A prickle of sensation dragged me from the dark, murky wells of unconsciousness.
It started as a tingle in my fingers and toes. Then it was the hard press of wood beneath my thighs. Finally, it was the rough abrasion of ropes around my wrists and a pounding pain behind my eyes.
The only times I’d been tied up were with Christian, but that’d been consensual. This…I didn’t know what this was.
All I knew was, it hurt, and my throat was dry, and my head throbbed like someone had shoved a jackhammer or ten in there.
Concrete anchors dragged down my lids. The darkness wasn’t soft and gentle like the gradual drift to sleep. It was endless and menacing, like the weight of the earth after being buried alive.
I forced my lungs to expand past my rising panic.
Breathe. Think. What happened?
I struggled to sort through the day’s events.
I remembered meeting my family at the cafe. Brock running to the restroom. Nausea, dizziness, stumbling out for air…and the cold press of a gun against my ribcage. A voice, then blackness.
Oh God.
I’d been kidnapped.
The realization sank in with cold, sharp claws.
The desire to sink into panic consumed me, but I gritted my teeth and forced myself to stay in the present.
I was not dying like this. I wasn’t dying at all. Not for a very, very long time.
I pried my eyes open through sheer force of will. Dizziness warped my vision before my surroundings took shape.
I was in some sort of ramshackle cabin made of corrugated metal and wood. A thick film of grime coated the windows and muted the sunlight scattered on the floor. There was no furniture other than the chair I was bound to and a lopsided table that held a length of rope and, almost laughably, a takeout container of food.
Bile coated my throat.
Where was I? Judging by the light, it hadn’t been long since I was knocked out, which meant we couldn’t have gone too far.
“You’re awake.”
My head whipped toward the familiar voice, and a second bout of dizziness washed over me.
When it cleared, the bile thickened.
I knew why the voice was so familiar.
“No.” The croak sounded pathetically weak.
Julian smiled. “Surprised?”
D.C.’s most celebrated lifestyle journalist looked different outside the glossy confines of his Washington Weekly headshot and the one time we’d met in person.
It’d been for my profile photoshoot, and he’d been nice. Unassuming.
He’d been even nicer during the dozen or so times we spoke on the phone.
But now that I looked closer, I spotted the mad glint in his eyes and the unnaturalness of his smile.
It was the smile of a psychopath.
My pulse jackknifed.
“I thought you might be.” Julian smoothed a hand over the front of his shirt. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
“You’re a writer for Washington Weekly.” My tongue felt thick in my mouth.
He must’ve slipped something in my drink at the cafe. Whatever it was, its effects lingered and clouded the edges of my consciousness.
“Obviously.” I could’ve sworn he rolled his eyes. “Before that, Stella. We had a class together at Thayer. Communications Theory with Professor Pittman. You sat two seats in front of me and to my right.” A smile of reminiscence appeared. “I liked that class. It was where I first saw you.”
Thayer. Communications Theory.
Quick flashes of a quiet blond boy sitting in the back of the class filtered through my mind’s eye, but I’d taken that class years ago. I barely remembered what the professor looked like, much less my classmates.
“I didn’t tell you during our many lovely chats. I wanted to see if you remembered.” His smile collapsed into a frown. “You didn’t, but that’s okay. I was a different person back then. Less successful, less worthy of you. I told you how I felt with my letters, but I had to make something of myself before I knew you’d accept me. It’s why I didn’t contact you earlier. But now…” He spread his arms. “We can finally be together.”
“Be together? You kidnapped me!”
I couldn’t wrap my head around what he was saying. The situation was too surreal.
“Yes, about that. I’m sorry I had to knock you out, but it made things easier.” Apology entered his voice. “I would untie you too, but I can’t do that until we fix you.”
The scene was growing more surreal by the second. “What are you talking about?”
“Christian Harper.” The name dripped with so much acid it burned in the back of my throat. “You think you’re still in love with him. I can see it in your eyes.”
Oh God. Christian.
The full import of what was happening hit me.
Julian was clearly off his rocker, and he had me tied up in the middle of God knows where. I could try to escape, but I had no car, and I was still woozy from being hit over the head.
There was a strong possibility I would never see Christian, my friends, or my family again.
Panic climbed higher in my chest, but I forced it back down.
I’ll figure out a plan. I had to.
Until then, I needed to keep Julian talking instead of doing…whatever else he had planned for me.
My stomach lurched. “I’m not dating Christian anymore.”
God, I wish I were.
I wished I was in his apartment right now, making tacos while he teased me about putting too much cheese on mine and grumbled when I answered my social media messages instead of paying attention to him.
Hot tears pooled on my lower lids.
“I didn’t say you were still dating him,” Julian snapped. “I said you’re still under the delusion that you love him!”
His voice escalated before he took a deep breath and smoothed a hand over his shirt again.
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” he said soothingly. “He deceived you. Tricked you into falling for the looks and money. But we’re the ones who are supposed to be together. I’ve known that since I first saw you. I dreamed about you after that first day of class, you know.”
Another smile took over his face. “I dreamed we were married and living in a little cabin in the woods. We had two kids. I worked all day, and when I came home, you were waiting for me. It was beautiful. I’d never dreamed about a girl before. If that’s not a sign from God, what is?”
A dream? I’d gone through hell because of a freaking dream?
Breathe.
Stale air scraped against my lungs.
“There’s no one more beautiful than you are, Stella. You were always so quiet and nice to me, even when everyone else ignored or made fun of me. You have the qualities I’m looking for in a wife. You’re perfect for me.”
I wasn’t the same person I’d been in college, but it was clear he didn’t see me as my own person. He only saw me as a trophy, something he could own.
“How did you get all those pictures of me?” I moved my hands behind me as much as I dared, searching for something, anything, I could use to break the rope. “How did you break into my apartment?”
My breath hiked when I hit what felt a hard, sharp protrusion on the back of the chair. It felt like a nail.
The chair was so old I wouldn’t be surprised. Honestly, I didn’t care what it was. I only cared whether it could fray the ropes enough for me to free myself.
I kept my eyes on Julian as I worked my binding over the nail as discreetly as possible.
“I’ve always been good at digging into people. Journalism major, you know. Plus, I blend in with the crowd. Makes it easy to follow someone without them knowing. As for your apartment…” Julian grinned. “That’s the best part! I have an apartment in the Mirage as well. My grandmother passed it on to me after she died. I don’t live there full time, but I have the keys. We’re practically neighbors. I was so upset when you didn’t notice me the one time we shared an elevator, but you were too busy looking at your phone.” He let out a snort.
I kept quiet. I was too focused on my task.
Luckily, Julian liked to make a production of his story, pacing and gesticulating as he told me what he did.
Every time he turned his back, I worked faster, then slowed when he faced me again.
Sweat beaded from my efforts, but the rope had loosened enough that it no longer dug into my skin.
Just a little more…
“It was harder to hack into the surveillance system, but I had help for that. I hired Sentinel Security. They’re Harper’s biggest competitor, and I figured they’d take any opportunity to take him down a peg. I was right. They gave me some fancy device I could use, and the rest is history.”
He stopped in front of me.
I froze, praying he didn’t look over my head and behind my back.
“I did all that for you, Stella. Because I love you. I only wish I hadn’t left you for two years. Unfortunately, I had to go back home and take care of my grandmother.” He sounded annoyed. “She was the one who left me the apartment and all the money we could need. She was big on real estate, and since my parents died, I got everything.”
“You started dating Harper while I was gone, which wasn’t very nice.” Disapproval formed a deep crease in his brow. “But I’m back, and you’re out of that asshole’s house. I had to lay low for a while after I returned, you know. Couldn’t risk Harper tracking me down. The good part is, I had time to plan all this out.”
Julian knelt and smoothed my hair out of my face. “We can finally be together after we fix you. I don’t think it’ll take long, though. A few weeks with me and you’ll see. We’re meant to be together.”
He beamed.
A sick feeling ballooned in my stomach.
He was delusional. Beyond delusional.
He said he loved me, but what he was doing wasn’t love.
Love was accepting me for who I was, flaws and all.
Love was believing in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.
Love was quiet moments and soft kisses, breathless exhilaration and rough hands all rolled into one.
Love was what Christian gave me.
He’d crossed boundaries and kept secrets, but he would never do this. He would never drug me or intentionally hurt me.
I knew I should play along until I could escape, but even the thought of pretending to want to be with Julian made me want to vomit.
“Julian…” I looked him in the eye.
He smiled, his face bright with sick anticipation.
“I would rather die than be with you.”
I headbutted him as hard as I could.
His howl of pain ricocheted through the cabin.
Lights washed across my vision at the force of the impact, but I didn’t have time to waste. I slammed my wrists down as hard as I could behind me until the frayed rope snapped against the protrusion.
Luckily, Julian hadn’t tied my legs, and I stumbled to the door. I almost made it before strong hands yanked me back.
I hit the floor with a thud.
Julian pinned me to the ground and manacled my wrists above my head.
“Let go of me!” I struggled against his hold.
“You’re mine,” he said calmly, like we were at a picnic in the park and he wasn’t holding me hostage. “It’ll be so much easier if you give in, Stella. I don’t want to hurt you.”
I couldn’t keep struggling forever. My energy was already fading, my muscles sore and my thoughts jumbled with panic.
I turned my head a fraction to the right, and my breath hitched when I saw my purse lying a few feet away.
My taser.
I always kept it on me. If I could only reach it…
Julian followed my gaze and chuckled. “Oh, don’t worry about your taser. I took the batteries out. I—” His sentence cut off with another, more animalistic howl when I took advantage of his distraction, sank my teeth into his neck, and tore.
The wet, sickening sound of flesh tearing ripped through the air.
His grip slackened. I shoved him off to crawl toward the entrance.
I didn’t look behind me. My stomach turned at the metallic blood in my mouth, but I didn’t have time to dwell on my disgust.
I reached for the doorknob and used it to pull myself up…
A scream of frustration scraped up my throat when Julian dragged me back again. He slammed me face-first into the wall next to the door.
Pain exploded in my head. My vision crackled and fizzed like the static on an old TV.
“You disappoint me, Stella.” Menace twisted Julian’s grunt into something dark and sinister. The blood from his neck wound dripped onto my skin and burned like acid. “I was trying to be nice. I thought you understood. If I can’t have you…” The press of his gun against the underside of my chin sent an icy splash of fear down my spine. “No one can.”
I let out a small cry when he wrenched my head back. The gun was cold, but his breaths were hot and sinister against my neck.
“Maybe you’re beyond saving. You’ve been ruined. But that’s okay. We can be together in our next life.” He kissed my neck. A shiver of disgust rippled down my spine. “We’re soulmates. Soulmates always find their way back to each other.”
He cocked the gun.
Pain and terror dissolved into numbness. I closed my eyes, not wanting this cabin to be the last thing I saw before I died.
My breaths slowed as I mentally retreated to my safest place.
Whiskey eyes. Warm murmurs. Leather and spice.
Silent tears dripped my cheeks.
Time slowed as snippets of my life passed through my mind. Dressing up as Bratz dolls with my friends for Halloween, assembling puzzles with Maura, family vacations to the beach, posting my first blog post, calls with Brady and afternoons in cafes and photoshoots by the water…and Christian.
Of all the people I’d miss most, he took the top spot.
I love you.
A loud gunshot rattled my eardrums.
I flinched and waited for the burst of pain, but it never came.
Instead, I heard the slam of a door, followed by shouts and a violent rush of air as Julian’s body was yanked off mine.
My eyes flew open, and I watched, stunned, as half a dozen men poured into the cabin with guns in hand.
One of them subdued Julian easily while the others swept the space.
Everything happened so quickly I was still standing by the door when a warm, familiar presence touched the side of my neck.
It can’t be.
But when I turned, there he was.
Dark hair. Bright eyes. Face carved with cold, pitiless rage.
Christian.
My trapped sob finally broke free.
As angry as I’d been when I’d found the files, and as much as he’d betrayed my trust in the past, there was no one I’d rather see at that moment than him.
“Stella.” Relief softened the razor edges of his fury.
He said my name like a prayer, a whisper so raw and heartfelt it obliterated any resistance I might’ve had.
I didn’t think. I didn’t speak.
I just crossed the room and crumpled into his arms.
