Chapter Three
Janea
He removed the blindfold from my eyes, the ties from around my wrists, then pulled the tape from my mouth, causing me to wince from the pain despite trying to remove it with care.
“Please let me go,” I pleaded as soon as he removed the tape, but by the look on his face, my pleas didn’t faze him, or maybe he was just a master at hiding his emotions.
Who knows? But I didn’t think he’ll kill me, even though he threatened to.
I think he would have done it already. Or at least that was my hope.
“Sit.” He pushed me down in a rusted metal chair that sat in the middle of a room. “Don’t move or try anything stupid. I’d hate to tie you up or worse.”
What the hell am I going to do?
I understood his warning and did as he said, but I couldn’t wait around for him to kill me. I had to save myself because no one would be looking for me. Not at least for another week and with that amount of time, I could be dead.
I scanned the cramped, rundown office for any exits besides the door that his frame blocked. His stare pinned me in place.
Dust covered everything, including the old desk that leaned because it only had three legs and the old, cracked tile floors stained brown by water dripping from the exposed ceiling pipe.
Rusted metal, stale paper, and mold saturated the air. Old green filing cabinets stood partially open, and papers scattered around the room on the floor fluttered from the draft coming through a large broken window.
Large flakes of green paint peeled from the cinderblock walls, revealing large cracks and enormous holes from missing chunks. And the single light bulb hanging from the exposed beams swung with each gust of wind streaming through the broken window, casting shadows across the room.
“There’s nowhere to go, darling.” His dark voice vibrated through my entire body. “Unless you want to take your chances from two-stories up.”
I rolled my eyes before I realized what I had done. I quickly averted my gaze back to the room.
“Where are we?” I asked even though I didn’t expect him to answer. And of course he didn’t. “If you don’t let me go, you’re going to have a real problem on your hands.”
“And why is that?”
I didn’t think it would be a good idea to let him know my real identity.
More than likely, that would be a bad thing.
My father didn’t have the best reputation in the state and had made plenty of enemies with the policies he wanted to get enacted.
I wasn’t sure if throwing my name out there would save me or speed up my death.
“I promise I didn’t see anything.” I tried not to glare at him as he propped himself against the door with his arms folded across his chest, just staring at me. His gaze didn’t look angry, just stoic, emotionless. I hate not knowing what he thought. “Let me go.”
“Give me your camera.”
“No.”
I grabbed the camera hanging around my neck and pulled it against my chest. It was a gift from my mother, and I refused to part with it.
Even though scared out of my mind, I couldn’t let him take the most precious thing I have.
My mother was the only person who supported me when I went into photography as a career.
She encouraged the creative side of me instead of pushing me on the path my father believed I was destined for.
To be someone’s trophy wife. To his displeasure but to the enjoyment of my mother, I had a lucrative career I loved, and this camera helped me get there.
“Did you just say no?”
His nostrils flared, and his skin darkened a deeper shade of crimson. I could tell he was used to getting his way.
I mustered all the confidence within me before I answered. He wasn’t getting this camera. Only over my dead body.
“You heard me.” I lifted my chin. “I said no.”
He stalked toward me, and my fight-or-flight instincts surged through my body, but I immediately remembered his warning.
Don’t move or try anything stupid, I’d hate to tie you up or worse.
His height and broad shoulders made him a very imposing man. He had a solid fifty pounds on me and his height advantage of a few inches amplified his presence in the room.
“This was a gift from my dead mother, and I refuse to give it to you.”
I explained quickly while trying to appeal to his humane side. If he had one.
“I didn’t see anything.”
He stopped when he reached me, and I gripped it closer to my chest. “Please, this is all I have left of her,” I continued. “I promise I didn’t take any pictures of you doing whatever you were doing.”
I was being truthful. When I saw him digging, I froze.
At first, I wasn’t sure what he was doing.
Questions swirled inside my head of why the hell anyone would dig there, but then common sense kicked in.
Unless he was trying to get rid of something or hide something, there was no reason for him to be doing that.
A body, drugs, money, something. I put two and two together, and he confirmed it when he chased me down, blindfolded me, then brought me here to this place.
Where the hell am I?
When he looked at me, his eyes softened for a moment before the emotionless mask slid back in place. “You can keep the camera, but I want the card.”
I nodded quickly. He could have the damn card even though all the pictures were automatically backed up to the Cloud. I told him the truth. I had no pictures of him.
I removed the card then handed it to him. He walked over to the table pushed against the wall and smashed it with what looked like a huge wrench.
“You have my card, now let me go!”
“No.”
“Why!” My panic increased inside me as tears filled my eyes. “I didn’t see anything, goddamn it! Let me go!”
He glared at me. “I can’t.”
“Why!”
“Because you’ve seen my face.” He walked toward me, then stopped in front of me. He ran the pad of his thumb under the bottom of my eyes, wiping away my tears then pulled away so quickly it was like he’d been scolded. “And that’s a problem, sweetheart.”
Fuck!
His words were said with so much calm a shiver moved down my spine. I’d been so focused on not having any pictures of him, I hadn’t even thought about the fact I’d seen his face and what that meant for me.
This isn’t good.
He’s going to kill me.
“I promise I won’t say anything because I didn’t see anything. Please don’t kill me.”
He released a deep sigh like he was tired of hearing me say I hadn’t seen anything, but it was the truth. Yes, I could identify who he was, but right now I’d say anything to get out of this situation. I already had shit to deal with.
“What’s your name?”
“What’s the point of knowing my name?” I asked. “You’re going to kill me, anyway. What the hell are you waiting for! Just do it!”
Did I want to die? Of course not. But maybe a little reverse psychology would work on the psycho.
He pinched the bridge of his nose before pulling his phone from his back pocket. He snapped a picture of me, typed something on his phone before sliding it back into his pocket.
“It doesn’t matter I’ll find out, anyway.” He folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then let me go.”
“No matter what you believe, I wish I could. But you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
More tears gathered in my eyes. I didn’t know what else I could do to make him realize I was telling the truth. Maybe I needed to take a different tactic with him because begging wasn’t working.
“If you hurt me, you will regret it,” I said, pushing through the fear. “You have no clue who you’re dealing with.”
I didn’t want him to know who my father was, but it was the only thing I could think of to make him think twice about doing whatever he planned to do.
“I know, I’ll probably regret it. But don’t test me, sweetheart. If you try anything, it won’t end well for you or your family.”
It wasn’t the answer I had been expecting, but before I could say anything else, another man walked into the room.
He looked a lot younger. Alot younger than me.
Maybe in his early twenties, tall and lanky with shaggy blonde hair and dark brown eyes.
He wore a leather vest that had a patch over his heart that said prospect.
“Prez. You asked for me?”
What the hell does that mean?
“Yeah, Prospect. Did you get rid of the car?”
“Yeah. Donnie’s got it. He said it’ll take him a few hours, then there won’t be nothing left of it.”
“I hope you’re not talking about my car!” I shouted, but they both just looked at me with bored expressions. “Bastards,” I mumbled.
It really wasn’t my car but a security company my father used for all our vehicles.
He was paranoid. I hadn’t had my own car since I was in high school because my parents thought someone would try to go after me and my brother to get to my father.
Now, all that made sense. While I would never have believed my mother would have known my father was a crooked politician and stayed with him, now I did.
I continued to use the cars, I’d put a stop to the bodyguards as soon as I graduated from college as a compromise. Now I wished I hadn’t.
“Don’t touch her,” he said to the young man while never taking his eyes off me. “Bathroom trips only. If she gives you any problems, tie her ass back up.”
He gave me a pointed look, then walked out.
There was no way I was going to sit here and let these people hold me captive until they killed me.
My eyes slid back to the young guy. He flopped down into one of the old metal chairs, looking like he wished he was anywhere but here.
If I was going to get out of here, it definitely needed to be before the other guy came back.
It’s now or never.
“I need to go to the bathroom.”