Chapter Five
Ashlynn
Bright lights flickered above my head. My mind swam as I tried to remember where I was. My little flat? My bedroom at the penthouse in New York? The guest room at the Harrington Estate?
I shivered as my eyes focused and the light fixtures came into view. Big rows of fluorescent lights hummed above me, the noise fighting for dominance over the pounding in my head.
Where was I?
The back of my scalp felt tender. I tried to reach my hand up, only to find I was chained to a bed. Instantly, the fight in my apartment came flooding back and I cried out and jerked, suddenly realizing my legs were shackled, too. A whimper escaped my lips, and I looked around as much as I could despite my bondage.
I was chained to some kind of metal bed, similar to what I imagined furnished the cells of prisons. The sheet on the rough mattress rubbed against my legs, and I looked down to see that I was still in my tank top and shorts. At least I was clothed. Barefoot, but untouched.
But…what was happening? Why was I taken? I felt myself start to hyperventilate, remembering all the warnings and stories I read about young American women being trafficked all across Europe. Was this my fate? To be used and abused until my body gave out?
“No…” I mumbled, tugging on my bindings, the panic rising in me like an unexpected high tide.
“Yes,” a masculine voice whispered from behind me, and I cried out in panic at the realization that I wasn’t alone. I tried to turn my head towards the sound, but the slight jostling from the movement caused stars to flash across my vision and nausea to flood my senses. Bile threatened to make its way up my throat, and I half-choked, half gasped.
“I must say, you put up quite a fight.” The voice came again, smooth like glass, carefully modulated, but utterly terrifying. Whoever this man was, he was dangerous. His tone held an air of dominance, yet bridled and calculating. His accent was hard to place, somewhat British, but not quite. More of an old-fashioned transatlantic pitch which was odd, almost as though his very pattern of speech was an added layer of mystery. I adjusted my view, and I could just make out his dark figure from the left corner of my eye.
“Who the hell are you?” I growled, trying to sound as formidable as possible. Growing up in a high-rise didn’t mean that I didn”t have to assert myself from time to time, standing up to creeps who came on to me on the subway or jerks who thought the phrase “good night” meant “try harder.” I struggled with the chains again, the metal cutting into my wrists.
“That’s none of your business, Miss Phillips.”
He knew my name. This wasn’t just a random abduction. My father’s disappearance, and now this? Did this man take my father too? Rage boiled within me, and I felt every single muscle in my body tighten in seething anger.
“Did you hurt my father?” I clenched my teeth together, the pressure adding to the pain in my head.
A dry laugh hung in the stale air. “You’re tied up to a bed, shackled in a soundproof basement, and you’re concerned about your piece of shit father?”
I felt my face burn as the blood rushed to my cheeks. My father could be a piece of shit, and most often he was, but I was loyal to my family name. Especially against this maniac who’d broken into my home to abduct me.
“You aren’t going to hurt me,” I said confidently, but my legs started trembling the second I uttered the words, betraying my assumed bravery.
With one fluid movement, the man approached the space behind my shoulder and peered down at me. His iceberg-blue eyes searched mine, and I immediately recognized him as the man who shoved me back into the wall of my flat. He leaned forward, and I got a quick glance at his face before he got so close I couldn’t put together the totality of his features. A strong jaw, dark hair and those glacial blue eyes. Hair a bit longer than what was typically in fashion.
His nose was practically touching mine, and I shook as he planted both his hands on either side of my shoulders, fists on the mattress. I could smell expensive scotch on his breath, and something else I couldn’t place. Leather, perhaps?
“If you truly believed I wasn’t going to touch you, then why are you shaking?” The corner of his eyes lifted in amusement. He was so close to me that I could almost feel his sly smile against my skin.
I tried to mask my fear with fake confidence. I would not go down shaking and quaking in front of this asshole. “Because I’m cold, you dick!”
The second I uttered the words, his gaze swept over me, and I felt nude under his scrutiny. Suddenly aware of the fact I wasn’t wearing a bra, I tried to shift away as those bright eyes moved up my legs to the bit of midriff that was showing from where my top rode up.
My entire body froze when his hand reached out and lightly skimmed my exposed middle. His calloused fingertips slowly traced a circle around my navel, making my stomach muscles contract involuntarily. He rested his hand over my belly, and I could feel the warmth radiating from his palm, could feel his pulse pounding in his wrist.
I turned my head towards the concrete wall and closed my eyes, the terror starting to overwhelm me. Being powerless, unable to stop what was happening to my own body, was my greatest fear. It was the reason I never drank in clubs, never put myself in a situation where I could be taken advantage of. But there I was, practically naked and chained to a bed, with a monster touching me. A sob broke free from my chest, and I felt moisture well up in my eyes.
“Please. Please don’t.” I wasn’t above begging. Not in this situation. “My father will give you anything you want.”
“That’s what I’m counting on, Miss Phillips,” the man said, pulling his burning hand away from my abdomen. He jerked my head up and grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him.
He was much younger than I initially guessed. Although his voice was deep and youthful, I still imagined my kidnapper to be in his fifties with a bit of a gut and a receding hairline. But this man…he was in his early to mid-thirties, if that. And he was…handsome. Incredibly handsome. When I lived in New York, I saw so many striking men who paraded around the same social circles as my family. Youthful and vain, in their three-piece suits and private town cars, they pretended to be real men while they sat in their offices and pushed around their employees. But this man…he exuded raw masculinity. His eyes were sharp, seeming to miss nothing, and his touch was strong and commanding. This man was someone to be afraid of.
But even as the thought crossed my mind, even though I knew I shouldn’t push him, the illogical and emotional part of my brain took over, and I hauled up the biggest ball of spit I could and aimed for his cheek.
If the situation wasn’t so serious, I would have laughed. Surprise crossed his chiseled features, and for a split second he was unbalanced and unsure, as if he couldn’t believe what I had done. As if no one ever dared to push him, and the mere thought of someone disrespecting him was so inconceivable that he didn’t know how to react.
As the seconds ticked by, and as my saliva slowly dripped down his cheek, I became more and more terrified. He glared at me, unblinking, silent hostility raging through him. His hand trembled, and for a moment I was afraid he was going to strike me. But then, as if nothing happened, he turned around and walked away, his proud posture and broad shoulders giving away nothing.
I spent the next several hours trying to find a way out of my chains. Rattle, clank, rattle, clank. My wrists were rubbed raw, and I could feel the blood trickling down my ankle, warm and sticky against my cold skin. I wished I’d paid more attention to all those safety videos circling around the internet, showing women how to get out of cable ties or the back of a trunk. I was sure there was one for handcuffs that I’d neglected.
Hot tears of frustration threatened to break loose, and I hiccupped, trying to suppress a strangled sob. Where was my father? Did he know that I’d been taken? What the hell was he involved in? And why should I bear the consequences?
The sharp sound of dress shoes on concrete hit my ears, and I picked my head up as far as I could. I saw the shoes first, then the dark slacks and crisp white shirt under a suit jacket. Still handsome, still masculine, but red-raw with anger. Shit.
His brow was furrowed, his jaw tightened with restraint. As he moved closer, I could see that he was deliberately taking deep breaths, as if trying to calm himself. I looked him in the eyes and stared, silently fighting him with everything I had. He must have been able to tell that I was in a combative mood, because he looked back at me with his eyes narrowed and unblinking. We stared at each other for a long time, each refusing to speak. It was a stalemate in the truest form, each person unwilling to show their hand or any sign of weakness.
He pulled out the stool and positioned it near my head, and then sat. The metal creaked slightly under his strong frame, but if he noticed, he didn’t show it. Instead, he focused his eyes on mine, before they briefly slid over my body, like before. I swallowed hard.
“When was the last time you spoke to your father?”
His tone was still gruff, but restrained. Momentarily baffled, my head tried to process his question. I was still in pain from my head injury, and my brain felt like it was moving slower than it had before, as if I was hovering between sleep and wakefulness.
“What—my father?” I asked, pulling at my cuffs once more. The raw skin tore further, and I hissed as the metal bit into my exposed flesh.
A flash of something—concern, maybe? —crossed his face. It was so brief I thought I’d imagined it. A man who would kidnap an innocent woman didn’t have a bone of sympathy in his body.
“Answer the question.”
I tried to remember. “What’s today, Thursday? Maybe a week ago—ten days perhaps?”
The man said nothing, gave away nothing. He grabbed something from the inside of his jacket pocket—a flask—and then took a giant gulp. I watched his throat shift as he swallowed down the liquid. He replaced the lid and went to return it to his suit jacket, but I couldn’t help myself.
“You could at least share some,” I grumbled, my entire body throbbing in pain, desperately seeking some kind of comfort. Alcohol would do.
The man stood up, hardly glancing at me as he made his way back to the stairs.
“Please…”
His strong shoulders seemed to slouch, and he turned around. He walked back towards me, and just as I thought his humanity got the better of him, he grabbed me by the hair, jerking my battered head off the flat mattress.
“Get the fuck off of me!”
“If I let you out of here, can you behave?”
“I—what?”
He wrenched my face up to look at his. He was still simmering with hostility, but his eyes didn’t match the tension of the rest of his face.
“Can you act like a civilized human?”
“Excuse me?” I screeched. “You’re the asshole who locked me in here and stole me from my bed! You’re the uncivilized one, you giant prick—”
He instantly released me and walked back up the stairs. Before he left, he flicked the light switch off and darkness engulfed me, the darkest night I’d ever seen.
“Fine. Stay here with the rats,” he taunted, slamming the door shut.
It was the last straw. I’d kept my composure, managed not to break down despite the horrible situation my father put me in, but there was no use kidding myself. I was in deep shit.
Maybe it was the darkness that did me in. Maybe the finality in which my captor had slammed the door. Whatever it was, it finally broke me. Why couldn’t I keep my damn mouth shut? Why did I push him? I didn’t usually mind saying whatever I felt, but in a situation like this, it would’ve been better if common sense had won out.
The first tear slid down my cheek, hot and salty as it reached the corner of my mouth. The next tear migrated to my ear, and I felt the dampness hit my ear canal before I sniffled, and let the sobs shake my chest as I cried into the pitch-black void.