Page 3 of Saved by Him

Two

I would’ve thoughtthat the worst part of being tied up in a pitch-black room was not being able to move, but that wasn’t it. At least not yet. When I needed to pee, I was sure I’d change my mind, but for right now, the fact that I couldn’t tell how much time had passed was driving me crazy.

I’d left Jalen’s place sometime in the late afternoon, early evening. I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious, and because there were no windows, I couldn’t tell what time of day it was. Was it still Thursday or was it Friday already?

It couldn’t be any later than Friday because I hadn’t wet myself, though the pressure in my lower belly indicated that might not be the case soon. I was hungry and thirsty, but I could ignore my stomach for a while. Dehydration would kill me before hunger.

Kill me.

Fuck.

I could die here.

No. I shook my head. No, I wouldn’t die here. Not like this. Not when I had…

A half sob caught in my throat as Jalen’s face flashed through my mind. Rich brown hair, brilliant turquoise eyes, the sort of face that could only be described as ruggedly handsome. Six-four, with broad shoulders and muscles that weren’t just for show.

After everything Jalen and I had been through, it couldn’t end like this. We’d just said, “I love you” and, sure, this thing with Elise was going to make things tense, but I wanted us to get through it. I wanted us to work through everything, to build a relationship.

Everything I hadn’t thought I’d want, a life that I’d never pictured myself having, I saw it all now. I saw it with Jalen. A life. A family.

But only if I got out of here.

I had to be smart though.

More time passed, but it could have been minutes or hours. I shifted myself around until I was sitting. At some point, I figured out how to tug down my pants and relieved myself in a corner. Not the high point of my day, but considering the rest of my situation, it wasn’t the lowest either.

That’s what I had to prepare myself for. The lowest. The worst. The things that, as a former student of the FBI, I knew could be coming. It all depended on who had me and why.

If they were looking for a ransom, they probably wouldn’t hurt me, especially if it was Jalen they were going to try to ransom me to. Except I doubted that was the case since not many people knew the two of us were together.

Which meant it might be a random kidnapping. That wouldn’t be good. Adult women weren’t generally kidnapped by grieving mothers to replace a child. I’d done enough psychological work to know that a quick death would probably be the best outcome I could hope for.

But there was one other possibility.

My father.

Any time in the last few years, I wouldn’t have been thinking about him at all, but ever since the second trial, he hadn’t been ignoring me like before. In fact, he’d been trying to talk to me. I’d kept getting collect calls from him, or at least I had before he’d escaped.

Had my father arranged this? Was this his way of trying to control me from where ever he’d escaped to?

The sad thing was, that possibility might be the best shot I’d have at making it out of here alive and unscathed. My father would want to take care of things himself. He wouldn’t want anyone else to kill me. Since he was most likely hiding somewhere closer to Indiana, that would be a problem. Which meant now that they had me, they had to figure out what to do with me while they waited. That meant I had time.

Suddenly, a burst of light from the other side of the room blinded me. I cursed, holding up my hands in front of my face while blinking until my eyes adjusted. I heard a click, and an overhead light came on. It was a single, dingy bulb, but offered enough light for me to finally see my surroundings… and wish that I hadn’t.

Cinderblock walls covered with peeling gray paint. A concrete floor, smooth but not finished. A cinderblock ceiling with the lone bulb that looked ready to blow.

This wasn’t a normal basement. Normal basements had wooden or tiled ceilings. Unless we were in a warehouse or something similar, a basement like this had to be purposefully made, and I could only think of one reason why someone would do that.

To hold someone like me.

I resisted the urge to check closer, to look for signs that other women had been held here. It wasn’t hard to do, really, since a large, muscular man was now standing directly in front of me, a glower on his square-jawed face. Buzz-cut brown hair and ice-cold eyes all gave me the impression of one of those Soviet villains from eighties’ movies. Like the big guy inRocky.

This was bad. Really bad.

I’d assumed that my father would’ve hired some scrawny, wiry ex-con who needed chloroform to take me down. This guy was big enough that, no matter how tough I knew I could be, he could’ve taken me down without drugs. It would’ve been messy, dangerous, and time-consuming, though, because I sure as hell wouldn’t have gone quietly.

“What’s up?” I grinned up at him, not bothering to hide the anger I felt. Instead of playing the helpless, weak woman, I was going for disarming with bluntness. I’d never been any good at pretending to be a damsel in distress, anyway. I wasn’t even going to try.

---