Page 49 of Married to My Master

“I better be. If not, this is all going to go out of control really fast.”

Together, they paced the house for the next hour. Dane kept her from the windows with their closed curtains. His phone rang, finally, with Charlene on the other line. “Turn on the TV,” she said simply. “You're making more than just headlines, Mr. Hess.”

They flipped to CNN and saw the anchorwoman talking about the hostage crisis. A crawler across the bottom of screen read: “BREAKING: CEO OF PHARMA-VITAE (PHV -3%) TAKEN HOSTAGE IN HOME BY DISTRAUGHT FAMILY OF CUSTOMER ON DEATH ROW.”

“That making enough waves, Mr. Hess?”

“Yeah,” Dane said. “I think it is. Any comment from Pharma yet? They say anything about releasing their papers?”

“Nothing yet,” Charlene admitted. “But, I'm sure we'll hear something soon. Oh, and Mr. Hess?”

“Yeah, Charlene?”

“I wouldn't try anything stupid. Cops are on their way.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Emily

With the news helicopters beating their rotors overhead, and the SWAT trucks pulling up outside to form a nearly impenetrable ring of guns and steel, Emily quickly realized how important she was in the grand scheme of things. In less than two hours, they had her entire neighborhood on lock down, with media vans and satellite uplinks dotting the landscape.

To be honest, she almost felt bad for the neighbors. Except for the Johnson family, on the left. They always let their dog shit in her yard, then denied it afterward. They could go fuck themselves.

For appearances sake, she and Dane had decided that she needed to be tied up in her chair again, but, this time, down in the living room with all the curtains drawn. They needed to keep everything on the up and up, like this wasn't just some stunt designed to draw media coverage. Although, even if they tried to pull the curtain back and yell, “Surprise! You've been duped!” at this point, she didn't think anyone would listen to them.

Still, this was definitely not turning out exactly the way she'd hoped. She was growing increasingly worried that things were spinning out of control. He'd never said anything about SWAT, or these many police showing up.

The whole time they waited for Charlene to arrive for her interview, Emily's phone rang. Dane ignored it, and he couldn't exactly let Emily answer, either. “It's probably Jas,” she said, “calling because she's worried about me.”

“She called earlier,” Dane replied. “Edward’s calling now.”

“Barker?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “Asshole.”

Soon, he got a call on his phone from Charlene. He answered it, spoke to her for a moment, then hung up. “Okay,” he said. “She's coming in. You ready for this?” He stretched out a long strip of duct tape and tore it off, ready to put it over her mouth.

Of course she wasn't ready for this! Any of this! But, still, this was the only plan they had going for them, as fraught with danger as it was. “Yes, sir,” she groaned.

She was getting really tired of the tape over her mouth. She much preferred the neck tie.

Charlene knocked at the door a short while later. Dane nodded to Emily, then headed up to the front. She strained her neck back, craning so she could get a view of the door. It was far from perfect, but she could at least get a good profile of him as he drew his pistol from his shoulder holster and peeked through the peephole.

“It's her,” he said, before unlocking the door and throwing it open.

“Inside,” he barked, as he reached out to grab the reporter and pulled her inside the house. “Now.”

Emily could see something on his shirt, a sharp, electronic red dot like one of her old professors used to use during lectures. She narrowed her eyes, trying to get a clearer view of it. Yeah, it was a laser pointer. Definitely.

Why would someone be . . .?

Oh no! “Dane!” she wordlessly screamed through the duct tape, kicking as best she could to get his attention.

He glanced down at the dancing red dot and, faster than a cheetah after a pot of coffee, he snatched Charlene in front of him, covering his body. He scooted back inside, using her as a human shield, and slammed the door shut, throwing the deadbolt back into place.

“Oh my fucking God!” Charlene gasped, as she leaned back against the wall, hand daintily pressed against her chest as she tried to catch her breath.

This was Emily's first good look at Charlene. She was a little older than Emily had expected—maybe in her mid-thirties. Her skin was olive, her hair ebony, and Emily could tell from across the room that she had large, expressive green eyes.

“Well,” she groaned, taking it all in stride. “That was exciting, wasn't it?”

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