Captive

FREYA

My hand flew to the handle on the door, trying with all of my might to yank it open.

It wouldn’t budge.

~Shit.~

~The safety lock.~

My stalker smirked. “Oh, come on. Give us some credit. Did you actually think it would be that easy?”

“What do you want from me?” I demanded, feeling my temper flare.

His smile deepened, evidently amused by my reaction.

~There’s got to be a way out of here.~

I looked around the interior of the limo, feeling the man’s eyes on me.

~My phone!~

But as I hurriedly checked my pockets, I remembered:

~My phone’s in my backpack. And my backpack is in the trunk.~

“What’s she going to try next, huh, Al?” the stalker asked the driver in a maddening, patronizing tone.

~The windows.~

I inched closer to the door, trying to position my body so that he couldn’t see what I was doing.

My fingers blindly groped for the switch.

“Oh no!” my stalker jeered. “Not the window! We forgot about the window!” He laughed menacingly.

I pressed the button and realized it had been disabled too.

~There’s no way out.~

“Where are you taking me?” I demanded, watching the road become more and more barren.

“You’ll see,” my stalker replied, before raising the privacy window once more.

Once again, I thought, ~I’m going to die.~

LIAM

~Come on, Freya.~

~Answer the goddamn phone!~

I paced the hotel suite anxiously, feeling the device trembling in my bloodied hands.

This was my seventh attempt to call her, but still I’d heard nothing.

Maybe she was just ignoring me.

Maybe Mason had arranged her ride home.

~Yeah, right.~

And maybe I was just jumping to conclusions and she was totally fine.

But the more I weighed the possibilities, the more I realized that I would never believe any of them.

My gut told me that she was in danger.

That guy—that ~bastard~ harassing her—had finally gotten his hands on her.

The thought was unbearable and made me sick to my stomach.

~What will he DO to her?~

“Liam, you don’t know that it’s him,” Luce said, practically reading my mind.

She and Wyatt sat on the couch amid the wreckage of my hotel suite.

“Where is Daryl? We have a flight to catch,” Wyatt declared, glancing up from his phone in annoyance. “I’m not going to let this girl fuck up the rest of the tour, Liam. She’s already done enough.”

“Fuck you, Wyatt!” I roared. “If you actually gave two shits about me, you would see that ~this girl~ is the best thing that ever happened to me!”

He scoffed, rolling his eyes for the thousandth time. “She must have a magic p—”

“Say one more fucking word about her and I will END YOU!” I stormed across the room, seeing red, and Luce scrambled to her feet, placing herself in my path.

“Liam, look at me.” Lucinda fearlessly set her manicured hands on my shoulders, trying to get me to focus.

“We need to figure out whether there is a genuine threat to Freya before we jump to conclusions,” she continued. “You’re no good to her if you can’t stay calm.”

“Luce, how the hell are we going to do that from another continent?” I replied, still fuming. “There’s ~nothing~ we can do—and it’s all my fault.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Henderson—if you don’t mind me saying—that’s not actually true,” came Daryl’s voice from the doorway.

Face flushed and out of breath, he crossed the room, holding up his phone.

“I had Miss Freya share her location with me at the beginning of the tour,” he explained, handing me his phone. “It looks like she’s somewhere in eastern Queens.”

I took the phone from his hand and stared down at the tiny blue dot on the map.

“Where is this?” I demanded, zooming in.

Freya was in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by a bunch of factories—practically in an industrial wasteland.

I stood there in shock for a moment, unwilling to believe it.

~It’s him.~

“I lost her,” I murmured as a sickening pit began to form in my stomach.

“Liam?” Lucinda’s voice sounded a million miles away.

“I did this,” I moaned.

“Liam?” she repeated.

“He’s gonna—I can’t…”

I didn’t see it coming.

~SMACK!~

I stumbled back, blinking furiously, my left cheek burning. Luce shook out her hand, flexing her fingers.

“What the ~hell~?” I growled. “You just fucking ~slapped~ me?”

“Liam, you need to get your shit together,” she barked. “If something’s happened to Freya, we need to act now.”

~She’s right.~

~We have to do something fast.~

FREYA

My breathing was becoming erratic, and with each massive gulp I felt my nerves taking over—suppressing my rational mind.

Then I realized that the car had stopped and we were sitting in some sort of massive loading platform.

I heard the passenger door slam, and then suddenly the back door opened and I was ripped from the back seat.

“Get your hands off of me!” I screamed, as the man swung me over his shoulder and carried me inside the building.

I tried to fight back—punching and clawing at him—but he didn’t flinch.

I was completely overpowered.

He carried me down a long, dimly lit tunnel of a hallway and into a much larger room.

After placing me down on a wooden chair, he took half a step back and I was finally able to take in my surroundings.

We were alone in what looked to be an abandoned warehouse, with rusting machinery pushed into the back corner and an ancient production line running along the front.

To my right, a massive window, broken and covered by years of dust and grime, poured in the overcast sunlight—the only light source.

My eyes found their way back to my abductor’s, who was still looming over me, breathing heavily.

His beady eyes watched me with faint amusement.

“You’re feisty. You know that?” He grinned.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” I demanded.

“It’s not what ~I~ want,” he replied cryptically. “It’s what my employer wants.”

~Employer?~

“You know, Freya, you really should have left Liam when you had the chance. It would have been so much easier for you.”

It was the first time he’d called me by my name and not “sweetheart.”

I hated the way it sounded coming from him, probably because it made all of this so much more real.

“But I did leave Liam,” I insisted, narrowing my eyes.

“Oh, yes,” he replied. “We know. But—and it really ~pains~ me to say this—”

~Somehow I doubt that.~

“—you’re too late. My employer has had a recent inspiration. Their plans for you are much bigger now.”

He brought his face inches from mine and I was forced to peer into the void of his eyes.

“You shouldn’t have been so stubborn,” he continued with satisfaction.

I turned my face, breaking from his probing eye contact.

“Who’s your employer?”

He ignored my question.

“So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to go on record to a news outlet of your choosing and make a statement saying that Liam Henderson was an abusive boyfriend.”

~Excuse me?~

I did a double take, my eyes finding his again.

“He threw you around from time to time. And you stayed with him these past weeks because you thought you could change him—but you’ve realized that there is no changing a man like that.”

“Go to hell,” I spat.

No matter how much Liam had hurt me, I could never do that to him.

I loved him.

And maybe it was my fatal flaw, but I knew it wouldn’t change.

“Thought you might say that,” he replied, leaning in to take hold of the arms of my chair. His sour breath was hot and rampant across my face.

“Let’s try this again,” he said. “You will go to the media. You will tell them Liam beat you. Am I clear?”

“And what happens if I say no?”

His smiling facade dropped entirely. “Do you ~really~ want to play this game?” he murmured.

I couldn’t help myself.

“Yes.”

And then the man’s massive, callous hands wrapped around my throat, choking the life out of me.

I sputtered, gasping for breath, but there was no air to be found.

My vision was starting to go blurry, my limbs numb.

Limp.

My stalker’s leathery hands hoisted me by the neck from my seated position and I felt my feet leave the ground.

Just as my consciousness was draining, a sudden surge of will took hold of me.

~I’m not dead yet.~

With the last shred of energy left in my body, I miraculously brought my left knee to my chest, then launched my foot into his groin.

He cried out in pain and dropped me instantly, sinking to his knees.

I landed on all fours, coughing and gasping for air. My bruised neck throbbed.

~There’s no time.~

“You bitch,” I heard him groan.

Pushing myself to my feet, I took off running, not bothering to look back.

~Go, go, go!~

My feet, which seemed to have a mind of their own, carried me back the way we came—down the narrow hallway and into the loading platform.

Across the garage, I could see the daylight poking through a set of massive, iron-clad double doors.

~I can make it,~ I allowed myself to think.

~I can get out of here.~

As my weary legs propelled me forward—though for how much longer they’d last, I was uncertain—I pushed through the doors.

~Shit!~

There was nowhere to go. No sign of civilization as far as I could see.

A massive compound of abandoned buildings. Surely there was a neighborhood—a person—something nearby.

But which way?

Without a second to waste, I took off to the left.

As I rounded the first building, I caught sight of a road not too far off.

~Yes!~

~Just a little bit farther…~

And then I felt a hand clasp around my arm, jerking me backward so that I stumbled into a massive torso.

“That wasn’t very nice, sweetheart,” my stalker growled, wrapping both his arms around my waist.

As I flailed and kicked, using all of my might to break free, he dragged me backward across the gravel, my heels digging into the ground.

Back, back, back—through the garage, down the dingy hallway, and into the massive room once more.

He dropped me onto the floor suddenly and my head ricocheted against the cement.

He loomed over me, a malicious spark in his eyes.

“I’m going to give you one last try. You will go to the media. You will tell them Liam abused you. And in return, I’ll let you live.”

“No,” I choked out, trying to crawl away from him on my elbows.

My stalker’s massive boot came down on my back and I groaned, looking up at him in terror.

Sliding a hand into his back pocket, he retrieved a switchblade.

As the tiny blade ~clicked~, springing to life, I flinched.

“Well, then,” my stalker growled, towering over me, “I guess this is the end of the line, sweetheart.”

I knew what would happen next.