Chapter 2
Imean.
I mean.
What in the separate federal court system is this?
Obviously, it’s a kidnapping, but my brain doesn’t want to accept it, and it’s not because the guy driving the car is hot. He isn’t. He’s got graying hair to match his gray eyes and sun-damaged skin, and every time he glances in the rearview mirror, I decide he’s a different age.
It doesn’t matter how old he is. What matters is that he’s dressed in the same kind of dark suit the security team members were wearing. He had a gun like them, too. He aimed it at me, promised he’d shoot me if I screamed, made me write a note, and then walked me out of the cathedral in full view of the other guards.
In plain sight.
He goes through an intersection just after the light turns red. A bunch of cars honk at us.
No reaction.
It’s totally unhelpful to compare this man to Jameson, but I can’t help it. Every breath I take feels strangely cold, like I’m breathing in winter air, but my skin is hot. It was simply never in my life plan to be part of—not to mention the center of—two separate kidnappings. This situation would be impossible—nay, laughable—to the person I was a month ago. Back then, I had no basis for a comparative analysis.
I had no reason to think the occasion would arise when I’d do an ad-hoc comparative analysis of the times I’d been kidnapped.
I’m not in law school. I’m probably never going to go to law school, and not because of this kidnapping, or even the first one. I didn’t know until the end of my first kidnapping experience that what I’d felt for most of undergrad wasn’t suppressed excitement about law school, it was dread.
And then Jameson got himself arrested, and I got him out of jail. And then he got beat up by different cops, and I was by his side while he healed as much as he could before the wedding.
And now I am kidnapped again.
Maybe it would be smarter to change course and run to the safe embrace of Columbia Law.
Although I don’t know that Columbia Law would be accepting of a woman arriving on their proverbial doorstep in a wedding dress, asking to use a phone so that she could call her fiancé and inform him that she was no longer kidnapped, and she was sorry, but she’d have to miss the wedding on account of becoming a lawyer.
That’s not what I would do.
But all those years of living in the complete certainty that I would attend law school are working against me. Technically, there is precedent for this kidnapping in that I have been kidnapped once before, but the similarities are limited to the act itself—the thieving, as it were, and the travel by car.
The rest is different.
Jameson took me from a parking lot in the dark of night. This man, whom I will not be introducing myself to, took me from a cathedral in broad daylight. I had seen Jameson once before and eventually realized it. I’m sure I’ve never seen this kidnapper before, and I hope I never see him again.
The biggest difference is that Jameson was tense. He drove with a white-knuckled grip on the wheel. He radiated anguish and hid it under movement and hot determination.
This man is at ease. He drives like he’s heading back to the office from his lunch break. He’s not radiating anything but the mildest impatience. Like this was a task added to his schedule by his boss at the last minute, and now he won’t be able to clock out right at five.
That…
Is scary.
That’s scarier than a man who does something impulsive because he’s crumbling under half a lifetime’s worth of crushing grief.
A man who ticks off kidnappings like a third-year law student might tick off case briefs is probably a professional. He’s relaxed because he has no fear of consequences. He’s not going to get caught because—he assumes—I’m never going to have the chance to escape and later identify him to law enforcement.
And, of course, there is zero chance I’ll fall for this creep. Jameson was—is—captivating. There was something about him that compelled me to learn more, and it was not just his perfect body.
It wasn’t.
It was how intense he was, and how hurt he was, and how much he needed?—
Me.
He needed me.
I don’t have to justify how I feel about him. What I feel is beyond justification. It’s this deep ache in my chest, and this—this heat, and this light. Like recognition, if it was possible to recognize your soulmate. If souls are real and it’s possible to have a soulmate, Jameson is mine.
And I’ve never told him.
I wasn’t ready, and then everything was coming together. It wasn’t coming together well. There was that guy in Central Park who tried to stab us, which of course I reacted to, because how could I not? There was a man with a knife lunging at us. The stars happened to align so that I could pull off a sweet move and knock the knife out of his hand, hurting the man’s elbow in the process.
I didn’t have time to plan it out. I wasn’t thinking about being a hero. I was just moving.
But Jameson took it as so much more than instinct.
You saved me. I’ve always wanted?—
We went to bed together. I don’t know where else we would have gone. The memory of his chest against my back is palpable, even in this law-and-order-forsaken car.
The sounds he made.
The way he shivered afterward, and kissed my shoulder, and?—
I know it’s probably too soon. But there’s something I wanted to ask.
What?
Will you marry me?
That was a real proposal.
And I really said yes.
That ache in my chest pulls until it splits in two. I want to marry Jameson so much. And I am furious that my wedding day is being interrupted by this hideous worm of a man.
I’m overheating in my dress, which is heavier than it looks but lighter than it could be. There’s too much fabric touching my skin, so when the next flare of anger comes, I can’t keep my mouth shut.
“What was the gift?”
My kidnapper’s eyes flick to the rearview mirror, then return to the road. “Pardon?”
“You said you brought me a gift from my grandfather. Was it the surprise visit at gunpoint?”
A laugh, joyless and short. “No. It was this.”
He leans across the center console, punches a button to pop open the glove compartment, and pulls out an envelope.
When he bends his arm over the seat to hand it to me, I take it.
I don’t want the envelope. I don’t want to be in this car. But I’ve long since made the determination that trying to unlock the door would be almost as risky as jumping out into traffic. Even if we’re stopped, I can’t predict how my dress will move once I’m out. If it slows me down, the kidnapper could shoot me in the street. If the car is moving, the dress could catch on some part of the door, or under another car, and that’s too many variables.
“Congratulations,” he says, flatly.
“Thanks.”
This isn’t my first kidnapping. I know better than to think the envelope will contain anything good.
The words on the paper inside still take me by surprise.
I’m freezing, then melting, then suffocating in my dress. My throat’s pinched shut. I force myself to breathe through the emotions and read the page over with a more analytical mindset.
It’s hard to be analytical, because this isn’t like reading a study guide or case notes or a syllabus, though the language is just as dry and impersonal.
I’m almost insulted by how impersonal it is, but I guess my Grandpapa—my grandfather—is going full evil villain.
The single sheet of paper is a printout of an email, sent to my grandfather from someone with one of those anonymous email addresses. A private investigator of some kind. The whole thing is three lines long. There’s my mother’s full name, a city in North Carolina, and the words DATE OF DEATH, followed by a date in February, five years ago.
This hurts more than I thought it would.
I honestly didn’t know how much I’d hoped to see her again. I had decided, in some tiny, hidden part of my mind, to ask Jameson’s family to look for her after the wedding. There had been so much happening that I didn’t want to get into it then, in case?—
Well.
In case this happened.
Tears sting my eyes, but I blink and blink and blink, slowly and carefully, until they’re dry again.
I’m not interested in testing the effectiveness of my waterproof mascara.
And, more importantly, this kidnapping bastard is hoping to get me to freak out over my mother being dead. Or my grandfather does. Someone wants me to be broken-hearted and useless.
They’ll have to try harder than this.
I slip the paper back in the envelope and tuck it into a hidden pocket on my wedding dress.
“Well,” I say with a sigh, folding my hands on my lap. “That’s a pretty morbid wedding gift. He must be very upset.”
“I can’t speak to that. I can’t read the man’s mind.”
“You just take his money.”
The kidnapper doesn’t answer.
This time around, I’m not going to have my world upended in a way that turns out to be exactly what I needed. The woman who was in a position for that to happen—the woman who made up fake study groups and snuck out of her house so she could dance at a club without ruining her pre-law reputation—is long gone. There isn’t going to be any witty banter or surprising emotion or a gradual softening. I’m never going to rescue this man from jail.
The only ending to the story of me with this man in this car is a bad one.
Unless I find a way to change it, and find it soon.
We keep driving.
Unfortunately, there’s no turning into a winged creature of darkness when the sun is shining like this. I don’t have the advantage of night on my side. I’m not sure if it would be an advantage at all.
The advantages of daylight, however, include that I can see out the windows. My professional kidnapper didn’t bother to blindfold me or tie me down, so I can follow the route.
We’re not going anywhere familiar. Not toward Cobble Hill. We’re going north at a frustratingly slow pace. If we were going just a little slower, I might take a chance on escaping.
Or maybe not.
The other thing I don’t know is how my pregnant body will react to jumping out of a moving car.
Pressure builds at my temples. The car’s air conditioning isn’t great, and I’m in an elaborate gown. My tongue is weirdly dry. The rest of my body doesn’t know what to do. The kidnapper is driving so calmly that he seems bored. He hasn’t pointed the gun at me since we’ve been driving. The parts of my brain that are supposed to alert me to threats keep deciding that he isn’t a threat. Then I remember that he kidnapped me and he’s taking me to a second location. It won’t be a cottage by a pretty lake. It’ll be an abandoned warehouse. Someplace out of the way where he can?—
Do whatever he’s going to do.
When we pull up in front of a combination parking garage and warehouse ten minutes later, I’m almost disappointed. It’s a rundown two-story building with a FOR SALE sign in the front. The car bumps over a crack in the sidewalk on the way to the entrance ramp.
Really? A run-down warehouse with a FOR SALE sign? What’s next, tarps on the floor?
No. What’s next is that the kidnapper drives at parking-garage speed up to the second floor, which is empty. He gets out, stretches, and motions at me with the gun.
I get out, gathering the skirts of my gown in one arm. Maybe it’s too optimistic to be concerned about parking garage filth getting on my dress, but I don’t care.
“This way.” The kidnapper points with his gun.
We climb up a short flight of concrete stairs, then go through a creaking metal door and down a dusty hallway. One more turn, and we’re in the main room.
It smells like antique wood and stale garbage from a nearby dumpster. Windows along the front of the building are opened to different heights, and the kidnapper moves down to the opposite end and starts shutting them. The wooden frames don’t come easily, squeaking on the way down.
Oh.
There are the tarps.
Holy shit, I hate this.
The force of my hatred takes me aback. I’ve never felt it quite like this before, all up in my throat and down in my fingertips and squeezing at my spine. Is that a pregnancy thing, or a kidnapping thing? I don’t know.
“Why are you doing this?” My voice echoes in the empty room.
“It’s my job.” The kidnapper stops closing the windows, takes out his phone, and glances at the screen. His dull gray eyes land on me. Then he’s back to the windows. “You’re not the prettiest person I’ve ever kidnapped.”
“You’re the ugliest person who’s ever kidnapped me.”
He smirks, and I wish I had a way to wipe that expression off his face without touching him. I wish I had a way to wipe his face off without touching him. Or just trap him in some sort of cage. A closet. Anything so I don’t have to look at it for another second.
Then the smirk disappears. He looks at me again, and my stomach drops at the total lack of emotion in his eyes.
“You might be the prettiest person I’ve ever killed,” he muses. “Give me a minute to decide.”
Fuck you, I don’t say. I’m not giving him the satisfaction.
And I’m not giving him the satisfaction of killing me like it’s just an annoying errand on his to-do list.
He’s going to have to work for it.