Page 17 of Fight for You
I adopted all his favorite ideas. If I hadn’t known myself before with any other man, beneath Katlego’s thumb, I. Did. Not. Want. To. Know. Me.
I sighed.Too wrapped up in that man.
Angered by my ability to be tempted, I strutted into the closet and snatched a pair of dark gray sweats. I slipped out of the dress. Glanced back. My frown set deeper. Was it disappointment that Jamie wasn’t watching me? He didn’t want me?
Uh-uh. Why should I care?
Confused by these feelings of desire, I pulled on the sweats and slipped on a much too big T-shirt over my head.
“You’ll need shoes,” Jamie said. By the sound of his voice, not near enough, he must’ve still stood in the same spot, opposite the bed. “It’s the second week of July. I’m unsure whether Chelomey kept you updated on timeframes. Though it appears cold in themorning, you might get hot in those around noon. I’m so sorry. We could go shopping?”
“No” lurched from my throat. Maybe he wasn’t like the others because I was his first purchase? Actually, not really. He hadn’t even bought me. He stole me.Gotta let that sink into my head.I chuckled, searching through his shoes. For this lavish bedroom, he didn’t seem to care much about his clothing. A few Chelsea boots, motorcycle boots. I grabbed one of two pairs of sneakers. Even as I laced them tight, the size thirteen male tennies flapped from my eight-and-a-half female foot.
With the back of the shoe rubbing against my heel with each step, I stepped back into the bedroom.Don’t you dare laugh at how I look.
Jamie stood in front of the metal briefcase that sat on the bed. The briefcase of money.
Why rub that in my face? How he hadn’t paid for me. I was free and?—
“I take it you don’t want to stay?” Jamie asked.
“Not even.” I bit the tip of my tongue from allowing another word to slip from my lips.Thank you. Gratitude didn’t pair well with pride.
“Then you’ll be needing this.” He opened the briefcase and turned it around.
My toes clutched under in the roomy Nikes. “I don’t understand. That’s your money.”
“Nae.” He shook his gorgeous head, clearing his throat. “Now, it’s not much. You’ll probably want to live in a cheaper country.”
I approached the bed. The massive mattress that lulled me from one sweet dream to another between us.Where would I go?
“0422,” he said while pressing a few buttons. A hatch from the top of the briefcase opened. A manilla envelope fell out. He picked it up and tossed it closer to my side of the bed.
When I opened the envelope, my heart slammed into mythroat, falling into my abdomen. “Passport. Birth certificate.” I glanced at the numbers on the social security card. Looked legit.
“All part of your new life. Listen, you’ll want to commission a boat or something. Not a commercial flight. You’ll be required to declare any sum over $10,000.”
“What—what are you saying?” I asked, a snap in my tone.
“The money, the identity, it’s all yours. Your new birthday is April 22nd. Unless you want to go to the police and?—”
“No need.”
“Hear me out, though. The cops will just have to reverse your death certificate. And then you can claim your own full name …” He scrubbed a hand through dirty blond hair.
I bit my tongue from asking him my last name. Sounded too stupid. I’d read many amnesia tropes. Knew how to navigate in a world without an identity—fictitiously speaking. But I didn’t know my last name. Hell, I didn’t even know if Jordyn was my real name. Nor did I know exactly how long my first captor had me before Jamie arrived.
I’d started counting the days after Jamie disappeared—8798. Shaking off that thought, I asked, “What’s this new name you gave me?”
“Jordyn, I hired one of the best FBI artists in the nation to create a picture of you from memory. Used that to process an age progression photo, put that through the dark web. After a while, I got a hit on the image, when Chelomey started your auction. So, I don’t know your last name. Greene is my sister-in-law’s maiden name, Willow Greene.”
So, in a sense, dude was telling me that my parents never reported me missing.So much for reversing that death certificate. I shrugged. Why should I care? “I’ll be Jordyn Greene on paper if necessary. I’m just Jordyn.” Emotion gripped me by the throat, every attempt to speak, a struggle. “I-I … thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Something unreadable passed over hischiseled features, and he closed the briefcase, strolling around the bed to hand it to me. “I suppose this is all there is to it.”
“Yes.” Should I hug him? Should I … stay? Tears clouded my vision, and I glanced away while blinking. A rogue tear fell down my cheek, hot and heavy. I’d been tricked too many times in the past not to want to grab this briefcase and hustle. So, I did just that.
I rushed through the second set of double doors, over marble flooring, and down the stairs, almost tripping over the large shoes on my feet. Did my life now resemble those twisted survival books in my Did Not Finish pile? I was absorbed in novels when not ordered around by a man, but I’d hate to find myself as the main character if that was Jamie’s game.
