Page 24 of Love’s Patient Journey (The Relinquished #2)

T he next morning, Jenna woke up alone. She reached for Ryan, but his side of the bed was empty.

She looked at her alarm clock and saw that it was just after ten.

How did she sleep so late? Sure, Ryan woke her a few times in the night to make love, but she never slept this late.

She was so excited about her doctor's appointment. She couldn’t wait to see the baby and possibly know the sex.

She decided to get up and look for her husband.

Hopefully, he was making breakfast because she was starving.

Her appetite was back in full force now that she was no longer dealing with morning sickness.

Jenna finished brushing her teeth and slipped on her robe.

Ryan wanted her to spend the entire “staycation honeymoon” naked, but what if she had to look outside for him?

Her neighbors certainly wouldn’t appreciate her running around her yard naked.

She shouted for Ryan but had no answer. Jenna got down to the kitchen and found the refrigerator door open.

The orange juice and milk were just sitting on the kitchen floor.

Her hair stood up on the back of her neck, and she instantly knew something wasn’t right.

She turned to run for the front door and ran into what felt like a brick wall.

She stumbled backward, hitting her head on the kitchen table, and fell to the floor.

“Where are the papers, bitch?” The huge man stood over Jenna as she tried to scramble back to find safety, but there was no place to hide.

“Where is my husband?” She questioned the Hulk, still a little woozy from hitting her head. She was pretty sure she had a concussion.

“Bitch, I’m going to give you one last chance to tell me where those papers are, or I’ll find that little brat of yours and you’ll never see him again.” Jenna gasped and then laughed. How could she be laughing at a time like this? She must have hit her head.

“My son isn’t here, asshole. As for the papers you’re looking for, they aren’t here either.”

“Liar,” the Hulk yelled so close to her face, she could smell his rancid breath and felt the urge to puke. Thank God she wore her robe downstairs; it hid her bump. She didn’t want to give this asshole any leverage over her. She pulled her robe around her, almost like a security blanket.

“Why would I lie? I want you out of my house. I’d give you the fucking papers if I had them. Now, where is my husband?” Jenna was feeling a little stronger and a little feistier by the minute. All she could think about was Ryan. Had he gone out or had this goon hurt him?

She frantically looked around the room for any clue where Ryan might be and spotted some blood smeared on her wood floor, by the basement door. She gasped, covering her mouth with her hands.

“What did you do to Ryan?” she sobbed, unable to control the fear that now welled inside of her.

“If you hurt him, I will fucking kill you!” She all but launched herself at her intruder.

He slapped her across the face with the back of his hand, knocking her back against the kitchen wall.

Pain shot through her cheekbone, into her head, and she moaned.

“You don’t threaten me, bitch!” he shouted at her.

Jenna tried to focus, but she was afraid that she was going to pass out from the shooting pain in her head.

She kept quiet, hoping to buy herself some time and let the goon calm down.

Egging him on wasn’t working out for her.

She needed a plan. What did they do in the movies when someone broke into a person’s home and attacked them?

All she could think about was the cartoons that Zac loved, with the superheroes.

They always kept the bad guys talking. What did they call it—monologuing?

Yeah, that’s what she needed to do to buy herself some time.

She looked around the kitchen, trying to find some sort of weapon to use.

She knew she had a knife block on her counter but wasn’t sure that she would be fast enough to get to it.

On the kitchen hutch, to her right, she had some antique rolling pins that she collected.

One of them was pretty solid and shaped like a bat.

If she could just get to them, she’d have half a chance.

The goon had already lost interest in her and started looking through her kitchen cabinet for the paperwork.

Now was her chance; she’d distract him and get to the rolling pin.

“So, you wanna tell me who you work for?” The giant man turned and pinned her with his stare. She wanted to cower in her spot but sat up a bit taller.

“Why don’t you just sit there and shut the fuck up, bitch, and I might let you live,” he threatened.

Jenna shivered, causing her assailant to smile. She noticed he didn’t have all his teeth, and Jenna had a Deja vu moment.

“Wait, don’t I know you? Didn’t I see you at the Ashbrook’s’?

Yeah, that dinner party that Jake and I went to when we were first married.

You were guarding the front door.” The Hulk’s smile slowly disappeared, and Jenna knew that she had played her hand wrong.

Now that she knew who he was, he wouldn’t let her go.

This time, Jenna did cringe as he slowly stalked towards her.

The last thing she remembered was the room going black and awful pain in her head.

∞

Ryan woke up, confused about his surroundings. He was guessing that he had been dragged to the basement. His hands and feet were bound, and he was helpless. All he could think about was Jenna and the baby. Thank God Zac went home with Jenna’s parents last night.

Ryan woke early to make Jenna breakfast in bed.

He wanted to pamper her, and he knew that she would be hungry after meeting a night of his demands.

God, if anything happened to either her or their baby, he’d go crazy.

He tried to get his wrists loose, to no avail.

Whoever trussed him up knew what they were doing.

This was a hired thug; Mr. Ashbrook would never get his hands dirty by hurting others.

He would never risk his political career or his well-being.

He cared too much about himself to get his hands dirty.

Ryan could hear Jenna shouting for him. He tried to scream for her, but the gag in his mouth didn’t allow for many sounds to escape.

He knew that the same person who had knocked him out earlier was still in the house.

He could hear the asshole rifling through closets and drawers.

He heard some commotion above him, most likely in the kitchen.

That was where he was knocked out. He had gotten the milk and orange juice out of the refrigerator and heard the floorboard squeak in the pantry.

Immediately, he knew that someone was in their house.

He put the containers on the kitchen floor and left the refrigerator door open, so as not to make any unnecessary noise.

When he opened the pantry door, he wasn’t ready for the hulk-like figure that punched him in the face, knocking him out.

The guy must have pulled him to the basement, letting his head hit every damn step, because it hurt like a son of a bitch.

Ryan worried that the same asshole knocked Jenna out, too, because everything upstairs was too quiet.

His gut clenched when he thought about Jenna lying up there, unconscious.

Or maybe she was awake, and the mother fucker was hurting her.

Ryan panicked and tried like hell to get free.

He looked around the basement for something sharp that would cut the ropes that trussed him like a stuck pig.

Ryan spotted an old, rusty coffee can on a metal shelf.

He scooted his ass across the cracked, crumbling cement floor.

He had just enough room between his feet to secure the can.

He started running the rope that was binding his wrist over the mouth of the can.

It was so rusty that the first few scrapes of the rope only made the can disintegrate.

He worked off the first layer of rust and got down to the metal.

The ropes started to slowly fray. Ryan froze when he heard footsteps upstairs.

The thug must have started to look for the papers again.

Ryan almost laughed to himself because the ass had zero chance of finding them here.

Tom Gentry had the papers in a safe, where no one could get to them.

He wondered just how stupid the Ashbrook’s thought he and Jenna were.

He continued to work his ropes, knowing that Jenna was still upstairs, in danger.

He finally wore the rope thin enough that he could snap it.

He freed his hands and feet and removed his gag.

“I’m coming, baby,” he whispered his promise, hoping Jenna could hold on long enough for him to get to her.

His bare feet hardly made a noise on the old steps.

There were a few creeks, but the continued noise coming from upstairs told him that the intruder didn’t hear him.

Ryan carefully pushed the door open and immediately saw Jenna’s form lying on the kitchen floor.

She wasn’t moving, and he noticed blood on her forehead, just at her hairline.

He wanted to go to her and make sure she and the baby were okay.

At least he could see her chest rise and fall, so he knew Jenna was breathing.

His only chance of them escaping was to find the asshole who knocked them both out and take him down.