I shake my head and blink my eyes. This is different. This is different.

  I tell myself that over and over, but I don’t believe it.

  At least one of my windows is broken. The world around me eerily quiet, like I’m stuck inside a snow globe and none of this is real.

  The silence is suddenly broken by the sound of car doors opening and closing.

  They’re coming.

  My fingers feel numb as I work to get myself unbuckled. My engine is off and I don’t have time to try to get it working.

  Ignoring the pain, I twist my body around, and when I do, I see movement.

  There’s someone, a man, approaching. He’s backlit, giving me a hazy outline of his body. And the gun in his hand.

  My system is already flooded with adrenaline, but the sight of the gun has my pulse skyrocketing. It’s them. They’re back to finish what they started. They’re here to kill me.

  Fight or flight, I understand the meaning now. Panic is threatening to take over, but my body knows what to do. I need to flee.

  One more look, and I see that the man is almost to my rear bumper. Without thinking past this moment, my shaking hands shove my door open. And I run.

  A shout follows me, but I don’t slow down. And I don’t look back.

  I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t even know where I am. I’m just running. Escaping. The need to stay alive pushing me forward.

  My feet slip in the snow, my stupid boots offering no traction, but I still run. Sprinting across the street and into a parking lot that hasn’t been plowed. The snow is halfway up my calves and impeding my already treacherously slow speed.

  In a blanket of white, I can’t see where anything starts or ends. Frantically, I look around, hoping to find someone. Anyone. But the industrial park is just as dark and quiet as it was before the accident.

  Accident. My lungs are nearly to the point of hyperventilating as my panic spirals out of control. It’s them. Both cars. The men who killed Patrick and Aaron have found me. And I’m all alone.

  A moan of fear pulls at my throat.

  With no better option, I aim for the large building in front of me and keep going. There are more shouts, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.

  My foot catches on something and I slam down to my knees. My hands plunge into the snow.

  I shove up, fingers already freezing. I’m close to the building. I need to keep going. I need to hide.

  I stay close to the wall and run as fast as I can. Terror like I’ve never felt before floods my bloodstream. I left my phone in the car. My purse. My jacket. Even if I find a place to hide, I’ll be stranded. Or I’ll freeze to death. A snap of wind blows against my face, the cold twisting through my hair, and I realize I lost my hat in the fall.

  Squinting against the wind and darkness, I focus on what’s ahead of me.

  My legs are burning. My chest is on fire. I can’t catch my breath. I’m crying. When did I start crying?

  I’m nearing the end of the building. I don’t know if I should run past it, or turn the corner, or… Or fucking what? There’s nothing here!

  I chance a look over my shoulder, and whimper. He’s right there. The man chasing me is so close.

  Horror starts to claw its way into my heart. I won’t give up. I can’t give up. I’ll run until I die if I have to.

  Urging my legs to go faster, I bring my eyes forward. I hear movement a heartbeat before the second man rounds the corner in front of me.

  No! No no no!

  I try to stop, try to change direction, but my feet don’t listen. They tangle on themselves. But slowing was a mistake. The second man made me forget about the first.

  A body slams into my back.

  He brings me to the ground in a tackle. The impact causes pain to flare throughout my body. But the snow softens the fall just enough that the air doesn’t completely leave my lungs. So, I scream.

  I scream and I scream. I yell as loud as I can.

  I can’t fight off two grown men. I just can’t. I have nothing on me. The snow and cold are already numbing my body, but my fear is red hot, and I won’t go quietly.

  “Shut up, bitch!” A harsh masculine voice snarls into my ear.

  The weight of an unwanted body on top of me has every primal instinct firing. I buck and kick. And I cry out.

  I don’t know who I’m praying to, but I’m begging to be found. To be heard. It’s the only chance I have.

  The pressure on my shoulder blades eases up and I think he might be letting me go, but then an arm circles around my throat.

  The loss of oxygen is immediate. I thought I was panicked before. But that was nothing. This. This is the worst feeling I’ve ever experienced. The feeling of all hope being forcefully taken from my body.

  As darkness fills my vision, I think of Noah. I hope he’ll be okay. I hope these men won’t get him. And I think of Angelo. I think of how safe he made me feel. And how much I need him right now.

  Heat spears through my chest. Then, I don’t think anything.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  ANGELO

  “Y

  ou can go home,” John tells me, clearly annoyed with my constant finger tapping. “This could take a while.”

  I grunt in response.

  “Look, I hate to state the obvious, but this could take days. I never said anything would turn up tonight. Not to mention this fucking blizzard.” My eyes follow as John nods towards the window.

  Downtown Minneapolis is covered in a sheet of pristine white. The snow is still falling, though slower now than it was a few hours ago.

  “I got nowhere better to be,” I say, telling nothing but the truth.

  Literally the last thing I want to do is go home and go to bed. The first touch of my sheets will remind me of Beth. I didn’t live the life of a monk before meeting her. And I didn’t have any ridiculous rules, like Vincent did, about not letting women into my apartment. But it’s been a long time since I spent a whole night with someone’s body pressed alongside mine. I don’t remember the last time I cuddled, but even if I did - it wouldn’t matter. Nothing could compare to the feeling of waking up with Beth in my arms. Her cheek on my chest. Her scent in my nose. Her skin, warm against mine.

  Rounding my desk, I start pacing again. What if I never get her back into my bed? What if she never forgives me?

  “Can you go raid Vincent’s liquor cabinet?” John asks.

  “You want a drink? I have some stuff in here.” I gesture to the cabinet.

  When John rolls his eyes, he looks just like his sister. “Not for me, asshole.” He makes a pointed look at my fists, clenched at my side.

  “I’m fine.” I grunt.

  “Sure.”

  Any further response is cut off by my cell phone ringing on my desk.

  In two short strides, I can see the caller.

  A knot forms in my stomach as I answer. “Noah?”

  The usually calm kid is breathing heavily. “She’s gone.” He chokes out the words, followed by the unmistakable sound of a boy crying.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  BETH

  C oming out of unconsciousness is like walking through a fog. My head feels heavy. My body’s sore. And a horrible, bitter taste fills my mouth. The flavor is so overwhelming, it brings me fully to awareness.

  I swallow against the bad taste on my tongue, but my throat protests against the action. My neck twitches with the effort, and that small movement causes an ache to pulse in my neck and across my chest.

  The car accident filters into my memory.

  The men.

  My body stills. I remember it all.

  I want to cry. I want to go back to sleep. But none of those things will help me now.

  Slowly, I take in a breath. I’m not dead. That’s good. That’s good. I tell myself again. But maybe it’s not. Oh god, maybe it’s not.

  Slamming a lid down on my panic, I listen. It’s quiet, and it’s cold, but I can tell that we’re inside. There’s no wind. No outdoor sounds. Without moving my body, I can feel pressure on my arms. I’m sitting in a chair and my elbows are tied or taped down. Elbows. That doesn’t seem right. In movies, they always secure the wrists. Flexing my fingers, I figure it out. And hopelessness pulls at me. With my arms secured this way, there’s no way to reach my restraints and release myself.

  Relax. If I have any chance of surviving this, I need to stay calm.

  Cautiously, I open my eyelids, just enough to see.

  The light is dim. My head is tipped down, my chin against my chest, so I can’t look around the room without being obvious. I force my eyes open further, staring at my lap. I clamp down on a relieved shudder. I’m still dressed. Thank fucking god. Looking at my restrained arms, I stare at the duct tape holding me in place. This is all so surreal. A thought flutters through my mind; the tape will ruin my sweater.

  I chastise myself. Don’t be stupid. Pay attention.

  The arms of the chair are shiny metal. Not wide, and the front point where the arm rest ends is digging into my wrists. The seat below me, and backrest behind me, feel hard. It feels like I’m sitting in some sort of old office chair. The type you might find in a crappy waiting room.

  “Rise and shine.” The voice is so close I feel the breath on the back of my neck.

  My body reacts, my head jerking up and my arms pulling against the duct tape. The quick motion causes pain and dizziness. Followed by nausea.

  The man behind me laughs, but my attention is redirected to the movement in front of me when a second man steps out of the shadows.

  I try to take in the room. The concrete walls. The lack of windows. The low ceiling. But I can’t focus on that. I can only focus on the face approaching me.

  The tenuous control I had over my panic is slipping away. My chest rising and falling with rapid breaths.

  The man stops in front of me, crouching down until we’re eye to eye.

  He’s familiar. His eyes are cold. Hard. And when he smiles, I recognize him. The club. He’s the one who approached me when I sat down. This motherfucker drugged me.

  His smile grows when he sees the recognition on my face. His hand reaches out to touch my cheek. “We tried doing this the fun way, but your bodyguard ruined that. Now we’re gonna do it the hard way.”

  My arms are taped down, but my legs aren’t. With both of my feet, I kick out as hard as I can. My angle isn’t great, but my feet make contact. One foot connects with his knee, the other to his inner thigh.

  The man grunts in surprise, and hopefully pain. The force of my kick knocks him back, so he’s left sitting on the floor.

  Before I can enjoy my victory, or question the sanity of my action, a hand grips my hair and jerks my head back.

  “That was a mistake," the man behind me says into my ear, and I swear I hear him grinning.

  The man in front of me curses as he climbs up to his feet.

  He brushes off his jeans, the casual move belied by the anger in his tone. “Usually, we start out with a few questions before we prove that we aren’t messing around. But maybe we’ll just jump ahead.”

  That’s all the warning I get before his fist strikes my face. Pain and heat explode across my cheek. The grip on my hair never relenting.

  “That’s for kicking me.” He spits.

  My eyes start watering and I clench my jaw as the back of his hand collides with my other cheek.

  “That’s for your prick of a boyfriend.”

  The man behind me snickers. “Fucking Patrick.”

  “This is for your brother.” I watch his hands, but it’s his leg that shoots out.

  The tip of his boot connects with my shin and a sound leaves me that I don’t recognize.

  “Where’s the money!” he shouts in my face.

  “I don’t know!” I shout back, my voice tearing through my sore throat like a razor.

  I don’t have what they’re looking for. I don’t have anything to give them. And I don’t have any way to convince them.

  Tears fill my eyes fall as despair swamps me, and I pray for the safety of unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  ANGELO

  I t takes everything I have not to go to Vincent’s penthouse, where Enzo brought Noah. But I’m no use there. I need to be here, in the office, where I can pretend to remain professional.

  I have the tracking open for her phone, the same way I found her just yesterday at the hospital. But today, her phone is turned off. Without that, I don’t know how we’ll find her.

  John’s been on the phone, getting his resources deployed across the city. And I’ve been pulling in every favor that’s owed me. But it’s not enough.

  “There’s a report for an abandoned car that matches Beth’s plates.” John says to me, hanging up his phone call.

  “Where?” I ask, reaching for my jacket.

  John grabs my arm. “My guys will be there in minutes. The report calls it abandoned. We don’t need to be there.”

  “Fuck!” I shout.

  I know he’s right, but I can’t stand this. I need to be doing something. I need to help.

  “Where?” I ask again, without the intention of running out the door.

  John tells me. Pulling up the address, I try to make sense of it. It’s sort of between her house and where Noah’s game was, but it’s off the route. Way off. Like she made a wrong turn. Or maybe she was lured there. It’s an industrial park, and if we’re going with the assumption that she was snatched on her way to the hockey game, it would have been empty. The sinking feeling in my stomach gets stronger.

  John’s phone rings. “Yeah,” He pauses. “Alright. Put me on FaceTime.”

  John holds his phone out so I can watch with him.

  At the sight of her smashed-up car, I feel the blood drain from my face. Beth. My body recoils, wanting to look away, but I force myself to watch. The man on the other end of the call is showing us the damage. The dented in passenger side. The broken windows. The empty interior.

  John keeps his eyes on the screen. “Any signs of struggle?”

  “Yeah," the faceless voice replies as he holds the phone up so we can see a few people across the street. It’s dark out, but they have enough car lights on to illuminate the scene. “The plow that came through reported the car. So that messed up any tracks on the road, but we found footprints across the intersection.”

  The view on the phone jostles as he jogs across the street.

  A shout in the distance has the phone-holder picking up his pace.

  He stops when he reaches the guy who called out.

  “You recognize this?” The question is asked a moment before the camera focuses.

  Fear, like I’ve never felt before, fills me.

  I’m nodding, unable to form words, so John replies in the affirmative.

  Beth’s hat. Her stupid, dorky, cute-as-hell pompom hat. My brain can’t grasp the reality of her wearing that hat during our date at the hockey game, and her wearing that hat while she ran for her life through the snow. Every night since that game, I’ve stared at the photo I took of her wearing that hat. Her eyes sparkling. Her lips smiling.

  Silently, I vow to myself that I’ll see that smile again. This isn’t how we end.

  The voice on the other end of the phone continues. “We found the point of contact at the end of the building.” A hand appears in front of the camera pointing to a large grey structure. “The snowfall has messed with the tracks, so it’s hard to tell exactly what happened. But it looks like one of the perps circled the building. There’s a large impression in the snow at the back corner.”

  “What do you mean, large impression?” My voice comes out strained.

  “Like bodies rolling in the snow.”

  I don’t realize that I’m bent over, until John’s hand lands on my back.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  BETH

  “W

  hy are you making this so hard on yourself?” the asshole in front of me says, like I’m choosing to be difficult.

  The swelling in my cheeks, along with the tenderness of my throat from being choked out earlier, is making it exceedingly hard to talk.

  “I don’t know what they did with it.” I try to make them hear the truth of my words. “I never knew about the money until one of you told me on the phone.”

  The man behind me scoffs. “Is your life really worth a measly 100-thousand? Do you really expect us to believe that you don’t have that money? That your boyfriend and your brother planned all of this without you knowing?”

  “I didn’t know who Patrick worked for!” I plead with them to understand. “I didn’t even know that he knew my brother!”

  They don’t believe me. Why would they? It sounds ridiculous. How could I not know that the man I’d been dating for a year was best friends with my brother. Once again, Aaron and Patrick - no matter their motives - have put my life in jeopardy. Noah’s life in jeopardy.

  I don’t see the kick to my leg, but I feel it. A sob rips from my throat.

  “Where’s the fucking money!?” The man in front of me screams.

  My eyes squeeze shut, and I shake my head. Over and over, I shake my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don't -”

  “Fuck!” He strides away from me, yanking open a door I hadn’t noticed and walking through.

  A hand jerks my hair again. “Stay put, princess.”

  I keep my eyes shut until his footsteps cross the room and I hear the door shut. Blinking away the tears in my eyes, I look around the room. I haven’t seen the face of the man who lingers behind me in the shadows, and I want to leave it that way.

  Their voices filter through from the other side of the door. They sound too loud, but maybe the door is thin, making them sound closer than they are. Whatever it’s made of, it’s enough to muffle the words so I can’t understand them.

  But I don’t focus on the door. I need a plan. I need a weapon. I need to get out of this chair.

  With my legs free, I could hunch over and walk. But with my arms trapped, and with the two of them close, I need more. I can’t very well fight them with my arms taped to a chair, standing in a crouch.