Page 131 of Vows In Corruption

With that, I close all the security footage from today. I’m going to be obsessing over it for days to come, I know that for sure, but right now, I’m not going to be getting any information. I need to come back with a clear head.

As I walk Dante out of the study, I try to get everything that has happened today out of my head, even for a few hours, so I’m preoccupied and miss the fact that Dante stops in his tracks until I run into him.

“Did Ella go somewhere?”

It takes me second to register Dante’s question and as soon as I do, I go on high alert.

My eyes scan the area and right away I notice that the door that separates the foyer and the elevator to the garage is wide open.

Lately, Ella has gotten into the habit of telling me she is going to do something. If she was stepping away from her desk, grabbing something from the car, she has been telling me. So for her to leave the apartment without letting me know, is raising questions when it shouldn’t.

“Ella!” I call out and wait for a response, but nothing comes.

I don’t have to call out again to know that she isn’t here.

“You don’t think…?” Dante starts, leaving his question up in the air.

My finger nails dig into my palms, drawing blood. “I don’t have to think. I fucking know.”

Marisela was fucking here. I fucking know it.

How the fuck she got through my security team, is beyond me, but she did and possibly has Ella. If she lays a fucking hand on her, I won’t hesitate. Marisela will end up in the ground.

I don’t give a shit if she’s my brother’s wife or the mother of his children.

She will fucking pay for her actions.

33

ELLA

From the second I noticed that it was my work phone ringing, and not my personal, I should have know that something was off. Everyone that I work with knows not to call me this late in the day unless it’s an emergency and they need to get in touch with Bennett. Otherwise they could email me.

Yet, I still answered the call from a number that I didn’t recognize.

Not a single word from the other side was said, but now I know the call was only to serve as a distraction. A diversion for someone to enter the penthouse, place a cloth over my mouth and drag me out of there.

I tried to scream, but nothing came out. I tried to thrash against the person that was holding me, hoping that I was strong enough to sway them and possibly hit something to get Bennett or Dante’s attention, but I wasn’t able to. It was like the second that the cloth was placed over my mouth, my body gave out.

I could still hear and see but nothing else.

There was a point in my life where I thought that Josiah coming after me and taking away Charlie would be my worst fear come true, but as I sit in the back seat of a car, with men on either side of me, I realize that that fear is nothing compared to this.

Tears roll down my face the further we make it out of the city. I might die tonight and there is a chance that nobody is ever going to find me. I don’t have my phone or anything that identifies me. I’m all alone with these strangers that decided to take me.

As we continue to drive, I try to clear my head as best I can so that I can catch if they do or say anything, but whatever they drugged me with is hitting me hard and everything is either jumbled all together or is a complete whisper and I can’t make it out.

I don’t know how long the affects of this is going to last but I hope that they end soon.

The only thing that I can make out is that the men that took me are working for someone and they speak a different language, but because of the drugs, I can’t figure out which one.

My eyes feel like they are drooping, so I try my hardest to keep them open as long as I can by keeping my gaze on the clock on the dashboard. For the most part it helps, but eventually I can’t fight it anymore and I let my eyes drop. The next time my eyes open it’s eighteen minutes later and we are pulling into what look like an abandon office building.

As the doors to the car open, I try to do math in my head.

When I first got in the car, the clock read that it was twelve minutes passed the hour, and looking at the time now, whoever took me only drove for fifty-two minutes. Which means, there is a chance that we may not be in the city anymore, but we are still close.

Maybe I can run. Maybe once the drugs go away, I can run.

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