Page 68 of Hidden Attraction

It didn’t take a mathematician to add up those two factors and see that they were obviously going to kill her. They’d done nothing to disguise themselves, and she could identify everything.

Her toes throbbed from kicking that man in the shin. His bone must be made of iron for how much it hurt.

Alyssa scanned the room, her gaze catching on the cracked cinderblock walls. In several places, the stone had crumbled away—scarred, she realized with a chill, in a way that looked eerily like bullet damage.

This was all her fault. The past few days spent under Julian’s protection had lulled her into a sense of security. Beside him, she felt invincible. Like no one could touch her.

All she had wanted to do was wake her lover with a fresh cup of coffee. She made the error of believing they were able to be a normal couple. When it came to relationship goals, they were so messed up it was mind-boggling.

There were never morning snuggles. No movie dates where they sat close in the dark, holding hands and sharing popcorn.

She and Julian shared stolen moments between questioning base commanders and Red Cross directors who took over after their predecessor lost their life in a bombing.

Knowing that they would never have those normal things stitched a thick thread of sadness through her, layering it with despair and an undercurrent of fear she refused to succumb to.

With a lift of her jaw, she glared at the metal door, tracing the patches of rust along the bottom until lines squiggled in front of her vision. Below the rust spots burned into her eyes was a thin sliver of light—the only freedom in sight.

All was silent around her. Not even the sounds of traffic from the street penetrated this fortress. If her kidnappers were plotting her death, they spoke in whispers she couldn’t make out.

In an attempt to free herself, she tugged on the tight rope binding her. First, she yanked with all her might in hopes that the rope simply snapped. Fat chance of that. She would have an easier time producing a knife out of thin air and hacking through the rope with no hands.

After that failed, she attempted to stretch the rope over and over in an effort to slip her hands through the loops.

All the while, her mind worked fast and furious, considering negotiation tactics and rejecting them one by one.

The tenor of her thoughts grew darker and darker as the hours dragged by, but thinking about Julian was so much worse.

Oh god. Pain stabbed her to the core. Every time she thought about her lover, she felt like someone had pierced her heart with a blade and she was slowly bleeding out drop by slow, tortured drop.

Tears swam in her vision, making a smear of the rust at the bottom of the door.

She’d never see Julian again. What broke her the most was the idea of leaving him behind to suffer after her death the same way he suffered after losing his entire team.

He didn’t know where she was. Couldn’t find any way to rescue her.

A voice in the back of her mind prodded at her.You’re wrong. Julian is the best of the best. If anyone can find you, he can.

She sat with that a while, letting her hopes rise and fall per the moment. But one thing stood out through it all—her feelings for Julian Chase never wavered.

She was falling in love with him. Hell, she might alreadybein love with him.

Sucking in a quick breath, she turned that thread over and over in her mind, examining the possibility from all angles.

If she lived through this, and they got home in one piece…then what? They lived very different lives. His line of duty took him to all corners of the world, ones they’d touched on in only the briefest way over dinner. And her career required not only travel but long spells out of her home country.

They’d never see each other.

That didn’t mean that she didn’t want a chance at happiness, dammit.

A lump thickened her throat, making it impossible to swallow. A cry built up in her lungs, and her chest heaved. When the sound broke from her, it was more like the pitiful wail of an injured animal.

Alyssa gave in to her tears for several minutes. No one was around to hear or see. So she let them flow until she finally gained enough strength to force her emotions down inside her once more.

She lifted her bound wrists, and by turning her head, was able to wipe her face on her sleeves. She didn’t test her restraints again. All she got from that were raw wrists, adorned with bleeding scrapes stuck with fibers. The ropes binding her ankles to the chair felt as if they’d worn through her pants and bit into her skin too, and her shoulders ached from the straight-backed chair.

Shadows danced across the cracked cinderblock walls. She twisted her gaze away from the chipped, pocked concrete marred by bullet holes. Her stomach turned at the sight.

At that moment, another crack appeared around the door, this time on the side as somebody entered. By the time her captor walked in, she was composed enough to shoot her own brand of bullets at him with a glare.

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