Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

Rose

My head is pounding. Eyes closed, I concentrate on the incessant knocking inside my skull and wait for it to subside enough for me to move. How did I get so drunk? Again.

The lyrics to ‘You’re In My Heart’ play on repeat inside my head in Rod Stewart’s gravelly voice, along with an image of Brandon singing along. Where did we go after the show? The Cocktail Garden.

Damon.

I inhale deeply through my nose and hold the air in my lungs, but it erupts into a dry cough that sticks in the back of my throat. I need water. I’ve got to stop doing this—did I not learn the first time?

It occurs to me then that I’ve been hungover more times since I met Brandon than I have in the past twelve months.

I open my eyes, and everything is black. I can’t see.

Fight or flight response kicks in, and my breathing grows shallow. I try to sit up, but I can’t move, I can’t even tell where I am because my eyes are sending no signals to my brain to show me which way is up.

Concentrate, Rose. Stay calm. Psychologists suggest that this is what you should do in instances that take you out of your comfort zone, but how the fuck are you supposed to stay calm when you’ve woken up blind?

Hot tears sting my eyes and I take some small comfort from them. At least I can still feel. I blink, and my eyelashes brush against some kind of blindfold. I sniff loudly. Relief that I’m not blind makes the pulsating ache inside my skull even more intense.

I start again with my toes. They feel numb, but I’m still wearing my shoes, which means I must’ve passed out somewhere.

My heart rate increases at the thought that I could be in a dark alley in a rough part of Vegas where no one will ever find me. Maybe I’m crashed out behind a dumpster, or in a pile of trash.

I force myself to breathe—I can’t smell trash. It’s a small consolation.

I try to move my legs. Something cuts into my ankles, and my face floods with heat when I realize that they’re bound. Did I go back to the hotel room with Brandon? Is this a kinky sex act taken a step too far?

“Brandon?” I croak.

Nothing. I can’t hear him breathing beside me; there’s no radio station playing in the background, no voices from outside.

I listen for the shower, my ears straining to pick up anything other than my blood pumping through my veins. I can hear water. It isn’t coming from the shower though—it sounds too far away to be that, too powerful to be coming from the pool area outside the hotel room.

A shiver runs down my spine and goosebumps pop on my arms. I’m cold, but I instinctively know it isn’t from the air conditioning in the room. Brandon turned it off because I told him it was unnatural, that I’d rather feel the warm breeze from the sliding doors.

This cold is sickly, ominous, and bile rises in my throat.

“Brandon?” I try again.

No response. Not even a whisper of movement letting me know that he’s there. I squeeze my inner thighs together and feel my jeans rubbing against me.

It hits me then like a blow to the stomach. I’m still dressed. I never went back to the room with Brandon, and I have no idea where I am.

I wriggle my fingers. The engagement ring is still there, which means I’ve not been robbed, and I let out a strangled cry that’s halfway between a sob and rising hysteria. I still have the ring, but my wrists are bound too.

“Help?” I cry out. “Will somebody help me?”

It’s silent. Too silent, apart from the sound of crashing water.

Panic thrashes around my brain, dragging my thoughts along with it, until all I can see is flashing red and white lights behind my eyelids. I need to get them under control. Need to stay calm. Think…

With my pulse skipping erratically, I try moving various parts of my body. I can clench my thighs, and I discover that I’m sitting on something hard. Something solid. A chair? I move my focus to my arms, rubbing the soft flesh of my upper arms against what must be the back of a seat.

Someone has bound me to a chair, but they haven’t stolen the engagement ring. So, what do they want?

The crashing water. There are fountains outside some of the hotels along the strip, but none of them sound like this. This could almost be a waterfall.

A numb chill spreads through me, and it isn’t just from the cold.

The email. Brandon’s trip to Idaho—more specifically to American Falls. Sam mentioned a warehouse in his email, a listed building near the falls. Near Snake River. Nowhere near Vegas.

Why can’t I remember what happened?

I spoke to Damon, who told me about his wager with Brandon. I got up and left because I couldn’t face him, couldn’t bear to hear the lies, to see in his eyes that I meant nothing more to him than a silly bet against his brother.

Outside, I started walking back to the hotel. A cab pulled up alongside me. Two guys got out, and the driver asked me if I needed a ride.

The rest is a blank.

“Help!” Louder this time.

I try putting my weight on my feet and tilting my body forward, but I can’t even raise the back legs of the seat off the floor.

This must be a bad dream. I’ll wake up any moment now and laugh about it when I realize that none of it is real. Who would abduct me—Rose Carter? Only my name isn’t Carter now, it’s Weiss, and I already know that Brandon has enemies.

Panic turns to cold icy sludge inside my stomach.

Who are these people?

What do they want from me?

Do they think that Brandon will come and rescue me, or pay a substantial ransom for my safe return? I can picture him now, returning to the suite in the Venetian, pouring brandy into a glass and drinking it on the balcony alone, convinced that I’ve gone running home again because I can’t handle the drama of being connected to a Weiss.

What if he refuses to pay up? What will happen to me then?

“Help!” I call out again. Fresh tears spill when I hear my voice bouncing off the walls of wherever I’m being held. No one can hear me.

I hear a click, and my heart stops. When it starts up again, my heartbeat is loud enough to drown out the gushing water, but not loud enough to stop me from hearing the footsteps coming closer.

“Help!” I shriek. “Help me, someone!”

A hand clamps around my mouth from behind. I can smell cologne, not warm and musky like Brandon’s but sharper, citrussy, mingled with something sour. Sweat. Garlic. Spice.

Lips brush my ears, and a man’s voice says, “On the count of three, I’m going to remove my hand, and you’re going to remain silent.”

I’m struggling to breathe—his hand is smothering my nose and mouth. I squirm, trying to turn my face to one side so that I can draw a breath, and something cold and sharp presses into the side of my neck.

“Let’s try again. You’re going to remain silent or else speaking will never be an option for you again. Do you understand?”

I try to say yes, but my lips and gums stick to his fleshy hand, and all that comes out is a garbled sound.

“Good.” He must smile because another nauseating waft of garlic blows across my face. “One… Two… Three.” He follows through, removing his hand from my face and stepping away.

My head sinks forward, and I suck in great gulps of cold, stale air.

More footsteps. The man stands in front of me and yanks the blindfold from my face.

I blink my surroundings into focus. I’m in a cavernous, high-ceilinged warehouse. Three plastered walls are slick with dampness, the windows dingy with years’ worth of grime, allowing minimal daylight through, and there are puddles on the floor. Tall metal shelving units line the walls, all empty. The fourth wall is hidden behind a black curtain.

A scream forms at the base of my throat.

“You see, that wasn’t so difficult.” The man shifts into my direct line of vision and lowers his head so that he isn’t towering above me. Even so, I can tell that he is tall, wide-shouldered, his biceps stretching the fabric of his black sweater.

“Where am I?” I demand.

“No, no, no. That’s not how this is going to go. I ask the questions, and you provide the answers. Got it?”

He smiles, creating cute dimples in his cheeks that are at odds with this whole situation. His jet-black hair is slicked back with gel, his olive skin darkened by a layer of designer stubble, potentially Hispanic or of Mediterranean origin. But his eyes are dark and cold.

“Your husband has something that belongs to a friend of mine.”

“M-my husband?”

His expression remains neutral, but his voice is cold. “I’m not here to play games, Rose. Brandon Weiss. Your husband. CEO of Weiss Petroleum, has something that doesn’t belong to him, and I want him to give it back.” He has a slight accent, I realize. European.

“You’ve made a mistake.” My thoughts are frantically trying to escape before this gets out of hand. “He— Brandon —isn’t my husband.”

His lips turn down at the corners as if he’s about to burst into tears. “The rings on your finger tell quite a different story.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” I gulp. Why the fuck am I apologizing? “It isn’t real. The engagement. The wedding. None of it is real. I mean, sure, the wedding was real, but we were drunk. We’re not going to stay married. Whatever?—”

His hand grips my chin, and he twists my face sideways so that I’m facing the black curtain. Can I hear noises from behind it?

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“You know?” It’s hard to talk when I can’t move my bottom jaw. “Then why?—”

“You can play the happy family for the tabloids; I’m sure his fans will lap it up. But you’re not fooling anyone.”

I don’t move, keep my eyes focused on his.

“I trust you, Rose.”

“I…” I don’t know what he wants me to say. Tears of frustration spill over my bottom lashes and trickle down my face.

“I trust you to do this for me.”

“I don’t think I can.” My voice is barely more than a whisper. “Brandon won’t listen to me.”

“Make him, Rose.” His face is too close to mine. I can see the amber flecks in his eyes, sparking out from the tiny pupils. “You can do that for me, can’t you?”

I clamp my mouth shut. I don’t want to feel his lips on mine or breathe his oxygen—it feels like cheating on Brandon.

“I can’t hear you.” He places his ear against my lips. I try to wriggle out of his grasp, but he’s too strong.

“What do I have to do?” I speak quickly, my lips barely moving, or I’ll never erase his scent from inside my body.

“Ask your husband to return what he stole, and we’re all good.”

“I don’t know what it is.”

“He knows.”

“Who does it belong to? You have to give me more than this.”

“Mr. Valentine.”

The air whooshes from my lungs. Brandon is never going to share the transaction details with me, and even if I could persuade him, he’s not going to accept business advice from a kindergarten teacher.

“I-I can’t do this, I’m sorry. Brandon will want to know why I’m inter?—”

“You disappoint me, Rose.”

He’s behind me in one fluid movement, and his hand is covering my mouth again. Sharp, stinging pain slithers against my neck and I try to scream, but the sound is swallowed by his hand.

The black curtain drops to the floor, revealing what was going on behind it. Someone else is strapped to another chair, facing me, her head lowered so that all I can see is the top of her head, and the long black hair dripping water onto the floor. Another man dressed all in black, grabs her hair in his fist and pulls her head backwards to expose her face and neck.

Jennifer.

Her immaculate features have been spoiled by a black eye, the flesh so pulpy and swollen that the eye is closed. One side of her jaw is swollen too, her lips misshapen, the mottled mauve bruising crawling down the side of her face and neck. Her forehead is smeared with blood. Her ankles are also bound, and I can’t see her hands behind the back of the seat.

“Jennifer?” I whisper. “What did you do to her?”

“Just a little warning,” the guy standing behind me says. He doesn’t add that it’s a warning for me—he doesn’t need to.

“Let her go.”

The man holding Jennifer’s hair grins at his friend, like the whole situation is a joke to them, and anger bubbles under my skin.

“Twenty-four hours.” The European guy’s face reappears beside mine, our cheeks brushing. “You have twenty-four hours to give us what we want, and she goes free.”

No, no, no. Twenty-four hours isn’t enough time.

“How do I know you’ll keep your word?” I’m stalling.

I can’t do this. Brandon will never listen to me unless I can give him something in return. His enemies, for instance.

“You don’t.”

“Why should I help you then?”

He licks the side of my face, and I cringe away from him. “From where I’m standing, you don’t have a choice, Rose.”

The question is on the tip of my tongue. I force myself to ask, even though I’m not going to like the answer. “What happens if I refuse?”

He straightens. “I thought I’d made that perfectly clear.” He addresses his friend. “Was I not precise enough? Do I need to apply a little more pressure, right here?” His hand slides around my throat and tightens.

A vein starts pulsing in my forehead. No air is getting through to my lungs, and I can feel my eyes bulging. My instinct is to claw his hand away from me, but I can’t move in my restraints.

Jennifer starts thrashing her head wildly, trying to escape, and through the blur of tears I watch her captor punch the side of her face, and Jennifer go limp.

The hand releases my throat, and the black-haired guy is crouching in front of me, stroking my face with the back of his index finger as if trying to make me feel better. I gasp for air, coughing and spluttering, tears mingling with the saliva on my chin.

“Make it happen, Rose. I believe in you.” He stands and slides the blindfold back over my eyes. “Oh, and one more thing. We’ll be watching you.”

“How?” I ask hoarsely. “How will you be watching me?”

“You mention our little chat to Brandon,” he says, ignoring the question, “and it will be game over.”

“How else can I get you what you want? What am I supposed?—”

Pain explodes in my head, and the world goes black.