Page 49 of Twin Deception

Freaking out, I shoved my butt back on the bed to look over and see what the hell was happening to me.

A shiny metal ring adorned my wrist. It was no bracelet, but a handcuff.

Gawking at it, I moved my arm so the pressure of my wrist wouldn’t push down so hard on it.

Blood rushed through, stinging with the return of circulation again.

A handcuff?

I stared at it, wondering if this was another dream, a bad trip of my subconscious mind that was tricking me to debate what was real or fake.

It was an actual handcuff, solid and locked securely around my wrist. A matching ring was stuck around the vertical wood post of the bed frame. Thin but sturdy, the narrow wooden slat was likely for decoration only, but someone had thought to use it to keep me in place on this bed.

I whipped my head forward, seeking out who could have done this.

Miguel was the only one I expected here, but with the danger and shots taken at my life lately, that might have been a foolish and risky thought to entertain.

He was the only one who was supposed to come here, where he’d told me to wait.

And there he was. Not in the bed with me, but on the couch. Through the few inches that remained from the bedroom door being left cracked upon, I spotted him sleeping on the couch.

Hedid this?

He worried that I would run, that I would escape him and whatever the hell he was trying to do with me so he had to cuff me to the fucking bed?

Fury burned through me. Angry and livid, I clamped my lips shut and stared at him. I couldn’t finish a full thought past the ire lighting me up. I couldn’t speak around the emotions of this deep rage that choked me.

How dare he?

How could he?

Why?

I knew he was a bad man. He killed people. He had a gun. He stalked me. Beneath all that, he also fought hard to save me, to not only keep me company but to keep me alive from dangers I couldn’t fully see or recognize.

“What the fuck is going on?” I whispered it to myself as I tested the cuff, seeing if that wooden slat would snap.

Of course, it didn’t.

And of course, the asshole slept through the clinking and clanking sounds of my struggles to get free.

What is he doing, kidnapping me now?

I shook my head, struggling to process any of this rationally. Staring at him and damning him for sleeping so deeply on the couch, I tried to rein in my frustration and be strategic about this. Independent to the core, I resisted the mere idea of someone else having this much control over me, over my life. That was why I’d cut ties with my father so long ago. I tired of having him dictate what could happen in my life, which he did on the regular by making me go into hiding or uprooting me so often.

As I locked my gaze on Miguel deep asleep, I tried to compare the two, to connect a similarity of how he, too, could want to control me.

Behind him, I noticed movement, though. It wasn’t fast, but inchingly slow.

Someone opened the hotel door and slid into the suite. Dressed all in black, his gruff face hidden in the shadows near the entrance, he stepped inside with a gun up.

Just seeing the end of the barrel leading this intruder’s way into the suite made my heart seize.

Again. I gasped a breath and screamed.

“Miguel!”

I screamed again and again, watching hopelessly as the man reacted to my shouts. He darted forward, firing the gun at thesame time Miguel jerked up on the couch and rolled to the floor. His arm was raised too, firing off a bullet from his handgun.

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