It’s such a shock to my system I gasp instead of whine in pain. I’m sent tumbling back as pressure rushes across the left side of my face. It’s as though my cheek’s already swelling up from the blow.
Deep, intense throbbing follows. My eyes are watering, and the entire towncar feels like it’s spinning. All spatial orientation has been disrupted as I fight to simply sit back up.
“Keep it up!” Eddie barks. “Keep acting out and find out what happens! You know what? Let’s fix this right now.”
I have no idea what the hell he’s even talking about as he shoves the driver’s side door open and gets out. He rushes to the trunk, popping it open and digging inside.
We’ve pulled over on the side of the street. My eyes are so itchy and watery I can’t even make out the street name this time.
But instincts scream at me to run. Get the hell out of here.
I scramble over the front seats, lunging for the driver’s side door. I’m half a second too slow. Eddie catches me before I can make it. He shoves me back inside the car then follows up with a sharp backhand across the face.
Things get…ugly.
I throw blind punches and kicks at him. He retaliates ten times harder, making me see stars as his fist comes down on my temple, and then he’s pinning me to the seat.
“HELP! HELP!” I shriek in hysterics, my voice breaking. “I’M BEING KIDNAPPED! PLEASE HELP!”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
If I had any hopes someone would miraculously come to my rescue, those hopes are dashed when he wraps the coarse rope he grabbed from the trunk around my wrists and jams a rag in my mouth.
“Fuck,” he sighs, wiping sweat from his brow. “How the hell did Uncle Ronan ever put up with you for this long? You would’ve been swimming at the bottom of the Hudson already if you were my wife.”
I scream at him some more, though it quickly proves useless—the filthy rag muffles any sound I make and tastes like motor oil on my tongue.
Eddie slides back into the driver’s seat and, within seconds, we’re back on the streets, driving through the city like nothing happened.
My chest has filled up with panic.
The only thing that remotely keeps me calm enough not to start sobbing is the thought that Ronan knows I’ve been kidnapped.
HeknowsEddie’s taken me.
Which means he’ll have to save me, won’t he?
My heart thumps extra hard as I close my eyes and pray my husband will come through for me. That he’ll prove he’s the same man who shoved me down when the assassin on the bike started shooting at us.
He’ll show methat’sthe real Ronan Callahan.Notthe man who’s treated me like his enemy.
All I have left is faith. I have to believe…
My cheek is throbbing, and I have a splitting headache from the blows I’ve taken. My fingers have quickly gone numb from the coarse rope cutting off my circulation, and the dress I’m wearing has partially ridden down, almost exposing my breasts.
I look and feel like a mess.
But Eddie’s back to his cocky antics.
“You know what’s funny?” he asks conversationally as we reach another red light. “Everybody’s been so busy suspecting your family. The Langstons this, the Langstons that. Malcolm must be the traitor. Simone must be a double agent.” He shakes his head and laughs. “I helped plant a lot of those seeds myself. Dropped little hints here and there. Put the idea in Ronan and Grandpa Seamus’s heads you weren’t trustworthy. Sabotaged Malcolm’s shipment. Tipped the Albanians off to what we were up to. Nobody suspected a thing.”
“That’s because you’re irrelevant, you asshole!” I snarl at him through the rag.
It comes out as more muffled gibberish, to which he laughs.
“That must piss you off, huh? That I basically framed you and your family. You were just a convenient scapegoat, princess. A distraction while I did the real work.”
“Why!?”