by Shae Black
My Billionaire Captor
Shae Black
All rights reserved. © 2015 Shae Black
No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in anything, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from Shae Black or her legal representative.
Authors Note:
This series contains adult content not meant for anyone under the age of 18. Those under the age of 18 are discouraged from reading this material.
Many Thanks to:
God and my beloved family.
Prologue
My world has been upside down since Marcus Castillo landed in my ICU a few short months ago. I used to be a simple single, hard working nurse who lived only for her family. Somehow, I’ve tumbled down a deep rabbit hole into a world I never imagined existed. This new world is full of uncertainty, passion, love and pain. The love of my life is also the bane of my existence. Love is something I crossed off my “to do” list early in life, something I refused to allow into my heart, until Marcus.
Now the past that lead me down the road that protected my heart is threatening to extinguish the flame that lights my world. I don’t know who I am anymore; I’ve merely existed since leaving Marcus. One breath at a time, one heart beat after another, waiting for the end. Ironically illness is the thing that saved my life, if you can call what I was doing living. Recently I have been reminded of what my life used to be about, what it should be about again, family, career and friends. I found the resolve to begin living again just in time to face the one thing I fear most, the thing that changed my life into a hell that no woman should ever be put through, being kidnapped, and now I’m afraid it’s happening again.
Chapter 1
Like a lead anchor on a massive chain being dropped into the ocean I descend slowly, each link scraping against the ship as I drop into the deep murky water below. In a brief moment of lucidity I find myself lying in the rear of a musty smelling van. The driver’s hand on the wheel is the only thing visible to me, small and feminine she steers the van through the dark. Wearing a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up obscuring her face I can’t help feeling something is familiar about her. The position I’m stuck in behind the front seat blocks me from seeing any more of her but suddenly I’m slammed in the chest with realization. The stalker from my room… please no, no, no this can’t be happening! I left Marcus; the target on my back should have been removed, why does she want me? And this fucking van… it’s identical to the one I was stuffed into when I was nineteen by the three evil demons who painfully changed my life forever. How in the hell could this possibly be happening to me again? If this is what I think it is then I am officially the unluckiest person alive.
My entire body is unresponsive and numb, but I can see where I am and that throws me into a full-fledged panic. My body is frozen but my mind is aware. This isn’t going to last long, first it’s the tunnel vision and then my hearing fades away slowly. Passing out has always been my specialty and for once I’m completely ok with that.
My head aches as I’m gently bounced along in someone’s arms. Outside cold raindrops splatter on my face and I squint to protect my eyes. Lightning in the sky above flashes brightly and an occasional rumble of thunder rolls through with the storm. There is a noise that I don’t recognize though, unrelated to the storm it’s a high-pitched hissing that progressively gets louder and louder. God I think my ears are bleeding, if I could just move my arms I would cover them. The strong arms of a ghost carry me through the storm, fear strangles me but I’m helpless, trapped and at the mercy of whoever has deemed me important enough to kidnap. What do they want with me? Do they think I’m still connected to Marcus? Do they think that kidnapping me is going to benefit them in some way? Ransom possibly? Well, if it's money they want I know that no matter what is or isn’t going on between Marcus and I he would pay any amount to bring me home. We may have broken up but the love between us will never die and he would see to it that neither would I.
Fear is a familiar emotion for me. Actually horror would better describe the things I’ve been through in my short life. The fact that I can even function as a member of society is amazing.
Could this be the lone attacker from my past? The one who was never caught? The one I have spent ten years looking over my shoulder for? Sheer freezing ice flows through my veins at the thought of being in the hands of that monster again. The things he did to me were meant to leave me dead. He left the house for food, booze or drugs I don’t know which. He wasn’t caught during the raid that imprisoned my other attackers.
The evil coursing through that man’s body is indescribable. Not even my parents or my therapist know exactly what caused my physical injuries. I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone, it was too humiliating. I have a video of the nightmare I endured for those three days playing on repeat in my mind. If it’s him who’s taken me I pray I never wake up.
You know that feeling of being in the middle of a nightmare? When you are paralyzed with fear, trapped in your mind but you just can’t move or wake up? That is how I feel right now. In the darkness I sense something is here with me but I’m frozen screaming internally at my body to move, to get away, to run! I’m a veteran when it comes to nightmares but I’m beginning to realize that this one is different from my usual torture, maybe not a nightmare at all.
The force holding me captive lifts minutely and I manage to open my eyes a slit before reacting to the light and snapping them shut. Try again, I encourage myself but my body isn’t responding. My hearing cuts in and out like the waves of the tide, an unfamiliar humming sound rushes through my brain and plagues me with a surge of desperation. Once again I attempt to open my eyes. This time I anticipate the light and carefully lift my heavy lids to allow the light to pierce the darkness.
Where am I? Where have I been? What the hell is going on? Heart racing, I peer straight ahead of me trying to focus on something, anything. It’s like I’m a fish in a bowl looking out into a strange warped room. I’m able to make out tiny blue lights streaming in straight lines; two of them parallel disappearing into an unknown distance. I can only see my immediate surroundings; it’s like driving through fog in the dark. I try to blink the blurriness from my vision but it continues to annoy and cripple me. Lowering my gaze I resist the urge to roll them back into my head and return to the dark. I am so weak and tired but I refuse to give up. After a moment of intense focus and trying like hell to comprehend what is going on, I see him and my heart stops.
An angel kneels at my feet identical to Marcus surrounded by a glowing light his head bowed, elbows bent on the surface I am laying on, hands clasped together holding the crucifix that he wore around his neck as if in prayer. This isn’t real. That isn’t him. I’m still asleep, I must be. I surrender to the overwhelming urge to slide my eyes shut again and wonder if I have died. Maybe this is how the body gradually eases itself through the shock.
I’ve always wondered how it feels to die. Watching my patients pass away time and time again makes a person curious. Dylan Thomas’s famous poem ‘Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night’ creeps into my brain. ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light do not go gentle into that good night.’ The poem drifts around my mind for a while before I’m swallowed into an ocean of darkness again, paralyzed and held prisoner inside my own mind.
I can’t be dead; I’m hungry, really fucking hungry. I hear my stomach growl and I suddenly realize that movement is now possible and I flex my hands and open my eyes. The same surroundings come into focus, minus my angel. Was he ever hear at all? I’m alone in a narrow room, no it’s not a room, a cabin maybe? Wide Leather chairs face each other with a small table between them on my left and another identical seat across an aisle to my
right. I scramble to pinpoint at least one familiar thing but it’s not happening.
Rolling my heavy head to the right I see a huge television screen on a narrow table that hugs the wall. But something is off about this narrow dimly lit room it vibrates and hums. Six round windows line each side of this mystery room and suddenly the pieces of the puzzle slide into place. I’m on a fucking airplane!
My right arm is restricted when I try to prop up on my elbows to get a better look around. Tubing, I have an IV in my right arm ok that feels familiar. Yes it’s coming back to me now. I was in the hospital, a virus or something made me feverish and my mother and sister left me to go home for the night. That’s all I remember other than snippets of being transported in a van and the little knife lady who was driving it. Nothing's making sense until the heavy blanket protecting me from reality is yanked from over my head and the pain and loss of the one and only man I’ve ever loved clenches in my chest.
Marcus was gone and I was sick, physically but more importantly I was emotionally ill. The loss of that man began to destroy me. I know now that the notion that two halves don’t make a whole in a relationship is complete nonsense. Whoever told me that hasn’t truly been in love. The power of love is much stronger than I could have ever imagined. I found the other half of myself in Marcus. I need him like I need oxygen, water and the blood flowing through my veins.
Fear is the only thing holding me back from moving now that the drugs have worn off. So far I have only given my eyes permission to move. I scope out the cabin searching for the small woman who tucked me into bed seven weeks ago with a hunting knife in her hand. Or maybe I should be looking for the devil that raped and tortured me ten years ago. It’s insane that there are at least two suspects that could be my captor. Something else that’s insane is that there could be someone with the capability and the money to pull this off.
That’s when it hits me, the creep that is still running from the law couldn’t have enough money to bankroll this operation, but I know nothing about the woman with the knife. At this point, the unknown is much better than the known so I say a little prayer to God that for once I’m spared any harm. Something inside of me shifts and a strange calm the middle of this absurdity overwhelms me.
My common sense says it’s just my mind protecting me from something very bad. I need to figure out this fucking mess, if for no other reason than to shield my crumbling soul and save myself from the loony bin.
A movement at the opposite end of the cabin interrupts my thoughts and a small door opens. Marcus’s massive body fills the space between the cockpit and the fuselage where I’m being held. Gasping and shaking my head back and forth slowly I refuse to accept the situation.
“No, no, no, no, this isn’t happening, you cannot be the one responsible for this.” I say, holding up my free hand warning him not to come any closer, and he doesn’t. He is frozen and seems surprised, as if he had no idea I was here.
Here…where the fuck is here anyway? Lowering my hand I look down into my lap while my world spins out of control. I lower myself back into the nest of pillows that have been cradling me since being captured and smuggled out of my hospital bed. My emotions crash and tangle inside of me. Anger, betrayal, but most of all utter relief floods every cell in my body.
Because of my history I naturally assumed I had been kidnapped for evil reasons but this is a different kind of capture. I’m having trouble comparing the two incidents. There’s no threat or panic about being taken now that I know who is behind it. But what exactly is going on? When I raise my eyes Marcus is still standing there.
“Where are we?” I ask. I’m trembling and I have the near insane urge to start screaming and never stop. How could he do this, he knows kidnapping is a colossal sized trigger for me not to mention we broke things off! Well, I broke things off. He’s still standing there staring at me like a deer in the headlights. “What the fuck is going on here Marcus? Talk to me I want to know why I’m in a jet thousands of miles up in the air when I’m supposed to be in the hospital. We were done! That woman was after us. I. Can’t. Breathe!” I scream and gasp for breathe. Then I start to scream… I hold my hands over my ears, squeeze my eyes closed tight and scream and scream and scream.
If I scream loud enough and close my eyes tight enough maybe this will all go away. I’ll be transported back home with my parents and Red sitting on the couch in front of a mindless sitcom on the television. Strong arms circle my shoulders and I sit up and fight against the physical contact. “Baby, baby, it’s ok, you’re safe, you’re with me, shush, it’s all right I’ve got you.” I continue to struggle even though I’m pathetically weak. I’m not making any headway fighting him off when I hear a woman's voice from somewhere behind Marcus softly ask a question. Then I hear him confirm the dosage of a drug I recognize.
When I open my eyes it’s Courtney standing behind Marcus dressed all in black drawing something up in a syringe. What the fuck is Courtney doing here? This has to be some sort of hallucination or a dream none of it makes sense. Out of nowhere I feel the effects of the medication and the pitiful fight I was putting up vanishes like smoke. I feel Marcus lower my limp body back down to the couch.
He places his big soft hands on either side of my face as he rests his forehead against mine. He’s speaking to me but my mind is shutting down, reacting to whatever Courtney put in my IV. I can’t keep my eyes open any longer I can’t focus on his words. His soft lips brush against mine as my eyes roll back into the darkness. Do they know when they put me out like this it doesn’t keep the nightmares from happening?
Wrong combination of drugs assholes…now I’m stuck in dreams I can’t wake from because of the medication flowing through my veins. This is just another agonizing form of torture and captivity. How can this keep happening to me? This is the third time in my life that I’ve been attacked and taken hostage. The first time was when I was nineteen three men raped and nearly killed me. The second time a stranger in my I.C.U took hostage my heart. That experience nearly killed me in a different way. And now I’ve been abducted from my hospital bed and shipped off in a jet to who knows where. Oh and lets not forget the drug induced unconsciousness where I can’t escape my nightmares.
Chapter 2
I smell food cooking and roll over tangling my legs in a soft comforter before reality cruelly comes rushing back. When I try to sit up I find myself in an unfamiliar room. My head spins and nausea hits me…hard. Bathroom, bathroom, I need a bathroom now. A door to my right seems like the logical location and I try to swing my legs off the bed but my frail condition doesn’t allow it and I vomit over the side of the bed onto the grey slate stone floor. Retching sour bile repeatedly, tears spring to my eyes. This is how he finds me.
Clutching the sheets at the edge of the bed my hair hanging almost to the floor sticking to the beads of cold sweat on my forehead I come face to face again with my beloved Captor. The one responsible for my current condition, the one I am savagely angry with. Never have I known a person to be so completely implacable, he knows no boundaries, no limits. Marcus attempts to scoop my hair away from my face and move me back into the bed but I’m having none of it.
“Don’t touch me you kidnapper!” He removes his hands from me stepping away in shock. “Kidnapper? Imani you can’t possibly, well I guess you would believe that wouldn’t you?” “Seriously, Marcus, you never thought of that, it never occurred to you that this could be the worst fucking idea ever? Kidnapping and drugging your ex-girlfriend from her hospital bed when she has a history of exactly THAT!”
Screeching, my voice cracking, body trembling, I look at him standing there seemingly oblivious to his actions. The situation is unfathomable to him it’s time he knew my past, the whole thing, not just the abbreviated version. He needs to understand the seriousness of what he’s done and he needs to know now. It’s going to take monumental effort on my part to calm down enough to tell him.
“Marcus, I need to be alone, you need to leave me alone n
ow or so help me.” “I’m going to help you get cleaned up first and then I’ll give you time.” I sigh heavily and acquiesces, I know this man so well, I’ll get nowhere if I oppose him.” “Ok you can help me clean up and then you leave. I mean it I’m so pissed at you Marcus Castillo, you are lucky I’m weak or I’d find a way to kill you I swear.”
He regards me silently for a while and then without a word he leaves the room returning with cleaning supplies. He works at cleaning up the mess but not before I catch a satisfied twitchy smirk he’s trying very hard to hide. He knew he’d won that confrontation before the fight had even begun; no matter how angry I am he knows I’m addicted to him. Maybe it’s a fight that he wants?
Wet wipes are among the things he has in his cleaning caddy and he hands me a couple. I snatch it and quickly clean my face before handing them back like a child handing their mother their stale gum or a bite of rejected food. He cringes but moves toward the door that assumed led to the bathroom earlier. I was right it’s an En suite.
I watch as he gracefully returns to the bedside in bare feet and the soft worn jeans that I love so much. It’s not until I watch him squat down that it dawns on me he’s walking! I’ve never known Marcus to walk without the aid of crutches and I am truly awestruck. I’m dying to say something but if I start to converse with him he will take it as forgiveness and he is absolutely not forgiven… yet.
As weak and nauseated as I am I still feel that undeniable thread that stretches between us, connecting us in an otherworldly way like magnets drawn to each other powerless to deny the attraction. I had almost forgotten Marcus’s fixation with sterile cleanliness, his shoulders strain against the teal blue t-shirt he wears, every muscle flowing in perfect unity as he works. With much difficulty I tear my eyes from this winsome man who is scouring the stone floor so that I can take in my surroundings. I want to know where the hell he has flown me but I’m too stubborn to ask.
