41. Dani
DANI
“There’s a video?” Piper’s horrified.
“Shh! Not so loud!”
We’re on the roof deck. It’s freezing cold but not raining. Still, it means we’re the only ones out here. I clutch my quickly cooling cup of office coffee.
“Oh my God.” Piper paces in front of me, arms crossed, as she watches the short clip.
“Graham’s stepfather is getting the FBI involved. The FBI! My mom is going to freak out if I get investigated by the FBI. She’s finally treating me like I’m halfway an adult. If she finds out that Graham and I are—”
“Stockholm syndrome, trauma-bonded, dom-sub kink—”
“Okay, you’re just throwing out Archive of Our Own tags now. But yes. She doesn’t even think people who meet online are actually couples. What’s she going to think if I fell in love with my kidnapper?” I’m freaking out.
“It will just blow over in like a week, right? No one else has posted another video, so maybe it will be fine?”
It’s not going to be fine.
By the time my afternoon meetings roll around, everyone in the office is talking about the video.
It’s starting to trend on social media.
Even one of the VPs made a joke about it at the beginning of a sales report call—while I sat there and laughed along with everyone else while secretly screaming inside.
I am trying not to obsessively watch the video on a work computer, in case the FBI is watching, but now that everyone in the office has seen it, it would be suspicious not to, right?
I feel sick as I watch myself fighting and getting dragged into a car that is, thankfully, screened by the cat. Before the cat moves completely to cover the camera, I watch myself fall on the pavement and hands grab me. Then the cat completely blocks the camera.
I watch and rewatch the clip, studying the footage, trying to pick out anything that could identify me. Thank God I’m not a fashionista. My shapeless business-casual Costco clothes make it so you can’t really tell what size I am. Maybe no one will be looking for a girl on the heavier side.
Like my mom told me when I was going through my anxiety phase: “Who would want to kidnap you?”
“Don’t worry, miss, we’ve been briefed by the NYPD. They’re putting extra officers out. We won’t let anything happen to you or your friends.”
I shriek and jump in my seat.
“Sorry to scare you,” the security guard apologizes.
“Oh, that’s all right. I’m on edge,” I chatter, because what do you mean the NYPD is involved?!
“I’m making cookies to bring in later this week. Do you know if Kraig is going to be back on his regular schedule?”
“Oh, you didn’t hear? Kraig is gone. I’m not sure what happened, but they told the head security office to get rid of him. Sounds like an order from…” He gives me a knowing look and points above him to the upper floors, where the Svenssons have their exec offices.
“Oh, right. Well, I’m sorry to hear that.” I clear my throat. “Do you have a favorite cookie or other baked good?”
Graham looks certifiably unhinged when I return to the penthouse laden down with baking supplies a couple of days later, and he just paces in the kitchen.
Over the past few days, the story has been picked up by the late-night shows, then the news.
Girl gets kidnapped. Who is she? Where is she?
The anchor on the news drones on in Graham’s living room.
“We have Agent Thomas Hale from the FBI on the case here with us after the break…”
“Let’s turn this off.” I grab the remote.
Graham’s head snaps toward me. He is not sleeping—just paces the hallway along the bedrooms in front of the windows at night.
“I’m baking thumbprint cookies,” I tell him. “They’re German shortbread with chocolate. Walnuts on the outside. They’re pretty good. You might like them.” I start unpacking the ingredients.
“Dani, let’s leave. Let’s run away,” he begs me. “We have to get away from here.”
“Graham.” I wipe my hands and go over to him.
He wraps me in his arms, squeezing me tightly to him. “I can’t lose you. They’ll send me to prison, and then I’ll never see you again.”
“My boyfriend is not going to prison,” I tell him firmly. “I told you, my mom won’t have it.”
“Your parents will hate me. They won’t want you with me.”
“Don’t you worry. My parents will make all sorts of allowances for grandchildren.”
“You’re not taking this seriously, Dani!” he shouts. He picks up the lamp next to me and hurls it against the wall.
I stifle a scream.
“You’re baking fucking cookies, and you think this is all going to work out, but it won’t. I already know how this ends.” His voice catches. “I already know.”
Graham stops letting me take the subway after that.
“It’s not safe. There’s a car waiting for you. The driver will take you wherever you need to go. I don’t want you on the street.” His voice is tense.
“I’m probably the person safest from a kidnapper, right?” I joke.
“Don’t joke like that.” He looks around furtively. “They probably have my penthouse bugged. I’d fire all the staff, but…” He trails off.
“But that would look suspicious,” I say weakly.
“Exactly.” Graham nods.
I’m not taking the car to go get lunch. I refuse. The sandwich place I like is two blocks away, and it would literally take me three times as long to drive there. I sneak out the side door and yelp when a man pulls down his hood.
“Dani.”
“Kraig?”
Shoot, maybe I should have taken the car.
“What are…” I lick my chapped lips. “What are you doing here?”
“I know he had something to do with it,” Kraig snarls.
“Who?” I yelp.
“Graham, that fucker. I know he kidnapped that girl.”
“How… uh… That… Wow, that’s an accusation.”
“Did you see anything?” he demands.
“Where?”
“See anything when you were walking home that night?” He turns on me. “I know you left late. Did you see anything? Did you see him?”
“No, I was just, you know, thinking about work.” I try to make my expression land somewhere between mildly concerned and interested.
“You need to be careful.” Kraig rubs his lips. “That kidnapping? My dad thinks he has something to do with it.”
“We don’t even know if it’s real or not,” I argue.
Kraig shakes his head. “Oh, my dad’s buddies have analyzed it. Video’s real, all right. They’re working on facial recognition.”
I want to puke.
“He’s going to nail Graham to a cross,” Kraig continues. “Just like he did to his monster father. My dad thinks Graham should have been tossed off a bridge. Says his mom is blind to what he is.”
“That seems…” I flounder.
“You think I’m being paranoid? You think I’m crazy or I’m jealous?” Kraig spits. “You can’t give a monster like him this much power and money. He ruins people’s lives. He got me fired, you know that?”
“What? How?” I cry.
“He called up the Svenssons and had me fired.” Kraig slams his fist against the wall. “Just like that.”
“Just like that?” I gulp.
“Like squashing a bug.”
“Of course I had him fired.” Graham’s lip curls when I stomp into his study.
He’s standing in front of the expanse of glass, looking down over the snowy landscape.
“I’m sorry, you what? You had Kraig fired?”
“I don’t want him around you, so I told Carl Svensson to get rid of him.”
He’s still staring out the window. I can see his reflection in the pristine glass. He has what I assume is his business face on—the one he wears in meetings, making billion-dollar deals.
“Now he doesn’t have a job.”
The professional mask slips.
“Fuck his job.” Graham whirls around. “He has been stalking you and stole your panties.”
Now I’m starting to actually feel a little apprehensive.
Graham grabs me and shakes me roughly. “He was trying to take you from me. Do you get that? He’s trying to take you from me.”
Suddenly he goes from angry and crazy to loving, kissing me. “I love you. This is what you do when you love someone, you protect them.”
I feel faint.
“I’ve got the bachelorette party to plan for. We’re leaving tomorrow, and maybe I should just go to my parents’ house. Give you some space.”
“No. Stay here.” He pulls me to him, kisses me softly. “Stay, Dani.” Another kiss. “Stay.”
“Okay, I’ll stay tonight,” I relent.
“No, stay. Don’t go to Switzerland.” His green eyes search mine. “I don’t want you to go.”
“But I have to.”
His hands tighten on my face. “I could just keep you here, you know,” he says calmly. “I could keep you here with me forever.”
It’s a little chilling. I’m not sure why a few weeks ago it wasn’t. Maybe this time it’s because it feels like he means it.