slacks, looks my way, then sets it on the back of the toilet. He tries to hide his wince when he moves, but I notice it. He’s in pain, and it’s getting worse. The sweating is coming back again, too. I can use this to my benefit.
When I hear the first drops of his piss hit the toilet water, I don’t think, I just run. I’m not even sure the thought was in my head before I started moving, but suddenly I’m sprinting down the hallway, trying to get to the door.
I’m fairly certain I hear him curse behind me, before there are loud footsteps, and he’s running too. My heart is beating out of my chest, one thought running through my head over and over—run, run, run.
I slide on the rug on the hardwood floors, making me stumble into the door, unable to stop myself. When I go to pull it open, it’s locked. My hands are shaking as I turn the deadbolt, and the second the door is open, Rian’s body slams into me from behind.
We both sprawl out onto the porch, the gun slipping from his hand and onto the wood. I’m on my stomach, trying to scramble over to it, but before I can get far, Rian is on top of me again. I throw my elbow back, connecting with his lip.
“Motherfucker,” he spits out, but before I even realize what’s happening or how he does it, Rian has his arm around me, forearm pressed against my throat.
I thrash beneath him, but can tell I’m not getting anywhere, air struggling to get past the pressure he’s putting on me.
“Settle the fuck down. I don’t want to hurt you.
” His voice is close to my ear. I feel his breath against me, and it’s like it has some kind of power over me, like Rian’s voice is magic, and I don’t have the ability not to listen to him.
I relax beneath him, the wood of the porch pressed into my chest, the gun not far away, but what am I going to do? Kill him? That’s not who I am, and I don’t think he’s the kind of man who will go down any other way.
His hold on my neck loosens, and I suck in a sharp breath, trying to pull as much air into my lungs as possible.
“That was really fucking stupid, Doc, but I guess you had to get it out of your system. Next time, I won’t go as easy on you.” He rolls off me fluidly, grabs the gun, then sits on the porch, legs out in front of him, weapon in hand.
He’s breathing heavily, and I can see red starting to seep through the T-shirt he’s wearing, right over where he’d been shot.
His lip is bleeding, too. He wipes it with the back of his hand, dropping his head back, eyes surprisingly closed.
Is he trying to compose himself? In pain?
He has to be, and as much as I don’t want to say the words, there’s no stopping myself.
“Come on. I need to look at your wound again. You’re bleeding out. ”
“I wouldn’t be if you didn’t try to escape.”
“Do you expect me to sit around and wait for you to kill me?”
He opens his eyes at that, gaze snagging on mine. There’s something very intense about the way Rian looks at me, like he has the ability to sift through my mind and find things that I don’t want anyone to see, but I don’t let myself look away. I’m not giving him that kind of power over me.
“You have to die. There’s no other choice.”
“Dying isn’t an option for me.”
“I guess we’re at an impasse, then.” He winces, guilt I wish I didn’t have, especially for someone as vile and evil as him, wins against the part of me that wants him to suffer.
“Come on. You’re losing blood. We’ll get back to how you’re going to kill me later. I need to look at your wound.”
He eyes me in this way that makes it impossible not to see the curiosity there. What is this man thinking? The one who stalked me, kidnapped me, then made sure I didn’t have food allergies before feeding me, only to promise to kill me. I can’t even pretend to have him figured out.
He’s hurting. If I tried again, I might be able to overpower him, to get the gun from him, to leave him here alone and injured…but instead, I stand up and hold my hand out for him. Rian stares at it a moment, as if he’s unsure if he can trust me.
“I’m not the killer out of the two of us,” I say. “I’m the healer.”
His brow furrows, the paleness of his skin getting worse.
Finally, Rian reaches for my hand, and I help him to his feet, then into the living room. His slacks are open, clearly not having taken the time to close them. “Do you still need to go to the bathroom?” I ask.
“Later,” he replies, breathily.
“Towels?”
“Bathroom.”
Again, I tell myself that now would be the perfect time to try and escape…again, but instead, I find myself going back to the bathroom we were just in, getting towels and a washcloth.
Rian is still sitting where I left him, and I grab my medical bag, using the scissors inside to cut the T-shirt open. He smirks down at them. “I didn’t know you had those. Now would be the perfect time to use them on me if you plan to.”
I ignore him, tired of telling him that I’m not him, that I’m better than that. I clean his shoulder, then place one of the towels down on the couch. “Lie down.”
Still with the curiosity he often wears with me, Rian nods, then lets me help him into position.
I clean the front of his wound again, wishing I had more supplies here with me, then press all the gauze I have against his wound, a washcloth on top of it, and sit beside him, putting direct pressure on his injury.
“Did you always want to be a doctor?” he asks, surprising me.
“Surgeon,” I remind him, and he gives a small, weak smirk, peeking out from the center of his short, dark facial hair. He’s a broad guy, dark hair, maybe ten or so years older than me, but his eyes tell a different story. Those say he’s seen enough to be a hundred years or more.
“Surgeon. I’ve always heard you guys are cocky assholes.”
“We are.” I shrug, wondering if I want to reply or not, but then I do. “Yes. I remember being—Jesus, I must have been no more than four or five years old and always trying to fix everything on my mom.”
“Was she sick?” he asks in a tone that tells me he’s honestly curious.
“No, but she would pretend she was. The number of times I worked on a stubbed toe would surprise you.” I smile.
“She was great like that. She would do anything to make me happy. She loved nothing more than being a mom.” She always told me there’s nothing I couldn’t do, that I would be the best doctor in the world, if for no other reason than my heart was so big and I loved so much, that I would put people at ease.
They would know they could trust me with their lives.
I remind myself I need to use that now with Rian, need to use it for as long as I can to get him to trust me, believe in me—to find out as much as I can about him, so if I am able to escape, if I can get him to let his guard down with me, maybe I can get even more dirt on him so this man spends the rest of his life behind bars.
“She died,” I say, hating that I’m giving him this, the most important person in my life, in hopes he actually sees me as a human being.
“When I was sixteen.” I look away. “She was murdered. Someone decided her money was more important than her life. Who knows, maybe it was you.” The jab slips out, but I don’t find myself wanting to take it back.
“I don’t rob people, and I don’t kill women…unless I have to.”
“Why would you ever have to? You don’t have to kill anyone.”
“You don’t know me. You don’t know my life. Judge me all you want, but it’ll never be more than I’ve judged myself. I know who and what I am. Get the fuck away from me.”
“I need to hold pressure to your injury,” I argue.
“Get the fuck away from me before I shoot a hole in your head,” he threatens, making my heart jump. “Back to the chair. Lock yourself up.”
I tease with the idea of arguing again, but whatever curiosity was in Rian’s eyes earlier is gone. He’s shut down now, closed off, the coldness oozing off him, making a chill barrel-roll down my spine.
Do what he says. Make him think you’re not going to try to escape again.
I stand, walk over, and attach my handcuffs again, watching Rian’s face until they click closed.
“I miss her,” I say after a moment and realize I’m telling him not just because I want to humanize myself to him, but because, for a reason I don’t understand, I just need him to know.