Page 179 of Between Passion and Revenge: Part Two

It takes a while longer, but the files finally finish transferring. Scooping up my bags, I shut down my computer.

“Thanks so much, guys,” I say sleepily. Both men grunt at me, and we make our way to the exit. That’s when my mom bladder hits.

“Um,” I say, cringing at making them wait any longer than necessary. “Quick bathroom break.”

They share a look but then nod. I rush into the centralized restroom, going to the first open stall in the long row.

Right when I sit down to do my business, I get a text, and I can tell it’s from Storm by the ringtone. It’sDrunk in Love, because I’m sentimental like that.

Okay, I’m trying to be cool, but I need to see your face, Sweetness. I miss you, and I’m having withdrawals.

He follows this text with a Dave Chappelle meme, the one where he’s playing Tyrone Biggums, scratching his neck while feening.

I chuckle, finishing peeing, and throw my phone back in my bag before flushing the toilet. I’ll text him when I’m in the car. Or, better yet, I’ll greet him with some head to soothe the sting of denial.

Washing my hands and looking into the mirror, I know I look tired from the bags under my bloodshot eyes, but I’m also smiling so hard my cheeks hurt.

This is love, and it feels good.

I turn off the taps, and then?—

Flick.

The bathroom plunges into darkness, but before I can scream, before I can panic, before I can doanyfucking thing, there’s a hand clamped over my mouth in a bruising grip and something sharp pressed to my spine.

“Don’t scream, and I’ll let you get out of this building alive.”

Zane?

My thoughts scramble, fear causing me to resist instinctively. I try to move my lips, but he slapped what feels like duct tape over my mouth when he covered it.

“Ah, ah, Liv,” Zane grates, and I suck in a sharp breath when the knife pierces the flesh at my side. Tears spring to my eyes with pain, and I release a muffled yell.

Oh, God!

“Liv,” Zane says, drawing the knife up my side and to my neck in a shallow cut. “Do you want to die, baby girl?”

He presses the knife to my throat, right where my racing blood threatens to spill at the smallest slip of his hand.

“No,” I choke out from behind his hand and the tape.

“Good,” he grates out, and I hate the fact that I’m so fucking short. He has several inches on me now that I’ve changed my heels for Crocs.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna go out the other end and down to the garage. From there, we’re gonna take a little ride. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

There’s no fucking way he’ll get me off this property, but I can’t see shit in the dark, and I need the advantage of light.

I go still, and he takes that as my acquiescence, because he begins to drag me out of the bathroom on the opposite side of where I entered.

Zane had to have planned this. When we hit the hall, the sound of carpet cleaners is close enough to be loud but not close enough that we’ll be seen by anyone. We’re right across from the stairs, and when we enter the stairwell, he pulls my bag off myshoulder, tossing it over the railing so it takes a long fall down the nine floors to hit the basement. While I stand there in shock, he takes the two seconds I freeze to grab the pair of zip ties he clearly placed before ambushing me and secures my hands behind my back.

Then he jams the lock on the door.

Fuck. What can I do?

My eyes burn now from rage, fury, and I know one thing, I know I’ll figure out some way to get out of this.

Even if I have to kill Zane myself.