Page 36 of Seductive Sadist

He turns around again. “Sending our message today… on the day you were supposed to cement your union to the Van Dyne family… is perfect. Malikov may have beaten us to the kidnapping part, but we have you now. It’s over. For all of you.”

He knows it was Zak who took me from the hotel. How freaking small is this criminal underworld, anyway?

A sudden wave of nausea crashes over me, and I put a hand on the back of the driver’s seat to steady myself. The truck keeps going faster and faster… or is that my brain working in overdrive to figure out how the hell I’m going to get out of this?

I press my palms against the pebbled leather, my skin prickled with sweat.

Laney…

Questions bounce around my mind like frenzied ping-pong balls.

Is that why Dad could never talk to me about the accident? Did it have something to do with him and his work? Was it guilt that ate at him? Or was it regret that he sacrificed his daughter for money?

Blood rushes between my ears, bile creeping up the sides of my throat.

Does Mom know?

She and Tyson’s parents were talking and laughing like asshole buddies last night at The Surf Club. Was she playing a role… the dutiful wife… for my dad’s sake? Does she know who and what he really is?

After Laney died, a light went out in Mom’s eyes. She hasn’t been the same since. Laney was so much like her, and I was always the odd one out. Maybe a tiny part of me, as resentful as I am for giving up my dreams, hoped that this marriage might bring us closer together, that maybe I could reignite that sparkle in Mom’s empty gaze by doing what’s expected of me the way Laney always did.

My stomach clenches. I stab the button to lower the window before it revolts all over my UGGs.

“What the fuck are you doing?” the driver yells when a rush of air fills the cabin of the truck.

I gag and heave, hanging out the window for a long minute afterward and dragging in deep breaths of dank air.

I’ve been yanked out of school, pulled away from my plans to become a surgeon, my life effectively crushed… all because of my father’s alleged greed. And for all the time I’ve been grousing about everything I was forced to give up, I never once stopped to think about what Laney lost, and how she’d gotten tangled up with the Van Dyne family. I chalked it up to unrequited obsession on Tyson’s part.

Dread seeps into my skin like the most toxic poison at the revelation.

Laney was the first target.

I drop back against the headrest once I’m finished, using my sleeve to wipe my mouth. My chest shudders with quiet sobs.

Kylian was the second one.

And I’m the last.

I squeeze my eyes shut. I had my chance to run before.

Maybe I can still save myself.

Even if I have to wander around in scraps of fabric with no shoes, no food, and no money, it has to be better than living as a prisoner, a victim of someone else’s fucking bad choices.

Death would be preferable.

And if I stick around much longer, it will be inevitable.

“Get off here.” The man in the passenger seat points to the upcoming exit sign, pulls out his phone, and stares at the screen. I can tell he’s looking at his phone because it gives his profile a fluorescent glow in the darkness of the truck.

Are they taking me somewhere where they can kill me and dump me off like a bag of trash?

The driver pulls off the exit ramp, and the truck slows for a red light at the end of the road.

I swallow hard. It’s not the best place for me to escape, but without knowing where they’re taking me and what they’re going to do to me, it might be my only shot for survival.

I had a chance before and I lost it.