She’d left those checks on my desk because she wanted to stay with me.
Relief washes over me like a cool breeze on a scorching day, I feel a smile break over my lips. Just for a moment though, because my focus has to be on getting her back from Sorrento.
I’m probably walking straight into a trap. He would have me outnumbered without a doubt. But even if he tries to kill me. Knowing that she’d chosen to be mine, is enough for hell to take me a happy man.
Twenty One
LYSETTA
My hand touches the back of my head where I’d felt the strike. I’m sore from head to foot, too scared to open my eyes in case this isn’t just a really bad dream. Though the bindings that tangle around my wrists and ankles are digging into my skin enough to confirm that all this is very real.
Ethan disappeared from the mansion after telling me I was free to leave. His offer was generous, ridiculously generous in fact, but it had made me realize that there was nothing I wanted more than him.
I don’t care what it might seem like. Crazy, fucked up, mental instability. I’m in love with Ethan Shaw, and I was going nowhere. All I wanted was for Ethan to come home so I could tell him that, and we could make a start at figuring out how being together was gonna work for us.
Buddy had kept me company, but I knew how much he wanted to go to the festival. So, I’d waited for Ethan for as long as I could stay awake, then insisted that Buddy go and enjoy the fun. He seemed to know I didn’t need to be watched anymore. I wasn’t a prisoner. I was free. I never asked him if Ethan had told him about the offer or if he had just figured it out. Buddy was smart like that.
I’d waited for Ethan in his bed, happily drifting to sleep knowing that he cared enough about me to set me free. The slight dip of the mattress had caused me to stir, and a smile found my lips before I opened my eyes. I couldn’t wait to tell him that I was his to keep. But instead I froze in fear when instead of Ethan’s body wrapping around me, a cold unfamiliar hand slammed over my mouth.
My guts clenched as Rick’s cruel, toothless grin loomed over me, and then a sharp heavy blow to the back of my head turned Ethan’s dark room blacker than ever.
I’d prayed that it wouldn’t be the last vision I saw before death dragged me away from the world. But now, waking up and realizing my prayers have been answered, sets off a whole new fear.
Sorrento, smug with a victorious smile stares at me from a chair positioned at the bottom of the metal bed I’m tied too.
“Ahhh, Miss Carlson, so glad you decided to join us again. We seemed to have lost you for a few hours there.”
I assess the room, dark, damp and cold. Almost identical to the basement at Ethan’s.
“Let me go.” My voice comes out a fearful screech, nothing like the brave command it sounded in my head.
Sorrento’s lips pick up and he chuckles loudly.
“Why do they always say that, ‘let me go,’” he mimics my high-pitched voice, like this is a game we’re playing.
“Do they really believe you’re just gonna untie them and send them on their way?” I’m sure there’s no one else in the room he could be speaking to. But then, my head is pounding, and I suspect I have a concussion.
“What do you want from me?” I ask.
“Let’s see. What do I want from you?” He stands up and steps closer. His finger sliding slowly up my leg and causing me to squirm away from him.
“Firstly. I want my money. Then …” He looks up to the ceiling as if he has to invent something. “I want to cut you up into teeny tiny pieces and send you back to my dear old friend Mr. Shaw.”
My blood runs cold when he presents a small knife from his jacket pocket and twists its handle in his hand. I hold my breath in fear when he presses its tip to my cheek, just millimeters from my eye.
“Ethan was always a sucker for pretty eyes. I knew he’d fall straight for yours.”
He huffs a laugh.
“Please don’t hurt me,” I beg. “I can get you the money. Ethan will pay you. Just let me call him and he will bring it. I know he will.”
“Oh Ethan. Your. Fuckin’. Hero.” He laughs. Guiding the knife slowly over my skin, and then perching on the edge of the bed. “How much do you know about, Ethan?” he asks me thoughtfully.
“I know enough.” I swallow.
Enough to love him.
“I’d like to enlighten you, Lysetta…tell you a story. And, spoiler alert,” he says frantically before breathing himself calmer, “It doesn’t have a happy ending.”
