Page 5 of Captive Souls

Piper

The kidnapping itself was rather anticlimactic. I followed the man to a black SUV, getting in the front seat after a moment of confusion. Was this like a rideshare where I was expected to ride in the back? The front felt intimate, consenting, yet the back was far too vulnerable for my liking. I didn’t quite know the etiquette of an abduction.

Not that it mattered where I sat in the end, since he didn’t even spare me a glance. I ended up in the front, even though the nearness to this man made my muscles stretch to their limits with tension.

The interior of the SUV was impeccable. It smelled like new car and … something else. Woodsy, masculine. Him.

Appealing.

Absolutely abhorrent and unhinged of me to notice my maybe murderer was sexy and smelled nice. But I couldn’t help but think that.

He drove to my apartment building on the Lower East Side, which I was only able to afford because a great aunt we barely knew had owned it and lived in it until she died and bequeathed it to me and my sister. It was worth millions now. We could’vesold it—God knew we needed the money. But I would never. That place was the one sign that the universe hadn’t damned us completely. We’d been given it when we had no other home, no family, nothing.

It was a symbol of hope. We’d turned it into a home, even if Daisy had moved out and it was now just me and a moody cat.

And where would I go? Even the millions I would’ve made couldn’t buy me anything comparable in the city, and leaving the city seemed absolutely unthinkable. It was my home. I’d forced it to be that way because I didn’t have the strength to go back to the one other place in the world that made my heart sing.

I was overrun with the ‘what ifs’—what if I had made a fiscally responsible decision and sold this place when we got it, getting me and Daisy out of the city and somewhere … safe? I wouldn’t be getting kidnapped right now and Daisy wouldn’t be…

“Where is my sister?” I demanded, turning in my seat as we somehow got an impossible parking spot right out front of my building.

When his eyes darted to me, there was nothing in them. Nothing human or empathetic. It was terrifying, like I was looking into a black hole. “Unharmed,” he said. “And she’ll stay that way as long as you comply.”

The threat wasn’t overt. It didn’t need to be. This man just existing, breathing, staring at me was a threat.

“Comply with what?” I bit down on my bottom lip. I knew that this was obviously some sort of intimidation tactic in order for me to surrender to Stone, but I didn’t understand any of it. And even with this man beside me, even with the pure terror he instilled in me, it wasn’t enough to make me submit.

Instead of answering, he handed me a vibrating phone.

The nameStoneflashed on the screen.

My hand wasn’t shaking when I took it—I was proud of that.

I pressed answer on the screen but didn’t say anything. How exactly was I supposed to greet the crime boss who didn’t take no for an answer?

“Piper,” he drawled. “I hope you’re well.”

The sound of his voice made my empty stomach turn. The forced politeness was ridiculous. As if this was all normal. Sane.

My spine straightened as I forced myself to ignore the man beside me, who I knew was watching me. Instead, I looked out into the busy New York street, at the people going about their lives as if mine wasn’t imploding in the cab of an SUV.

“Well?” I repeated on a cold laugh. “I wouldn’t consider me being forced from my run and my sister’s life being threatened aswell.”

“He hasn’t touched you, has he?” was Stone’s cool, biting response.

Still, I didn’t look at him, my kidnapper, the man whose gaze was as heavy as a hundred city buses. “No, your lapdog has not touched me.” The air in the cab seemed to chill, my bones practically chattering.

A pause. “Good.” I could almost see him nodding.

“What is this, Stone?” I clenched my hands around the phone, wanting to crush it in my palm. “What’s your game plan here?”

“I’m going to give you a little … vacation,” he said pleasantly.

My heart continued to pound. “Vacation?”

“Yes, you work too hard, and I know you haven’t taken one in years. Not since Turks and Caicos in 2017.”

The hair on my arms stood at hearing how much information he had, just how much digging he’d done on me. I wasn’t a dark or sordid person, but my past had its fair share of skeletons, and all could have been used against me.

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