Page 113 of Blue Moon

“Dog food?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t see any of that.”

Which made me wonder again why he’d brought Rocky. Mark Antony had obviously been preparing to snatch me for months—he’d built a whole freaking temple—but he hadn’t provided kibble?

None of this made any sense.

“Who cares about dog food?” Michelle huffed. “I don’t get how you can stay so calm.”

Six months ago, I’d have been freaking out right alongside her, but that was before I met Ryder. He’d taught me that I was stronger than I ever realised.

“Because the last two times someone tried to kill me, I held my nerve and fought back, and that’s what I’m going to do again.”

“You think you’re gonna fight him? The man’s a giant.”

“A giant?”

“Over six feet tall, and real strong,” Kacie explained.

Well, crap.

“Okay, fine. Then I’m going to play his game until my boyfriend rescues us.”

That earned me a snort from Michelle. “Oh, sure, your boyfriend’s just gonna ride to the rescue like some white knight.”

“Yes, he is.”

“The whack-a-doodle who kidnapped us is in la-la land, and so are you.”

Kacie didn’t seem convinced either. “If the police haven’t found us, I doubt anyone else will.”

“Girl, you think the police are even looking for us? They might get off their heinies for Miss Rich-and-Famous here, but they ain’t lookin’ for a poor-ass waitress and a nursing assistant.”

Why did Michelle always have to be so negative? Okay, so things weren’t looking great right now, but I had a new life waiting for me. No way was I going to spend the rest of my days in a fancy barn.

“I’m, like, eighty percent sure I saw your pictures on the news. Michelle disappeared after a night out at the Peppermill?”

“I thought he was my Uber driver. I fell asleep in the back seat and woke up here.”

Kacie mimed drinking from a bottle and did little finger quotes. “Fell asleep.”

“It was my friend’s birthday,” Michelle snapped. “Is having a good time illegal?”

“How did he take you?” I asked Kacie before they got into a fistfight.

“Some sleaze tried to follow me out of the parking lot at work, and Mark offered me a ride home. He’d been in the bar earlier, and we’d chatted for a while, and he honestly seemed like a nice guy. Plus he was a good tipper. We stopped at the gas station on the way, and he bought me a slushie. I think he put something in it. You really saw us on TV?”

“Yes, on a local station. All we need to do is play along until we’re rescued.”

I was Cleopatra, the original founder of the girl power movement. She’d married not one but two Roman generals and gotten the better of both of them. She wasn’t a warrior, but she’d still managed to gain control of basically the whole of the Middle East by using her brain and her feminine charms.

I only had to temporarily gain control of one man.

“Are you sure we’ll be rescued?” Kacie asked.

Ryder would come. He would. He just had to work out which photographer was missing from the horde, find out where he lived, and sneak in with Knox or someone else who knew how to shoot a gun.

“Yes, I’m certain.”

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