Page 1 of Capture
1
Ihad no concept of time without a phone or a watch, but it felt like I had been locked in this room for two hours, maybe more, before I heard footsteps and voices, a sign of life. Fresh air streamed in from the air conditioning, keeping the temperature low, and I drank water from the faucet in the bathroom. Still, if I stayed in here for much longer, claustrophobia would claim me, triggering a panic attack.
I sat cross-legged on my bed, expecting the voices and footsteps to come closer and my door to unlock, but instead, the voices became muffled, and I assumed they had steppedinto another room. I lay back on the bed, feeling desperate as I replayed the last few months in my mind. What could I have done differently? Was I so blind that I couldn’t see what Bitchtective was plotting? If it weren’t for her, I would’ve quit my job at the club as soon as I found out who I was working for. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be here in the first place. If it weren’t for her, I’d be living an everyday life as a college student, making friends, dating…oh, but wait, it was nevernormal, but at least I could pretend.
Flirtatious laughter rang out in the room next door, and I left the bed and walked into the bathroom between our rooms to listen in. Apprehension stirred in my stomach when I heard a deep male voice, and I wondered if it was Gunner or Ronan. In a room. With a girl.
A bitter taste in my mouth urged me to switch the faucet on and slurp several mouthfuls of water. I had no right to claim their affection and loyalty when betraying them. But this was a jagged pill to swallow—listening to that, basically shoving their exploit in my face.
More flirtatious laughter from the woman, followed by groaning from the man. I couldn’t hear the words spoken, but the tone told me everything I needed to know. Then sex noises. Sighing. Groaning. Grunting, Gasping.
Tears burned my eyes as it hit me hard how much I liked Gunner and Ronan—maybe even loved them—if I knew what it felt like to be in love. I missed Gunner when he wasn’t around, but enjoyed his presence from afar when he’d watch me from behind a mask. Those days were over.
A noise from the flirting couple pulled me out of my morose thoughts, urging me to press my ear to the wall for clarity—repetitive grunting, heavy breathing, short, sharp, exasperated sighing. The couple was having sex.
I screwed my face up and stepped away from the wall, horrified. Of all places to have sex, Gunner or Ronan or whoever it was chose the room next to me, to rub it into my face. In hurt and disgust, I stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind me. Just as the door to my room opened, Gunner was holding a black plastic trash bag. His narrowed, suspicious eyes flicked to the door I just slammed, assessing the scene, before focusing back on me.
“You’re there,” I stated stupidly, pointing my finger at his scarred face that I adored and always will.
Ignoring my comment, he walked in and placed that bag on the bed as I looked past him at the open door, wondering if it was a good move to run for it, but Ronan emerged in the hallway, arms folded across his chest, not a hair out of place.
“I emptied your drawers,” Gunner told me coldly. “We’ll bring you dinner in about twenty minutes.”
“Wait. How long will you keep me here?” A sharp sound like furniture scraping across the wooden floor reminded me that people were there. “What’s going on next door?”
Ronan frowned, annoyed, glancing down the hall. “We specifically told them not to use that room,” he mumbled scornfully.
“For what?” I brushed that question aside because it wasn’t important. “How long are you going to keep me here?”
“For as long as it takes,” Ronan replied, sternly.
Gunner pulled something out from the back of his jeans, and I lurched backwards at the sight of the handgun, holding my hands in the air in fear. “What plans did you have for this?” he asked accusingly.
Oh, it was my gun. The gun I had forgotten was in my chest of drawers, which I had bought for protection in moments like this. “Protection,” I replied honestly.
“From who?” he insisted.
“You. Them,” I pointed my thumb behind me, indicating Bitchtective.
He gripped the barrel of the gun in his hand as his head tilted to the side to look at me from a different angle. “The cops? Was it the cops who asked you to plant a bug in Mr. Kaiser’s office?”
I was about to nod a yes when I realized he was a hypocrite. “You planted a bug in my room, didn’t you?” I hit confidently. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was him or Bitchtective, but there was only one way to find out. “So, you’re just as bad.” I stomped my foot angrily.
He didn’t deny it, which told me everything I needed to know. I wasn’t surprised, since he’d been stalking me, among other things, and in a way, I didn’t care. Not now anyway.
“I’m not the cops,” he argued smoothly as his eyes turned black. “What was the prize?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, closely watching his hand clutching my gun. “That gun is loaded.”
“Not anymore,” he asserted. “And we want to know what prize was dangled in front of your face for you to come into this club and be a mole for the fucking cops.”
I swallowed over a lump in my throat as more furniture screeched across the wooden floor in the room next door. Jeez, haven’t they finished yet? “What was your prize for planting a hidden camera inmyroom?”
I refused to answer him because I didn’t want to travel down that road and expose my family. After all, it would only reveal who I was. I wasn’t sure if they had yet figured out I was Annika. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell them because this burden had grown too heavy for me to bear, but I held back.
Gunner bit his bottom lip as he raked his eyes over me, as the couple in the room next kept moaning, grunting, her sighing becoming higher in pitch. She had to be faking it. No woman was ever that loud when it’s a natural orgasm. Surely. Gosh, wasI that loud when the boys had sex with me? My cheeks burned with secondhand embarrassment as I tried to compose myself under the serenading erotic noises.
“Seeing you,” he replied with a glimmer in his eye. “Watching you.”
