by Kiera Silver
Euan just laughed. “Sorry, but I can’t do that. We’ve been waiting a long time for you, and you’re too important to just let go.”
A surge of warmth filled her, and it was completely crazy. She knew the context of his words, referring to the fact they thought she was some kind of kryptonite for Croft. She had no idea what their problem was with him, but it was clear they wanted revenge for something, and they’d decided to use her as the means to get it. His words could have been something tender and loving, but they weren’t. They referred to something that was anything but.
As she heard his feet start to move away from the door, she began to scream. She screamed as hard and as loud she could, until her throat was raw. She heard his footsteps coming back as she paused for a breath, but he just stood outside the door. She started screaming again, but flinched when he pounded on the door.
“Stop screaming. You’re giving me a headache, and it’s not going to do any good anyway. Have you seen the neighborhood you’re in? We picked it for a reason. It was heavily devastated by the economic downturn, and hardly anyone’s back yet. Those who are mind their own business, and they aren’t going to help you even if you scream day and night. All you’re going to do is hurt your throat and give me a pounding headache, so shut the fuck up.”
“Fuck you,” she shrieked at him, determined to keep screaming as long as she could since it clearly annoyed him.
Her resolve lasted a couple of minutes before her throat was starting to ache. With a sigh of disgust, she moved away from the door, certain he wasn’t even on the other side any longer. The way she’d been carrying on like a banshee, he’d probably chosen the room farthest from hers to try to block her out. She grinned with satisfaction at the idea, but it quickly left her face when the reality of her situation settled heavily in her brain.
She was a hostage, held for an unknown purpose and as a way to hurt someone she barely knew and hated already. They clearly had no idea who her father and brothers were, and when the Morettis got done with these two men, they’d have an entirely new definition of pain, and far shorter lifespans.
She felt a wave of regret at the idea and scowled at herself. It didn’t matter how hot they were, or how kind she had thought they were to start with. They were cold-blooded and ruthless, just like a lot of the men she knew from the mafia, and had inadvertently discovered when trying to connect with the Thorne side of her family. They deserved what they got, and she shouldn’t let any other emotions sway her from that thought. Instead, she should cling to it and be plotting their bloody deaths herself, because she had a feeling she was going to need something to get through this ordeal. She might as well plan some revenge of her own.
After a couple of hours pacing and thinking, finding no immediate solution, Sophia had finally gone to bed. The mattress was on a rickety bed frame that squeaked every time she moved, but at least the mattress was comfortable, and the bedding was fresh. Everything appeared new in preparation for her arrival, and she was mildly appeased that they hadn’t thrust her on to a filthy, stained mattress with no bedding. She hoped it meant they were going to treat her well, since they’d made some effort to see that she was comfortable during her incarceration.
She wasn’t certain how long she’d been asleep, but it couldn’t have been more than a few hours when her door opened. She blinked open fuzzy eyes, looking to the barred window and confirming it was still dark out. She scowled up at Euan and Connor, who stood over her on either side of the bed. “I’m trying to sleep.”
“We’ll let you get back to it as soon as possible, princess,” said Connor in a mocking tone.
“What do you want? It’s the middle of the night.”
“We just need to take your picture,” said Euan.
She blinked a few times, clearing sleep from her vision, and focused on him. He held a flimsy whiteboard in his hand, and she vaguely made out numbers on it. It took her tired brain longer than usual to process that it was the date. “So you decided to ransom me back to him? This is your proof of life moment?”
“Something like that,” said Colin. “Hold the sign, we’ll take your picture, and then you can go back to sleep.”
She thought about protesting, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. She could fight them, or she could just get rid of them as quickly as possible and go back to sleep. That idea sounded far more tempting, so she took the sign Euan extended with a grumpy glare in his direction before holding it up in front of her.
“Lower. He needs to see your pretty face,” said Connor.
She glared at him, giving him anything but a pretty face as she moved the sign lower, so it rested on her stomach and below her chin. “Just take the damn picture.”
He did so with a smart phone, obviously checking the quality before he nodded. At that, Euan took the board from her, and they moved to the door.
“Did you really have to do this in the middle of the night? You could have done it in the morning.”
Connor paused on his way out, having followed Euan. “He’s already going out of his mind, so we might as well let the games begin. Sleep well, princess.”
“Fuck you,” she hurled after him as the door slammed, and the click of the lock sounded a moment later. She wasn’t usually much for cursing, but these two made her want to pull out every expletive she had in her arsenal and use them on a frequent basis, directed toward them. They were frustrating as hell, and though she should hate them, she couldn’t quite manage that. Give them time, and allow their kidnapping game to escalate, and maybe she’d change her mind. She didn’t want to find out.
Chapter Three
Euan was the one who answered her morning summons for the restroom. By the time she’d finished, taking advantage of the moment to lock the door and have a shower after searching the small room to ensure there was no way to escape—and disappointed to find there wasn’t. The tiny window in the shower wouldn’t even allow her head to slip through, so she focused on cleaning up instead.
They didn’t have any of her usual products, but someone had clearly made an effort to add some feminine bathing products, and she decided they would work well enough as she soaped and then washed and rinsed her dark hair. Afterward, she dried off with a clean towel she found in the small cupboard above the toilet before slipping back on the clothes she’d worn last night. When she knocked on the door upon discovering someone had locked it from the outside, Euan appeared a moment later and opened it for her. “What if there’s a fire? Are you just going to leave me locked in whatever room I’m in at the moment?”
He looked offended. “No, of course not.”
She decided to press him. “Are you planning to kill me? Are you going to ransom me to Victor Croft for millions of dollars, and then double-cross him and dump my body somewhere?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the plan.”
It wasn’t much for an answer, but she took it as an encouraging one. If he planned to murder her, surely he wouldn’t have been so sanguine about his answer. He either would have displayed cold brutality and answered yes, or he might have shown a hint of uncertainty at the idea of killing her. “What are you going to do to me?” Her eyes widened when she realized the question came out far more provocatively than she’d intended, and with a definite edge of heat that clearly sent the wrong message to the man holding her captive.
His eyes widened, but he made no other response to what could be construed as an inviting tone. “I’m going to feed you. There’s a tray for you in your room.”
She glared at him. “Can’t I at least eat in the kitchen? That room is tiny.”
“So is the kitchen,” he said brusquely as he pushed her through the door of the room assigned to her and closed it in her face.
She glowered at the wood grain in front of her as the lock clicked into place. “You’re an asshole,” she called through the door.
“So I’ve been told,” he said in a careless fashion as his voice moved away from th
e door, indicating he’d left.
She thought about sulking, or perhaps going on a hunger strike, but she was too hungry to really consider that. It made no sense not to eat and keep up her strength, so she moved to the tray, finding crisp bacon, over-easy eggs, and triangles of sourdough toast. It was delicious, and she was more than halfway finished when it suddenly occurred to her they might have drugged her food.
She stopped eating abruptly, pushing away the tray as the possibility took root. They might do all kinds of things to her if they had her in a drugged state. There was a lump in her throat, but she was afraid to drink the rest of the orange juice to pass it down. Instead, she suffered the unpleasant sensation for the next half-hour as she waited to see if she would start to feel drowsy. When she didn’t, she assumed the food must be safe and finished the rest of it, though the cold eggs were no longer appealing.
After that, she pounded on the door until Euan came. “I finished my breakfast.”
He shrugged. “Good for you?”
She gestured to the tray she’d placed on the floor. “Why don’t you get rid of that? I don’t want it smelling up the place.”
He sounded almost exactly like Connor when he said, “Yes, princess,” with mock-deference.
“Where is your not-at-all charming other half?”
“Busy,” he said in more of a grunt than full syllables as he bent down to pick up the tray.
It was the opening she’d hoped for, and she reached for the lamp on the dresser. It unplugged easily from the wall when she tugged on the cord, and before he fully stood up again, she brought the base crashing down on the back of his skull. He slumped to the floor with a moan, not quite unconscious, but clearly struggling to remain aware.
She moved past him, hopeful Connor was gone, but moving quietly through the house in case he was there. She made it to the front door without running into Connor, and abruptly recalled the biometric scanner as her gaze landed on it. It had seemed like overkill for this hovel last night, but now she understood the reason it was there. She wasn’t getting through that door without one of their hands to clear her.
There had to be another way to escape, so she turned from the front door and made her way into the kitchen. It was a dead-end, so she went back and turned down the hallway, reluctantly going the direction from which she had come. Euan was still on the floor of her room, but he’d made it to his hands and knees and was groaning as she moved past him.
The last room at the end of the hall was a bedroom, and it had a back exit. She stepped over the threshold and went to that door, nearly sobbing with frustration when she saw another biometric panel blocking her escape. The only way out was to get Euan to put his hand on one of the panels for her. Was he dazed enough to fall for that?
His tread in the hallway answered the question for her, and she swallowed with anxiety as she turned to face an angry kidnapper. He stood in the doorway of the room, leaning heavily against the doorframe with one hand against the back of his head. The other braced his weight, and his scowl was fearsome. She had the ridiculous urge to apologize, but she held it in. Instead, she pointed to the biometric panel. “Why don’t you just put your hand on that and let me out? Connor never has to know.”
“I think he’ll notice you’re missing, Sophia.”
She moved closer to him, trying to appear seductive. “It could be just our little secret. You don’t really want to do this. I can tell Connor is the one pushing you to make this choice. You seem like a nice guy, kind and gentle, and you don’t belong in part of a kidnapping plot. Just open the door and let me go, and I promise I won’t say anything about what you did when I tell this to my family.”
He smirked at her. “Do you really think that’s going to work? Connor and I are in on this together, and we have good reason for doing what we’re doing.”
She still wasn’t completely convinced that she couldn’t seduce him into cooperating. Or at least distract him to hit him hard enough to pass him out completely with something and drag his limp body to the biometric pad to press his hand there. “I don’t really believe that. I think Connor’s the one masterminding this. You’re just caught up in something you don’t know how to escape.”
He laughed. “I think you’re projecting, princess.”
“I’m just suggesting a mutual favor. I could give you something you want, and in exchange, you could open the door.” She moved closer to him, brushing her body against his as she trailed her finger down his cheek. It should have required more acting skills than it did to sway closer to him and feign interest. She was disconcerted to realize she wasn’t feigning anything. Heat bloomed in her abdomen and spread outward, and her breathing became erratic, just from being this close to the man who had kidnapped her. She could have pretended it was simply fear and lied to herself, but what good would that do?
He arched a brow. “What did you have in mind? I mean, what are you going to do for me?”
“I’ll do whatever you want me to do.” She pressed her palms to his chest. “I’m very motivated to get out of this situation.”
He touched his head, wincing in what could’ve been an exaggerated manner, but might have been his genuine reaction. “I can tell. I’m going to have a raging headache from that lamp.”
She shrugged, unable to pretend to feel remorse. “You’ve kidnapped me. All’s fair in love and war.”
“I don’t want to go to war with you, Sophia, but I can’t let you leave.”
She swayed closer, aware of how his body stiffened, but uncertain if it was surprise, rejection, or an attempt to resist her. She brushed her lips against his jawline, which sent a shiver down her spine. She had to focus on the task at hand, because she had the disconcerting certainty that it would be all too easy to lose focus of what she was trying to accomplish if she managed to start seducing him. It was crazy to be attracted to a kidnapper, and she couldn’t even blame Stockholm Syndrome. She hadn’t been their captive long enough for that to even start to sink in.
He didn’t move away, but he didn’t move closer either. He seemed unaffected by the way her lips ghosted over his jawline, though they softened when she brazenly brushed hers against his.
She flicked out her tongue to tease the seam of his lips, unsurprised when his mouth parted with a small groan. She pressed her mouth to his, deepening the kiss as she kept one palm against his chest and used the other to steady herself by placing it on his shoulder.
It was supposed to be an attempt to distract him, perhaps either as a way to bargain her way out of the situation, or to take advantage of his distraction and attack him, but she quickly forgot the purpose of why she was kissing him as one of his arms slipped around her, locking her body against his as he deepened the kiss. He still seemed a little unsteady, and there was a faint voice whispering in the back of her mind that she should take advantage of that, but she couldn’t seem to focus on the idea long enough to follow where it was trying to lead her.
His hand slipped from her lower back to her buttocks, gripping her with a firm squeeze that pressed her lower body against his. His cock was thick and hard against the juncture of her thighs, and her eyes widened when she realized how turned on he was. It was the same for her, and she was slick with need. She completely lost sight of her objective as she strained to be closer to him, pressing her body against his as she grabbed a handful of his T-shirt where her fist curled against his chest.
She wasn’t certain if they would have broken apart on their own, or if she would have eventually regained her senses and remembered what she was doing there if it hadn’t been for Connor.
“What the fuck is going on?”
She jerked at him yelling at both of them, awareness abruptly returning as soon as she stepped away from Euan. She was trembling, and it was a combination of fear at Connor’s tone and lingering desire for the man she’d been kissing so passionately. The man who’d kidnapped her. She almost sneered at herself. What kind of strategy was it to try to seduce her captor whe
n she didn’t even use that to her advantage?
Euan seemed embarrassed, and he only barely glanced at his brother for a moment before looking at her, and then looking away. “I’m not sure. She whacked me on the head, so maybe I have a concussion.”
Connor glared at her. “Did you really hit him?”
She nodded, feeling that phantom remorse she shouldn’t. She didn’t owe them anything, and her efforts should be focused on escaping. Seducing Euan to accomplish that goal had proven to be a bust, but she hadn’t given up.
He glared at her. “He’d better be all right.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Or what? You’ll kill me? Euan already made it clear that wasn’t in the plan.”
Connor glared at her. “Plans change, princess. Get your ass back to your room right now, because if I have to put a hand on you, I’m likely to spank you.”
She gasped. “You can’t spank me. I’m an adult.”
The gold flecks in his eyes were more prominent as he glared at her. “Don’t push me. Your room. Now.” He practically roared the last word.
She flinched in spite of herself, debating about whether she should keep pushing him, or she should escape to the relative safety of her cell. It would be safer to abscond from the area for the moment, at least until Connor regained control of his temper and assured himself his brother wasn’t going to suffer lasting damage from a lamp to the skull. She slipped past both of them, her body agonizingly aware of their proximity as she did so.
What was wrong with her to be attracted to the men who had kidnapped her? What was wrong with her to be attracted to two men at the same time, for that matter? Even if they had been the facade they presented—that of a waiter and a valet attendant—it would have still been abnormal to find both of them attractive. She couldn’t pretend like she didn’t though. They didn’t have to know that, but it was better to acknowledge it and face it, at least to herself.
