Chapter Fifty-Six
Chelsea jumped from her cot when the lock rattled. Angela didn’t notice. The even keel of her breathing never changed as she continued to sleep.
The man who’d taken away the chicken-dinner leftovers entered their cage. His demeanor had hardened, and her gut instinct warned her trouble had arrived.
“Angela,” Chelsea whispered then nudged her cot. “Wake up.”
Angela was slow to rise, but when she did, her eyes widened. Despite how calm and boring she claimed the place to be, a middle-of-the-night visitor visibly alarmed her.
“What’s—”
“Put your shoes on,” the man ordered.
“Why?” Angela demanded.
He gave the same order again, and his cold demeanor didn’t bode well. Chelsea put on her shoes, even as Angela tried to explain that nothing would happen. Nothing ever happened.
Sorenson’s daughter had become the poster girl for Stockholm Syndrome, and Chelsea explained, “Things never stay the same.”
Annoyed, Angela shoved on her shoes. “Can I tell you how thrilled I am to find out my roommate is such a positive presence.”
What fluffy cotton-candy cloud did Angela float in on? “I’m not your roommate.” Even if Chelsea had somehow managed to excuse the chicken wire, they were locked in a cage, their free will removed. “And this isn’t a slumber party.”
The man clapped, and Angela jumped. “Jeesh.”
After everything Chelsea had survived in the last day, let alone the year and a half, she almost longed for Angela’s foolish naivete. But falling into an innocent stupor to hide from reality wouldn’t get them out of the warehouse.
They were directed out in a single-file line. Angela trudged and complained, while Chelsea tried to understand what was happening.
The bandage on her neck tugged on her skin with a tacky tightness as she surveyed the barren hall and high rafters. When the man took a phone call, and they paused, she repositioned a layer of tape.
Her neck was warm. The wound ached in a different way than earlier, and she worried it needed to be cleaned. No, actually, what she needed was to get the double-stacked-pancakes out of that place. Then she could worry about changing the bandages.
By now, Liam knew she was missing, and Chelsea would assume that help was on its way—though that wouldn’t keep her for eyeing a possible escape route.
The phone call wrapped up, and they were directed into the open area where she’d first arrived and her hands and feet were untied.
Plastic-wrapped pallets lined the walls.
The high-reaching stacks created aisles in the cavernous room.
A large black SUV was parked in an open space, a few hundred yards away, then another rolled to a stop behind it.
Metal clattered, and the garage door slammed shut in the far corner.
Were they going somewhere else?
“This place has never been so busy,” Angela said.
Voices echoed and bounced from the other side of the SUVs. Chelsea wasn’t sure more people was a good thing.
The driver stepped out the second SUV and opened the back door. He pulled a bound person with a dark hood onto the floor.
“Come,” their guard ordered with another clap.
Apprehension flooded her thoughts. The situation was escalating from Angela’s long, uneventful stay to new, hood-wearing captives. Chelsea crossed her arms. Her clammy hands tucked into her armpits and her chin trembled as they were ushered closer to the SUVs.
Chelsea couldn’t tear her eyes away— and the hood was yanked off the woman on the floor.
“Mom?” Angela stopped abruptly. Her hand clasped Chelsea’s arm, and her voice shook. “That’s my mother.”
That wasn’t good, and she hoped Angela was wrong.
Senator Sorenson brushed herself off, seemingly indignant, then turned toward them.
“Oh, God.” Angela sprinted toward the senator. “Mom!”
Her sobs rang out when she hugged her mother, and there was no need to convince Angela anymore. This wasn’t the slumber party she’d dreamed up after all.
Chelsea kept pace with the man who’d led them there. “The senator. The daughter. The pregnant lady. What on earth do you people want?”
Her escort ignored her question, and they rounded the hood of the SUV and ran into the older man who’d had the HK. He held out his arms as if he were greeting old friends. “The sacrificial lambs.”
Chelsea shuddered then caught sight of the other men— “Liam!”
He limped forward, and she bolted toward him. Her guard didn’t do a thing to hold her back.
But Liam stopped and froze like he barely knew her.
Stiffly, he offered her an awkward greeting. Concern darkened his eyes. Blood painted his light-colored pants. She didn’t care why he didn’t react and flung her arms around him.
Liam didn’t embrace her in return.
“Liam?”
He pulled back and shifted, then his eyes dropped to her neck. “What’d they do to you?”
Chelsea touched her bandage. “Nothing. I mean—this was from earlier.”
He inspected her neck without a word then coldly took another step back.
“What’s wrong—”
“If this is who you have…” He tilted his head and cast a side glance her way. “You made a mistake.”
Her hands wrapped over lower abdomen. “What?”
“I’m not so sure,” the older man said.
Liam shrugged, not looking back her way. Unsure what was happening, Chelsea tried to keep a stiff upper lip.
“Believe what you want,” Liam said to Pham. “Your intel is wrong.” He gestured. “She’s not going to bring me to my knees. Try again.” Then he turned to her and offered a pacifying half-shrug. “No offense.”
Chelsea’s eyes darted between the men, and crushing humiliation reddened her cheeks. As her stomach knotted, she tried to make sense of his dismissive nonchalance and came up empty.
Liam would never speak to her like that. He wouldn’t do that to anyone—but then she fit together pieces that she couldn’t see or understand. They’d been called “sacrificial lambs” and the Nymans were in danger because Liam cared about them.
Finally, she understood what he was doing. Little sleep and a bad day were the perfect ingredients for her performance. “You asshole.”
She could’ve sworn Liam’s eyebrow twitched when she cursed, and maybe she wouldn’t, but if the job called for her to shout like a drunken sailor, then Chelsea would trot out whatever it took. Bad words and all.
“I’m the asshole?” He hooked a thumb toward the old man. “I didn’t ask him to bring you here. I’m the one with my damn leg sliced open.”
Like any woman scorned who’d been abducted to hurt her man, she didn’t care. Or so she tried to act. “You think I care he sliced your leg open?”
“Enough,” the old man called.
Chelsea glared and turned to Liam. “How about you explain ‘try again’ like there’s someone else?”
“Maybe there is,” he said.
“Enough.”
She ignored the old man and stomped forward. “Maybe there is?” she mocked like a guest star on a Dr. Phil episode gone bad.
She stopped inches from his face. There, underneath the exhaustion and pain, she could see his emerald-green eyes sparkle for her, then she let him have it.
Chelsea screamed and shouted. He yelled and rolled his eyes. Between the faux accusations of clinginess and drunken hookups, they fought as if their lives depended on it. Because they did.
“Enough!” the old man continued to shout. “Enough.”
Every eye in the warehouse seemed to burn into them.
Guards pulled them apart. Chelsea kicked and clawed for good measure. Finally, they settled her next to Angela and the senator, who clung together, keeping Liam several feet away.
Chelsea caught her breath as the old man clapped, slowly at first, and then as though he were truly entertained.
Their fight hadn’t worked. Her stomach dropped.
The old man motioned for everyone to come close again, and he walked in a tight circle around them, trailed by a bodyguard.
“Closer,” he said.
Liam and Chelsea were nudged to the center of the circle, and the old man placed a hand on each of their shoulders.
The bodyguard hovered close, maybe out of habit more than concern.
The old man focused on Chelsea. “I harbor no ill will toward you. It’s Captain Brosnan that deserves to suffer.”
Did Liam have a grand plan to kick off their escape? She wished he’d kick it off any time now since she hadn’t come up with one.
The harsh silence stewed until the old man shook his head—then smiled. “There is one sure way to learn.”
Liam’s eyes narrowed. “Learn what?”
“What is the truth and what is a lie,” he explained.
That didn’t make sense—oh no. Her stomach dropped again.
“Would you like to tell him, or shall I?” the old man asked.
Chelsea pressed her lips together. Liam would react to news of her pregnancy, and their charade would go up in smoke. Then she would die.
Escape or rescue were their only options. But neither would happen before Liam learned she was pregnant.
Disinterest crossed Liam’s expression, and the old man cleared his throat, waiting for an answer.
“Then I will—”
“No.” She’d never let Liam find out their news from such an evil man.
Chelsea caught Liam’s eye. The rest of the world faded away. He could make her believe it was just them. “I’m pregnant.”