Page 14

14

ELLIE

A heavy thud shaking the bed frame has me sitting up in bed, squinting against the night.

“Oh good,” a soft voice says, a large person looming over the bed, their face hidden behind a black knit ski mask. “You’re awake. I’ve been waiting.”

His voice is deep and raspy, the kind of voice that people get from smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

I lunge to the side, heart leaping into my throat and body screaming at me to get away.

A big hand closes around my ankle and hauls me back. “That was stupid, Ellie. I didn’t want this to be harder than it has to. If you just act like a good girl, I’ll be nice. I promise.”

I kick out with my foot, catching him in the jaw. “Fuck you.”

The grip he has on my ankle loosens just enough for me to wiggle free and throw myself off the bed.

The man moves around the foot of the bed faster than I can get to my feet and reach for the door. I yelp as he grabs me around the waist and throws me back into the bed.

My head smashes into the nightstand beside the bed, stars dancing across my vision as I struggle to sit up again.

The hit to my head was hard, though, and I can’t quite seem to lift myself fully off the bed.

“You’re going to need to behave, Ellie,” he says, shaking his head as he looks down at me. “I didn’t want to have to do that, but you’re not giving me much of a choice, are you?”

He picks up what looks like a book from the floor and sets it on the nightstand.

I open my mouth to scream, but he clamps his hand over my mouth, forcing me back down on the bed.

Beady eyes peer at me through the small holes in the mask. “If you make a noise, I’m going to kill you right here and now.”

My heart races in my chest, saliva filling my mouth. I claw at his hand, trying to sink my nails through the thick black glove.

His low chuckle sends a shiver down my spine as he rips my hands away and holds them high above my head. “You can try to fight back, but there’s no way that you’re going to get free. Not until I’m done here.”

I thrash, kicking off the blankets.

He sighs. “I don’t know why we have to do this the hard way, Ellie, but if that’s the way you want it, then that’s the way it’s going to be.”

The man reaches into a pocket, pulling out a knife with a curved edge that catches the moonlight streaming in the window.

I go still for a moment before striking out again, kicking the knife from his hand and sending it flying across the room.

His heavy sigh makes my stomach twist and turn. “I didn’t think you were going to cooperate, but I thought that you had placed a little more value on your life than this.”

With a chuckle, he rears back and slams his fist into my stomach, grinning when I curl around it, gasping for air, though it’s impossible to get any with his hand covering my mouth.

“Now, what you’re going to do is act like a good girl and keep your mouth shut. I know your useless husband isn’t here right now and none of the security guards are in the house. You think he would have people watching you closely, especially after the stunt you pulled last week.”

My eyes widen as I take another ragged breath, pain in my stomach as I go still.

This is only going to end bad for me if I keep struggling.

I don’t know what he wants, but I don’t think he wants to kill me. If he did, he would have done it already.

There’s another reason he’s here.

“I’m going to let go of you for a moment, and you’re going to keep your mouth shut. The guards outside won’t hear you even if you do scream.”

He takes his hand off my mouth, staying between me and the door.

The man strides over to the vanity and pulls the chair across the floor, putting it in the middle of the room.

When he walks back to me, his hand wraps around my bicep and he hauls me from the bed. He drags me over to the chair, hand moving to my shoulder as he forces me down into the chair.

“Now, here’s how this is going to go. You’re going to sit here and we’re going to have a little chat. After that, maybe you’ll get to be free, but I haven’t decided yet. It’s been a long time since I killed anyone as pretty as you.”

My chest tightens and the room seems impossibly big, the distance between me and either of the doors out of the room bigger than ever.

He squeezes his hand into my shoulder harder before letting go. “And if you keep talking, I’ll sever your tongue.”

Though I could probably get to one of them before he caught me, he’s tall. One of his strides would likely equal two of mine.

And when he leans over to pick up what looks like a length of rope from the floor, his shirt rises enough for me to see the shiny handgun tucked into his waistband.

He stands up and turns on one of the lamps in the corner, dim light cascading from beneath the stained glass shade and shining across a small patch of the floor.

It’s just enough to get a dim look at him as he stalks toward me.

I swallow hard, body tensing. “You know you don’t have to do this, right? If you want money, I can get you money. If you want a way to disappear from whoever the hell your boss is, I can make that happen too.”

The man hums to himself, wrapping the rope around my upper body and tying it tight. “You know, this is so much easier when you cooperate with me.”

Just as he kneels down to tie my ankles to the legs of the chair, I bring my knee up hard into his face.

The sickening crunch precedes his groan as he leans back. “Damn it, you stupid bitch.”

He backhands me. My head snaps to the side, a metallic taste filling my mouth and pain blossoming along the side of my face. My cheek is warm and tears sting at the corners of my eyes.

“You’re going to pay for that, you stupid bitch.” He glares at me, sounding like he’s speaking with a stuffed nose.

I spit blood at his feet, laughing when he raises his hand. “Go ahead and do it again. I’ll just kill you when I get out of this fucking chair.”

He spins on his heel and storms into the bathroom, the roll of toilet paper thumping in the holder as he pulls out a massive wad.

If I wasn’t tied to a chair with what I’m sure is a handprint on my cheek, I would think that the sight of the man shoving a bunch of toilet paper beneath his mask would be funny.

When he turns his back to me, I take a deep breath, holding back my tears.

My breathing is ragged as I shift in the chair, the rope digging deeper into my skin with the movements. It feels rough, cutting into my skin, blood appearing the more I move.

The ropes are too tight to loosen, but right now, it looks like it’s the only option I have.

Keep the man talking.

See if I can get the ropes loose enough and then try to find a weapon.

I look around, seeing the knife a couple feet away. With my torso tied to the chair, there’s no way I can get to it. I can’t even reach it with my feet to try and pick it up.

The lamps on the nightstands might be enough to do some damage but I would have to be able to get to them first. There are some heavy decorative items on the bookshelf.

And there’s a gun hidden in a little safe beneath the bed.

If I could get to that, I could end this, but there’s no way to get to it while tied down.

When the man comes back in the room, he keeps his head out of the way, leaning against one leg while tying down the other.

“Whoever sent you here doesn’t want you to kill me or hurt me too bad; otherwise, I would be missing my tongue right now. Which means that you have someone powerful pulling your strings, don’t you?”

He says nothing as he picks up the knife and stands in front of me.

The man runs his finger over the blade of the knife before turning his finger to me and showing me the cut in the leather. “Do you think this is going to hurt as much as I think it’s going to hurt you? I hope it does.”

My heart races, chest pulling tight. I want to scream but I know that he’s right and there’s nobody around who’s going to hear me. Rounds are happening, but it’s a massive property and somehow this man got in here without being seen.

“You’re a sick bastard.”

He holds a hand to his heart. “That might be the best compliment I’ve ever gotten from a woman.”

“Women don’t like you?” I scoff, rolling my eyes and knowing that it’s only going to infuriate him. “Imagine that. Women don’t like a man with a dick so tiny that he feels the need to attack a woman in the middle of the night when she’s sleeping. How pathetic.”

His eyes flash with anger as he leans closer to me. The smell of blood lingers on him from his broken nose. “The more you act like a bitch, the more I’m going to make this hurt.”

Keeping him talking and stalling him might be the only chance I have to get out of this alive since I can’t get to the gun.

Eventually, Sean is going to have to come home. He might look for me when I don’t show up at breakfast in the morning.

Or Kara is going to wake up and check on me. Although, I don’t know if she’s going to do that. We both agreed that she was going to give me more space while I’m in the house.

I don’t know if our friendship is ever going to fully recover either.

The man hums and sits on my bed, running his hand over the sheets, leaving blood there. “Maybe I should kill you instead.”

“And risk pissing off your boss? We both know you’re not going to do that. Not when you won’t even take the money and a chance at a new life.”

Even though his boss doesn’t want him to kill me, there’s a glint in his eyes that makes me think he might do it regardless of the orders he has.

I don’t know what time it is. There isn’t a clock in here, and my phone is over on the nightstand charging.

All I can do is hope that someone will come around soon.

The man gets back up, stepping in front of me and holding out the knife. “I would tell you to relax, but I think this will be more fun if you don’t.”

I rock in the chair, considering throwing myself to the side and hoping that it breaks. The rope bites into my bare arms, the friction causing a dull ache. “You’re going to regret this.”

“I told you to shut up,” he says, his tone low and deadly as he drags the knife against the side of my cheek. “Now, I might have to stick to strict orders tonight, but one day my boss is going to stop caring about you, and when he does, I’m going to track you down and I’m going to take my time with you. I can already hear you screaming my name.”

I flinch away from the knife. “I’d rather die.”

His laugh is soft. “Well, lucky for you, it’s time for the fun to start and trust me, it’s going to hurt.”