Echo (Black Lotus #2)(67)

I DON’T KNOW how long I’ve been out when I feel the car halt to a sudden stop. I wonder how far we’ve traveled. I hear the door shut, and it’s only seconds until the trunk pops open.

Light burns my eyes, and I flinch away as Richard’s hands grab on to me, yanking me out of the car. I don’t even think to take in my surroundings, simply fighting against his hold, jerking my body around.

With his hands on my arms, he slams me against a solid rock wall. He knocks the wind out of me, and I gasp desperately through my nose while my throat strangles against my depleted lungs. Hunched over, I panic and choke when he grabs my hair and pulls my head up. Hairs rip from my scalp as a steel blade meets my cheek.

My eyes widen in horror as my breath finally catches. Whimpering, I close my eyes as he presses the blade into my soft flesh. My cry is muffled by the tape that still covers my mouth when I feel the pop of my skin as he slices me open.

He then presses the flat of the blade to the tape that covers my lips, saying, “If you think I have limits, you’re wrong.”

Bending down, he uses the knife to cut the duct tape around my ankles, but leaves my wrists bound. The blood from my cheek drips from my jaw, landing on my top.

“Walk,” he commands, grabbing my arm and leading me down an alleyway.

I look around, quickly attempting to figure out where we are, but it’s too dark, and the alley is too narrow. He leads me down a flight of steps to an underground area, and I remember Lachlan telling me about the vaults under the city. He told me some of them now serve as clubs or restaurants, some for ghost tours, but others simply remain empty. And there’s no doubt that’s where he’s taking me as he moves me through a stone tunnel, damp with water, and into a fairly large room.

Taking in my surroundings, I can tell this used to be used for a business of sorts. There’s electricity, built-in counters along one of the walls, a desk, and a couple of chairs. I watch as Richard walks over to the desk and lays his gun down. When he returns to me, he rips off the tape covering my mouth, and my eyes prick with tears against the sting.

“Sit down,” he tells me, and I obey.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I ask.

“You’re all I’ve got. I need you to help me disappear.”

“From what?”

“If the cops find me, I’ll spend the rest of my years in prison.”

And he’s right. Richard is in his late fifties. I don’t know the crimes he’s committed, but the fact that he’s just kidnapped me tells me he’s in deep shit.

“But I told you, I don’t have what you’re looking for,” I tell him.

“You may not, but someone who loves you does.”

“Who?”

“Declan McKinnon.”

I shake my head, saying, “You’re wrong. He doesn’t love me. He hates me.”

“Yet you’re living with him? I think you’re lying to me.”

“I’m not. You have to believe me. He doesn’t love me. He keeps me there to punish me.”

“Punish you for what?” he questions, but I bite my tongue, not sure how much to say.

I won’t incriminate Declan, but do I incriminate myself? If I do, I run the risk of going to jail myself. So, I give him what he already knows from following me back in Chicago, and say, “For the fact that I wouldn’t leave Bennett for him.”

I tell the lie, but I hate it because Declan is worth so much more than anyone else on this planet.

Richard chuckles in irritation. “I don’t know exactly what you were doing with Bennett, but I’m smart enough to know, Elizabeth Archer, that you didn’t love him. So what was it about for you? What were you after? Money?”

I don’t respond to him as he stares down at me. After a moment, he grabs a chair, pulling it in front of me, and takes a seat. He leans in towards me, and my head throbs in beats of aching heat from where he pistol-whipped me.

His eyes bore into me as a sly smirk creeps across his lips. His voice is low when he asks, “Or does it all have something to do with your father?”

My body pricks in chills at the mention of my dad. I tense around my hollowed chest, and wonder why he would even mention my father.

What does he know?

I don’t say a word out of utter terror that I’ve gotten myself mixed up with the wrong people when I started this f*cked up game. I’ve always been in control when it came to my charade in Bennett’s life. But now all that control is gone and in the hands of this bastard, and that has me scared beyond belief. I pretend to be strong, but the reality of this situation has all confidence lost. I’ve been kidnapped and I don’t have the first clue how to get myself out of this.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” I finally say, my voice coming out weakly. “What I told you about Declan was the truth. He hates me; he won’t care if you hurt me.”

“Then you need to find a way to make him care,” he sneers before backhanding me so hard I fall out of the chair and onto the floor.

My vision fades for a moment when my head hits the concrete, and my urge to attack fumes inside, but I’m bound and useless.

“There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for my family,” he tells me and then steps away.

Staring up at him, my frustration multiplies, and since I can’t knock the shit out of him, I attack with my words.