Chapter Thirty-Nine
From the moment Jules woke up, she worried about Olivia.
Her former friend had vomited on her shirt.
She lay on her side, hogtied in the same manner Jules was.
No one else was around. Pallets were stacked high on shelves that reached thirty, maybe forty feet overhead.
They were in a warehouse, bound and secured by a thin plastic rope.
“Olivia,” Jules whispered. “Liv.”
No response came.
She wriggled closer. “Olivia, wake up.”
But nothing changed.
Jules rocked to her side. Her head swam. She needed to sit up but had to wait until the nausea passed. Sweat tickled her brow. The smell of the smoke remained in her nose. Even when Jules breathed out of her mouth, its acrid taste burned across her tongue.
With her bound hands and feet connected, she scooted toward Olivia until their knees touched. Her breathing seemed too shallow. None of this would be okay for the baby. “Olivia.” Jules knocked their knees together. “You have to wake up.”
Olivia groaned.
Slowly, her eyes fluttered open. She winced then squeezed them shut again.
“Olivia, I’m here. Wake up.”
She winced again and fluttered her eyes, fighting the fog—then jerked, her eyes wild and her breaths racing.
“I’m here. Honey. Take a breath. Inhale. Slow it down.”
Olivia shrieked.
Damn. So much for Jules’s unplanned plan where they somehow snuck out. She shushed Olivia but to no avail.
But no one came running. No more guns. No more smoke bombs. Jules waited Olivia out, until the screaming, then the sobs stopped.
At least they’d learned something. They were alone.
She didn’t know why or where they were. But that had to be something. Her gaze dropped to Olivia’s stomach. “How are you feeling?”
“Throbbing headache. Upset stomach. Heartburn like you wouldn’t believe, but that’s not new. I don’t think I’m supposed to bend this way.”
Especially not while pregnant. “Rhys will find us.”
“I didn’t even tell Mason where I was going. Just your mom.” Tears leaked down her cheeks. “Really, Jules. I don’t even know how everything happened.”
She wasn’t talking about tonight. “It’s okay.”
Olivia couldn’t catch her breath. Her hiccups came one after the other.
The tears restarted, and Jules didn’t want Olivia throwing up again.
Despite what had happened over the last few weeks, she’d been her friend for so long.
“Honey, stop. I wasn’t in love with him.
We were never going to have kids. It wasn’t real. ”
Olivia’s watery eyes fluttered. “What?”
“I’m not upset. I was humiliated. Embarrassed. I felt like a fool. But…” She tapped her knee on Olivia’s, wishing her hands weren’t numb and painfully tied behind her back. They both needed a hug. “I wasn’t in love with Mason.”
“I think I am,” Olivia sobbed.
Tears pricked her eyes. “That’s actually good. You’re bringing a baby into the world with him.”
“I didn’t think I was going to get pregnant. I didn’t think about anything that was happening. I don’t think he did either. He didn’t want to hurt you. We were just stupid.”
“I was too,” Jules admitted.
“I can’t feel my hands and feet.”
“I can’t either.” If they could saw their bindings or—
A door clicked open and shut. Its echo bounced off the concrete floor and through the warehouse.
Panic surged in her lungs. “Close your eyes. Pretend you’re asleep.”
“I can’t—”
“Do it.” She wriggled and bucked to distance herself from Olivia.
Footsteps drew closer until they arrived. They weren’t the heavy boots of the men who had stormed her parents’ house. The closer they came, the faster her heart beat, until the steps stopped feet away and her heart hammered so hard it might break through her rib cage.
The click of a cell phone camera nearly made Jules jump out of her skin.
Then the person kicked her shin. She winced.
Damn it. If Tabitha was involved in this somehow, Jules would gladly testify against her.
She’d make sure Rhys did too. Long gone was the twentysomething who had been scared of the courts, of public opinion and the press.
Jules would gladly recount how stupid she’d been, how easily her cousin had deceived her, if it lengthened Tabitha’s prison sentence.
The shoe kicked Jules again. “I know you’re not still asleep.”
What. The. Fuck. Jules opened her eyes and saw Sloane.
“I’m not going to kick a pregnant lady. You can open your eyes too.” Sloane squatted and cut the bindings between Olivia’s hands and feet.
The cord released, and like a cartoon character, she sprang forward. She raised her hands to Sloane, who slid the knife between her wrists. The ties dropped to the cold concrete. She did the same to the bindings around her ankles.
“God, that feels so much better. Thank you.”
Thank you? Thank you? For a fraction of a second, Jules studied their dynamic. Did Olivia think Sloane was rescuing them? Did she not hear the cell phone camera snap the picture?
Olivia rolled her wrists and flexed her ankles. “I need a new shirt.”
Jules lost the capacity to speak.
Maybe she was still dreaming, and this was the stupidest nightmare she’d ever had.
It would tick all the boxes and hit all her stressors.
Olivia and Mason? Check. Drama with Tabitha?
Check again. But there had been a gunfight.
She was sure of it. Jules could still smell the acrid burn in her nostrils. “What’s happening?”
“I’m turning your career into more than you can fathom. That’s what’s happening.” Sloane closed the knife instead of releasing the plastic ties on Jules.
“Untie me,” she demanded.
“Not yet. Not until we’re all on the same page.”
Sloane and Olivia were on the same page. In what world was this happening? What about Mason and Tabitha?
“We have a couple of options for you.” Sloane wrinkled her nose and inched from Olivia. “Can you scoot over? You smell like vomit.”
Olivia sighed but obeyed.
“What options?” Jules asked. “What are Olivia’s options? Why’d you untie her?”
“Focus, Jules. Option one. You’re a team player.
I leave you and Olivia with the knife. You get out of your ties and get out of the warehouse.
A ransom request goes out, but you’ve escaped, and the money request is moot.
Cops go on a wild goose chase, finally realizing that whatever idiot gangbangers took you aren’t going to turn up.
They already have a couple of dead losers.
They’ll tie the whole thing up with a neat, shiny bow, and I’ll have you on every news outlet known to man, where you share your harrowing experience.
We might even get a charity foundation out of this.
Some tax shield that benefits you. I don’t know.
Something like the Jules Lowry Charity for Strong Girls or something. ”
Jules might puke on herself like Olivia. “Option two?”
“Olivia escapes and has a sad, sad story about how you heroically tried to save her from said gangbangers. But she does the network interviews by herself. She and Mason start the Jules Lowry Memorial Scholarship Fund for Strong Girls.” Sloane narrowed her eyes.
“And maybe a charity for babies or kids also.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If a Kardashian sex tape can launch an entire family into a billion-dollar enterprise, I can turn a stalker and kidnapping into the same.” Sloane bobbled her hands. “This would be more found family than blood relations, but you get my drift.”
“Those are my options? You’re seriously going to kill me?”
“You’re not an idiot. You’re not going to choose to die.”
“Hollywood is cutthroat,” Olivia said. “You’ve taught me that since we became friends.”
“I’m not cutthroat.”
“Yeah, you are.” Olivia rubbed a hand over her tiny belly. “Except you have Sloane do your dirty work.”
“Fucking untie me.”
Sloane snapped another picture.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jules stopped pulling at her bindings.
“Working on the ransom request.”
She needed to buy time. Rhys would find her.
If he hadn’t figured this out yet, he would.
“Can you just explain this to me like an idiot? Where’s Mason?
What’s he have to say about all this?” Mason didn’t want to kill her.
They weren’t in love, but they were friends.
Ish. God. Maybe he did. Jordan Everett had wanted her dead, and she’d had no idea.
Clearly, she’d had no idea about Sloane.
“Talk to me like I’m stupid. Explain. I’ll be on board. You know I will, Sloane.”
“Mason’s at home,” Olivia said. “He’s an idiot.”
“I don’t know how you ever convinced that man to marry you,” Sloane said. “But damn, did that work out well.”
That confirmed it. Mason had never told Olivia the marriage had been arranged. He’d been easy to steal because he wasn’t in love. “Does he love you ?”
Olivia had the decency to look ashamed. “He thinks so.”
Jules’s jaw dropped. “Did you get pregnant on purpose?”
“Oh my God, Jules.” Sloane sighed. “Stop acting so scandalized.”
“This whole thing is a publicity stunt?”
Sloane grinned. “Pretty wild, huh?”
This was all for money. A billion-dollar found-family business enterprise. “Why was Tabitha yelling today?”
“Come on. You know Tabitha better than us.”
Jules deflated. “She wanted to be here instead of Olivia.”
“Now you’re getting it,” Sloane said. “Choose option one, and the three of us plus Tabs will never say a word, and we’ll be set for life.”
“What happened to Wes?
“He’s fine.”
“There was gunfire. I heard people shooting.”
“He’ll be fine. The people he shot? Not so much. But honestly, what’s the life expectancy of a gang-banger dude?”
Tears slid down Jules’s face.
“You’re crying over guys who happily took money to kidnap you? They would have done anything I asked, so long as they were paid. They didn’t care about you.”
Jules wasn’t them. Hell, she needed to pull it together if she was going to get out of this alive. “Option one. But I have one more question.”
“Shoot. I want you totally on board.”