[ZARA]The hangover of the previous night hit me way before the mellow music in my ears and was way more powerful than a damn wrecking ball. In fact, now that I thought about it, the way my body hurt it had been fucking bruised, a tractor-trailer truck probably ran over me. It didn’t help that everything around me was constantly in motion. Or it felt like it was, yet the lack of food in my tummy was to be blamed for the terrible sickness gushing up my chest.I blinked several times to clear the fuzziness in front of my eyes, just in time to catch a line of tall trees on either side of the rocky road. One minute ago, the music that sounded foreign to my ears now felt coherent enough to know it was English and not extraterrestrial. God, imagine if that was the case. The only good thing would have been to get rid of Maddox Richmond and his annoying toxic ass. Speaking of which…“Hey. Wow, you’re awake.” I heard someone chirp next to me as I rolled my neck to the other side and brushed the
[MADDOX]“So let me get this straight.” Nathan frowned, glaring at me with his hands on his hips. “First, you force Zara into marrying you, then force her out. You don’t tell her anything about Emily, and now she is missing and you don’t have a fucking clue?”This whole thing sounded like one fucked up disaster. I should have probably seen that coming. And I did. But I was a fucker blinded by my equally fucked up emotions. I called this upon myself despite swearing never to let this happen ever again.I should have stayed away. I should have let her live her life in peace. I should not have let myself care. Not after what happened to Emily. But I did, and now everything around me was pulsing, threatening to explode. Including my brother’s temper—the one guy who rarely lost his fuse—just one word away from skyrocketing.Not that it mattered in the face of this blunder named Richard Milton.Two hours ago, after the entire fiasco with Josh in his club, I woke up in my car with a terrible
“I was trying to protect her!” Despite the dizziness still darkening my vision, I snapped up at my brother. “You think I deliberately put her in harm’s way? I didn’t see it coming. Richard took me off-guard. He literally knocked me out.”“You didn’t see it coming?” Nathan hissed, his face turning darker and so much angrier. “You said the same thing when he took Emily. That you didn’t see it coming. But the truth was she gave you all the signs to warn you her life was in danger. Those texts and calls that you didn’t care to share with us. With me. With anyone.”“I was trying to protect you. All of you. The more you knew about him, the more danger you would have been in.”“If what you say is the truth, and we were better off knowing nothing about that asshole, then why the hell Zara’s life is in danger, huh? How would you explain that?”“I don’t know, okay? I really don’t.” And it was eating me alive from the inside. The reason Emily became his overnight target was the fact she turned o
*A Few Hours Before Armonica's Abduction*[BRANDON]“What are you doing here?”Armonica stood on my front porch. I had no clue why. But seeing her in the dead of night, something hurled in the pit of my stomach. From head to toe, she was soaking wet, her entire body trembling against the cold outside. If she said something in response, I failed to hear it. Against my better judgment, I opened the doors of my home for her, led her inside and into the living room.“Brandon!” Her voice trembled as she spoke.“Save it!” Rushing into my bedroom, I returned with some dry towels. Then I went into the room Zara used to stay in before she got herself a new place. I knew she kept some spares just in case. Once I found a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, I laid them on the bed and went back outside.Armonica was in the middle of drying her hair. She paused when our eyes met.“You can use that room.” I told her, gesturing at the room behind my back. “There are some dry clothes you can change into
I tried to clear my head and think like a mature person. But whom was I kidding? I had waited for so long for those words to come out of her mouth that all my attempts to act rationally ended up in vain. My eyes dropped to trace the shape of her plump lips and my hands itched to be all over her. It only deepened the hot, burning desires coursing through me, seeing how close she was, how good she smelt and how much I wanted to take her to my bed and return my confession in a much more intimate way.But something was holding me back. The weight of the ring on my finger. Even though I barely knew my fiancé, I couldn’t betray her. When I agreed to the engagement, it was my decision, the one I took considering everything there was to consider.I sighed, dropping my shoulders and trying to ease a building headache. “Armonica…it’s too late for this.”“I know. But that’s not the answer to my question.” Taking another bold step close to me, she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and lifted h
[ZARA]It would have been so much better if that man had just killed me on the spot. Because after being drugged and cuffed and dumped in a lonely forest shack, I was just hanging in limbo, crawling in and out of consciousness, having no track of time or place.Every time a little consciousness hit me with a soft knock on my eyelids, I found myself in the same creepy wooden cabin. Laid on the dusty floorboards, my wrists and ankles tied and the entire space turned to exactly 90 degrees. It would take a hell long minute for my tardy brain to figure out the whole situation and by the time I would try to do something about it, hoping to get these ties off of me or maybe try screaming for help, my eyes would grow heavy all over again and the drug would knock me out one more time.I had no idea how many hours had passed since that asshole ditched me here. Or maybe it had been days? He said this was like the game of hide and seek, so I was really hoping Maddox would know I was missing and wa
The wooden door opened, and I held my breath. I thought of the oceans, sand and mom. I thought of her laughter while she cashed after me along the mushy shoreline.Someone in the room gasped. I was pretty sure it didn’t come from me.The footsteps rushed closer, the floorboards creaking loudly against someone’s heavy footing. It took every cell in my body to not flinch when someone put a hand on my shoulder.“Fuck, Zara! What the hell are you doing here?”It was probably the drug tricking the hell out of me. Because there was no way he was here.Someone jerked me by my shoulders before I felt them working on the ropes around my wrists. I couldn’t help but rotate my wrist when the ropes finally fell away.Okay. Maybe this wasn’t some crazy-ass hallucination. Someone was really here, trying to help me out.Snapping my eyes open, I braced myself for the worst disappointment. God knows I had been on a streak of terrible luck so far.But when did Brandon ever disappoint me? Tears stung my
[ZARA]I’m cuffed, drugged and blindfolded.Can this get any worse? If that’s the question—the answer is yes. It can. It is.Waking up in an empty cabin and being unable to do anything to get the hell out of there sounds like a beautiful dream compared to what I’m waking up to now.I don’t know where I am. Or how I got here. I’m not alone either. It could have brought some ease to my trembling nerves—don’t they say we’re stronger together? —but it doesn’t. Every time I drift out of the dazed darkness, someone screams and cries, begging for help.To stop.The gruesome pain.Every cell in my body howls to reach out. Every bone in my body wants to put up a fight and make it stop whatever is hurting them. But I can’t. I can’t see. I can’t speak. I can’t even move.I’m helpless. And it fucking sucks.The last time I heard anything from Brandon was back in the car outside that cabin. There is no way to tell how many hours had passed since then. There is no way to tell if nothing bad had alr