Page 5 of Romancing the Reaper

Kieran laughs at me as he slams the car door behind him.

“Let me go!” I half sob, half scream, my voice trembling with fear and anger.

Kieran grabs my face, his eyes locking onto mine and for a moment, I’m stunned into silence and submission. His thumb sweeps out over the curve of my jaw and for the span of a heartbeat, I’m struck once again by how damned handsome he is. Exactly the last thing that I need to be thinking at a time like this, but the human mind is a very strange thing.

I almost don’t hear the zip tie closing around my wrists with his other hand.

In another setting, I would admire his dexterous fingers.

“This isn’t personal, Ada. It’s just business.”

“Business?” I spit, “What kind ofbusinessinvolves kidnapping?!”

“The kind that requires leverage, unfortunately for you.” Kieran says with a wink as he secures my other wrist.

My mind won’t stop racing. Then it hits me, it should have been obvious from the beginning. It’s for my brother. Cristiano.

“You’re making a big mistake,” I say, trying to sound braver than I feel. I need to be braver for Cristiano. “He will never forgive you for this. He will come after you with everything he has. I swear it.”

Kieran leans in closer to me, his gaze darting to my lips for only a heartbeat.

“Oh, I’m counting on it, gorgeous.”

Before another thought can come to mind, he pulls out a cloth from his pocket. With efficiency, he presses it against the lower half of my stunned face. The sickly-sweet smell of chloroform fills my nostrils. I try to fight it, but it’s no use. Everything around me begins to turn blue, hazy, and then starts to fade away into near nothingness. My limbs grow heavy.

The last thing that I see is Kieran’s cold, determined eyes looking down on me. “Sweet dreams, gorgeous.” I can hear his laugh, now a distant sound.

I have to stay strong, somehow. I have to be strong for Cristiano, for our family.

And I’m out.

CHAPTER FOUR

Ada

My head feels like it’s splitting in half.

The world comes back to me slowly. My limbs feel like they weigh a thousand pounds, as if something is crushing down on me. My eyelids are heavy as I blearily blink around the room that I find myself in.

It’s not wholly dissimilar to that abandoned parking garage floor. The room is bare and cold, the only light coming from a single dim overhead bulb. There’s a painful crick in my neck from the position I’m in. I am strapped to a chair, my hands tightly tethered behind me, cutting into my skin.

Panic surges through me as I fully take in my surroundings. I am going to cry. I hate that I’m going to cry. I have never felt so achingly hopeless before.

Kieran is silently leaning against the doorframe; he doesn't seem to move until my eyes settle on him. It takes a moment for my groggy mind to catch up with what I’m actually seeing. His gaze is intense, and I almost want to shrink away from it. Just his presence is imposing, those sharp blue-green eyes cold and calculating. He seems to have been waiting for this moment. I can only imagine how pleased he must be with himself right now. His expression shows both satisfaction and anticipation, which does nothing at all to calm my racing heart. I need to stay strong, I need to hide any weakness. But, that’s really hard to do when my mind is spinning and I’m seconds away from crying my eyes out.

How is this even real?

I bite down on my bottom lip, attempting to keep myself together.

Kieran keeps his arms crossed over his chest. I just want him to tell me what he wants from me. I just want to know what he’s planning to do to Cristiano.

My brother will come get me, he has to. Alberto likely already knows that I’m missing, which means that he’s already alerted Cristiano. I just have to make sure that Kieran doesn’t do anything crazy in the meantime.

Just knowing that Cristiano is going to move heaven and earth to get me back makes me feel a little bit better.

I glance around the room slowly, attempting to get any detail that might help make my stay here shorter. The dingy paint on the walls is peeling and there’s water damage on the roof in yellow and brown circles. The small single window up toward the ceiling has bars that unfortunately don’t look the least bit rusted. Kieran is blocking the only heavy door. There’s a mattress in the corner and a single sink without a mirror above it.

I tug gently at the restraints on my wrists and attempt to ignore the pain building in my shoulder from having my arms in such a strange position. He’s tied my ankles to the legs of the chair. It feels bolted to the damned floor, the metal is so heavy.

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