Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
“I brought a straw.” He pulls it from his jacket. “I’ll stick it in a glass of water.”
Because he planned this. All of this. Maybe even the part where he pretends to be on my side now. He moves to the kitchen and the end result is a glass of water and a straw, as promised. After which, he points to the spot where there should be a phone. “They’re gone. No phone in any room.”
“Asshole,” I murmur.
“I’ve been called worse.” He points at me. “You owe me for treating me like I’m a pervert, by the way.”
"You owe me for kidnapping me and leaving me like this.”
“We’ll call it even,” he counters, and with that, he backs away, turns on his heel and disappears down the hallway.
The door opens and I hear it slam shut, the sound jolting me, despite my expecting it. And it’s a sound that is as much about freedom as it is captivity. I launch myself into action, rushing in that direction, and once I’m at the door, I try to move the handle. It won’t work. My hands just can’t get it to the right place. Neither can my elbow. I try again and again, until I’m groaning in utter frustration. I have to tell Tyler I’m okay. And Dash. God, I hope he called Dash, but the two of them together will be one big ball of testosterone, and testosterone loves to clash with testosterone.
My gaze lowers to my purse where it’s been shoved against the wall. I kick it and try to get my phone out of it. If I can unlock my phone, Siri could call Tyler. My purse contents spill out and my gun slides to the ground. That’s when I remember that I have no phone. Oliver floated it like a boat in a glass of water. Frustrated beyond belief, I start kicking the door and shouting, but this room is at the end of the hallway. No one is going to hear me.
My mind goes to the smoke detectors and I located it above me in the foyer. How do I set it off?
I’m instantly remembering an article I read about steam showers trigger smoke detectors. I hurry toward the bathroom and locate another smoke detector. Bingo. Hope forms. Now if I can get the shower on…only I try and fail. My hands are just too wrapped up and useless. Next idea. Find a sharp object to cut my hands free. This possibility leads me to the kitchen, where I’m utterly screwed. There is nothing sharp anywhere to be found. Even the counter itself is curved. I sink down to the floor in total, utter defeat. I’m trapped like a rat in a maze, and I’m terrified just thinking about what Tyler and Dash might be doing right now.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Tyler
The Allen mansion isn’t far from downtown Nashville and only about a mile from my parents’ home, which is really my mother’s home now. It’s a neighborhood for the rich and famous I know well, I just don’t want to live here. I will never live here. My choice of an apartment downtown was by design. It said bachelor, but the house I now share with Bella says home to me. She’s home to me, and this world doesn’t know what I would be like without her. The Allen family really does not want to know what I would be like without her.
Dash pulls up to the gate and reaches for the security button, allowing his finger to hang mid-air. “We need a plan.” He glances over at me. “You have one? Because aside from beating everyone lifeless right now, I do not.”
“I’m right there with you,” I say, “but we both need to pull our shit together, at least for a few minutes.”
“Yeah. A few minutes but that’s about all they get.” His energy is sharp, edgy, and his voice is taut. He’s dying inside over fear for Bella just like me, but he’s far more in control than I feel right now. He might talk about beating assess, but if not for him, who knows what I would have done to Gavin back at the coffee shop. He’s smart and logical. He’s connected. And he’s a professional, with more experience dealing with life-and-death situations than any normal human being could fathom.
But we both know this is the tipping point to war.
It’s time to face our enemies, and we both know that one wrong move could cost Bella her life.
Dash punches the buzzer, and the gates begin to open.
“And here we go,” he murmurs as he shifts into Drive and we begin traveling down a winding driveway framed by perfectly manicured bushes. How very my family, I think. Everything on the outside reads like a fairy tale. The inside is a horror story. Exactly why Bella has never been to my family home, and I don’t want her there. It’s poison like my childhood, but in my rejection of my own history, it hits me that I’ve never even asked her about her childhood home.