“I don’t understand,” I say with a crackling, broken voice. “Why me? Why can’t you just let me go?”
“It’s not often that I don’t get my way. High school, college, med school. I could have had any woman that I wanted, but for some reason, you crossed my path.” He turns to me with rage and anger in his eyes. “Then you left. You ran. You made me crazy, made me hurt you then you ran. You ran right into the arms of the man who tried to financially ruin me. The man who had the gall to try to tell me I didn’t know how to do my job.”
“What? What are you talking about?” I hiss in pain. The cuffs are biting into my wrists and it hurts so badly.
“You can pretend like you don’t know, but I know you do. You did this on purpose. You wanted to behave like a little whore with someone who hates me as much as you think you do.”
He’s pacing the room, back and forth, like he’s in the middle of a manic, rage filled episode.
“Evan,” I shake my head, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I swear.” I begin to cry harder now as the feeling of hopelessness sinks in.
“Stop your river of tears, that incessant whining, and all the fucking lies. That fucker tried to ruin me, but I got the case kicked on a technicality. Who did he think he was? I’m a god in the field. No one would believe him. No one. She didn’t do as I asked her to do. Her inability to follow a simple treatment plan led to a road of no return. I did everything right.”
My bottom lip trembles as the puzzle pieces start to connect in my brain.
“Oh my God,” I whisper to myself. “You killed Raissa.”
“NO,” he shouts again, making me jump out of my skin. “She and her family were stupid, ignorant children who refused to do as I said.” He holds his arms out in a T-pose, with the pistol in his hand. “And then I come here after being trapped in London, only to find you flaunting your shit and being a whore in the middle of nightclubs and in art galleries.” He moves quickly toward the bed now, and I instinctively want to crawl back and away from him, but I can’t. I’m trapped. “What kind of life did you think you would have after leaving me? Huh?” He presses the barrel of the gun against my jaw.
So many thoughts whirl around inside my head. All this time Tristan and I were fighting demons, it was the same demon. Evan is the doctor who allowed Raissa to die without a care. He was doing that while he was abusing me on a daily basis. The feelings of dread inside my body are multiplying so fast I fear they will drown me. I have to stop him. Now it’s not just about me, it’s about the woman whose earrings I wear.
I don’t know how, but I need to regain control.
This warmth of calm comes over me and I know what I have to do. I have to make him think he has the power until I take it from him to escape.
“I’m sorry, Evan,” I say softly, lying through my teeth because I have to.
“What are you sorry for, Nora?” He leans in, putting his face so close to mine that I can smell his sickly sweet, minty breath.
I say the one thing I know could please him enough that maybe he’ll put his walls down, even for just a moment. “I’m sorry for disappointing you.”
His face doesn’t soften, but it shifts and morphs into something different.
“Good girl.” He then kisses my lips softly, but it’s gross, harsh, and revolting. I am trembling, sick to my stomach as I force my lips to relax. I’d rather continue to feel the cold steel against my face. “Maybe you have learned some additional manners in your time away.”
He lingers with his hot breath whispering just near my ear. After a sigh that makes me inwardly cringe, he backs away for his black trousers that were tossed over the back of a chair near the desk. “I’d like to make it up to you. I promise I won’t run. I know you hate that. Can you let me out of the handcuffs?”
He tugs the trousers on, but leaves them undone and stalks back toward me, stopping at the foot of the bed. “Oh, my delicate, sweet little Nora.” He lays the gun on the mattress between my ankles and wraps his hands around my calves gently at first before viciously yanking my body down the bed. My arms are now stretched unnaturally above me and I scream out in pain. “The answer is no. But you will be making it up to me, and you can do that perfectly from right where you are.”
Chapter 28
Tristan
My foot taps the floor over and over again. “There. Get the fuck over.”
“I’m doing it. For fuck’s sake.”
We pull into the valet and I immediately pile out of the car. “Have you seen her? Have you seen this woman?” I frantically ask every burgundy jacketed person I can see. One of them nods and says they saw her thirty minutes ago, going into the hotel with a dark-haired man they thought was her boyfriend.
“The fuck he is. The police are on their way. Send them in,” I yell as I feel Lucas beside me stride for stride as we storm the lobby, looking for the concierge.
Soon, a small, gray-haired man steps into our path holding up his hands to stop us. “Gentlemen, there’s no need to cause a—”
I hold up my phone to show him Nora’s photo. “This woman is here with a man against her will. You need to tell us which room she’s in and do it right now, or I will tear this fucking building apart until I find her.”
Lucas is already at the front desk, talking to a young girl that is working. She looks overwhelmed and terrified.
“I’m not allowed to give any information about any of our guests.”
I pull him into me with his lapels. “I’m not kidding, friend. This woman is my life. She is in mortal danger. I will do anything, and I mean anything to find her. You can help save her or become a casualty of war. Choose quickly and wisely.”
“Sloane, they’re in 1515.”
Lucas yells at me to follow him to the elevators. “This is your very lucky day, my friend. Redeem yourself by sending the police when they arrive.” I shove him back as the elevator dings and the doors open. My feet are quick and heavy on the marble as I cross the threshold just before the doors close.
The silence is so thick it’s nearly choking me in what has to be the slowest moving elevator on the planet. I can’t stand still, so I pace from one side to the other, thinking of all the ways I’m going to destroy Evan Caldwell if he has laid a hand on her.
“Sloane,” Lucas says, pulling my attention. He’s leaning against the wall with his fingers wrapped into fists around the golden handrail. “If he has hurt her or worse…”
“I know,” I tell him. He doesn’t even have to finish his sentence. “On this we agree. He won’t walk out of here tonight.”
The doors open on the fifteenth floor. The signs indicate that the room is at the far-right end of the hallway. We run down the corridor. The silence is no more the deeper we get down the patterned carpet. There is no doubt about the room. I can hear her screams from twenty feet away. Don’t worry, Petal. I’m here. I will die for you.
We pass a housekeeper with a large cart in front of her, but she’s standing still as a statue with her hand to her chest, clearly horrified at the sounds coming out of room 1515.