Stealing Her Read online

  “You’re right,” I confess weakly. “I know you’re right.”

  I start to lower the pencil as a fat tear rolls down my cheek and drips off my chin.

  “But you,” he says gently, “you are nothing like him.”

  “I’ve always tried to be like him. It’s what he wants,” I mutter bitterly.

  “You can’t be like him, Lila,” he replies firmly. “You never could be. You’re not a bad person. There is so much good in you. I can feel it. Makes it hard to even look at you.”

  I let the pencil drop to the ground and cradle my face in my hands, my shoulders starting to shake with sobs. “This feels like a very bad dream,” I mumble between sobs. “Please tell me I’m asleep. I have to wake up. It’ll all go away if I can just wake up.”

  “You’re not sleeping, little girl. You’re wide awake. This is real,” he says.

  I shake my head violently. “No. No, no. Please. Please, tell me how to wake up. I can’t take it. I can’t— I can’t be here anymore. And Daddy— I don’t want to know. Please tell me it’s not true. Please. I need to believe that he loves me,” I choke out, whimpering.

  My captor stares at me, totally still, as though he’s not sure how to deal with my sudden show of emotions. My body is wracked with sobs as I step closer to him. I’m shivering all over, and right now I am desperate for something, someone to hold onto while my precariously-dangling world comes tumbling down all around me.

  So I walk straight into the arms of my predator.

  Without stopping to even consider the danger, I bury my face in his chest, reaching up to wrap my arms around his neck, trembling with cold and sorrow. At first, I can tell that he’s confused. I doubt he has ever had a victim try to touch him this way before. I cling to him, needing some kind of magical reassurance I doubt he can offer, but he’s all I have right now. The only constant, the closest to comfort I can hope for at the moment.

  Finally, he lowers his arms down around me and I sigh, letting my tears stain his shirt while his hands slowly move up and down my back. He’s soothing me as best he knows how. This is clearly not his usual wheelhouse, but his body is warm and his arms strong. When he walks backward a few steps to the rudimentary pile of clothes and old rags I’ve been using as a resting spot in the corner of the room, he slowly sits down. I stand in front of him for a moment, swaying slightly from side to side, dizzy with grief and loneliness. He watches me, almost warily, like he’s afraid of what I might do.

  It’s a legitimate fear.

  Because through my sheen of tears, I do the only thing I can think to comfort myself. I lower myself down, wriggling into his lap like a child. I curl up against his chest, my fingers toying with the tear in the fabric. My cheek rests over his heart, and I can hear it quicken slightly when I touch his bare skin through the rip in his shirt. I tilt my head back to gaze into those black eyes, and I’m startled to find a hint of softness there.

  For me?

  But then it’s like we’ve gone too far, because suddenly he pulls back, shaking his head. My heart aches. “I need to stand guard out there,” he insists.

  But I only cling to him more tightly, desperation in my voice. “No! Stay! Please, stay with me. I beg you. Don’t leave me all alone tonight. I-I need you. Please, I can’t be alone all night. Promise me, please. Promise me you’ll stay with me.”

  Chains

  An hour later, she’s curled up against my side, sleeping like a rock.

  I don’t know how I let her talk me into this. You’d think of all people, a prisoner ought to be the one kind of person it’s easy not to be swayed by, but it was hard to look into those shimmering eyes and turn a cold shoulder to her. Speaking of, it was going to be a cold night. I’m probably the warmest thing she’s gotten to hold onto since she’s been here.

  I don’t normally have this much sympathy for the targets we take.

  Then again, we normally don’t have the same kind of problems with getting our payments. I look down at her sleeping form, watching her body breathe slowly and rhythmically while her head rests against my shoulder, using my muscles like a warm pillow. What happened earlier tonight was unusual, to say the least. The second most parents realized their precious daughters were gone, they’d freak and scramble to cough up some money, even when they plan on going to the police afterward. The most important thing to them is always getting their girls back safe.

  I wasn’t trying to intimidate Lila earlier when I told her she’d be in hot water if I’d been killed by the assassin her father sent. If Ryder and I had gotten gunned down, I legitimately don’t know what the others would have done, but most likely they’d have just turned tail and run off, disappearing into the countryside. They certainly wouldn’t have tried to contact Lila’s dad again. Killing me would have had the opposite effect of getting closer to Lila, and a man like Edward Hawthorne has to know that.

  It doesn’t make any sense. Well, doesn’t make sense if you assume Lila’s dad is a good parent, anyway. And I never make that assumption anymore.

  I watch Lila sleep for so long that I lose track of time. I’m good at sitting still, and I don’t want to get up and disturb her, so I stay put. But even though I don’t sincerely think she would try anything stupid if she had the chance, I don’t plan on sleeping tonight. Better safe than sorry. Besides, I want to keep an eye on the door too, just on the off-chance Ryder mistakenly thinks the door is unguarded.

  I hate thinking about my best friend like that, but apparently, it’s goddamn necessary.

  Ryder and I went to high school together. We were trouble then, and we’re trouble now, but he’s always been smart enough to stay in his lane. He usually doesn’t disobey me, but now that he’s trying this bullshit, I have to hit him hard to make sure he doesn’t think he can get away with it.

  Considering all the circumstances, I’m surprised Lila is sleeping as peacefully as she is.

  She stirs in her sleep, but instead of waking up, she just slides her arms around mine. I arch an eyebrow as I realize she’s hugging my bicep. She smiles and murmurs in her sleep, and I let my head rest against the wall, staring up at the ceiling and taking a deep, silent breath.

  She must feel safe.

  I know, because I’ve seen her sleep before.

  Kidnapping someone doesn’t mean just running up to a random young woman and grabbing her off the street. That’s not what it means for us, anyway. If we did that, we would have lasted about five hours into our careers as kidnappers before it all came unraveling around us.

  No, I do my homework when we find a good potential target. That means watching them for a long time before we make a move, casing the house and memorizing the target’s habits. It feels wrong in some ways, but it’s necessary— I probably know Lila better than most of her friends.

  I know that she always has nightmares when she sleeps in her bed at home, and it wakes her up around 3am every now and then. She sleeps with a teddy bear that she seems to have had for a long time, judging by how worn out and loved it is. She hides it when her friend Cassandra comes over. She also hides the nightlight she keeps in the outlet behind her nightstand, just bright enough that she can see it but that it’s easy to miss.

  The little details about her life have been filling my mind for the past few weeks while we prepared for this job.

  Lila’s class schedule is tight, and it stresses her out, but she somehow manages to pull it all together and hit every one of them, never skipping even when she’s sick. She’s a chronic overachiever. It’s funny, she’s exactly the kind of preppy straight-laced girl I would have rolled my eyes at in high school.

  The thought of the two of us being in high school together makes my heart do a somersault, and I change my train of thought.

  I also know about her photography. That was an interesting one to study, partly because a photography shoot at a remote location would have been another good time to grab her. But there was something to be said about the way she went about executing the hobb
y, too. She always seemed to get praised for good technical skill, but she gets told that there’s something missing in the inspiration side of things.

  She’s the kind of person who’s great at getting good grades, but she’s so focused on that she can miss the forest for the trees, so to speak.

  All that amounts to a very anxious person. At first, I was reluctant to settle on her as a mark, because I figured she was so hyperattentive to everything that she’d catch on to the fact that we were watching her— that I was watching her, specifically. I always handled information-gathering personally. The only way to do something right is to do it yourself.

  The guys have never minded. It’s a pain in the ass, and they’d treat it like a chore if I tried to thrust it on them.

  But Lila proved my expectations wrong. She’s so wrapped up in the race that is her life that she never thought to look around her. I could have been a true stalker, and I don’t think she would have noticed me for a very long time. It’s strange. There was a lot of pressure back in school to be the exact kind of person that Lila had become— overworked, overachieving, always moving, constantly stressed. But since Lila had achieved it and was apparently living it, it sure as hell didn’t seem to me like it was worth the time.

  If I was living a life that gave me stress nightmares on a nightly basis, I’d be throwing in the towel early. I’m not sure, but I think that means Lila’s stronger than me, in her own way. That thought threatens to bring a smile to my face as I watch her sleep.

  We’re on the cold, hard ground in what I figured would be the most stressful situation of her life, but she hasn’t stirred more than a few times, and the look on her face tells me she hasn’t been having her usual nightmares. And I have to admit, even though I never get attached to the people we deal with… there’s something nice about watching such a high-strung person get a little relaxation in.

  Funny how she could never relax in her comfortable bed, her pretty sheets and happy dog keeping her company, but she feels safe in my arms.

  I frown at myself, rolling my eyes. Damn, Chains, get your shit together. This is a kidnapping, not a therapy session.

  She stirs again, and I glance over to see that her sweater has slipped off her shoulder. It’s oversized, and the collar is already stretched out. I can see the top of her bra all the way down to her ribcage, and I watch the goosebumps prick up as the cold air touches it. I worry that the cold will wake her up, so I carefully reach down and take the collar between my thumb and forefinger. Slowly, I lift it back up over her shoulder to cover it up. In response, she shifts a little, looking even more cozy than before as she snuggles against me.

  I realize how cold she must be without a blanket, and she seems to be in a deep sleep, so I slowly slide my hand around to wrap around her hip. I can cover a lot of her waist with my big, heavy hand. As I give her a gentle squeeze to let her cozy up against me, she lets out a soft moan in her sleep that turns into a sigh against my bicep.

  Despite myself, I can’t help but smile at that. Making someone feel safe isn’t something I get to do in this line of work very often. Ever, actually. We kind of do the exact opposite on a regular basis.

  It’s not like I started doing this in hopes of being a hero, but it’s nice to have a change in pace now and then.

  So nice, in fact, that I even find myself more relaxed than I expected to be. I rest my head back, staring at the slat to the open air outside. Slowly, I find my own breathing getting steadier and more rhythmic, and finally, sleep overtakes me before I can stop it.

  I spend the night with Lila sleeping against me.

  Before I realize that’s happened, the feeling of something pushing against my thigh wakes me up. My body doesn’t move, but my eyes spring open to see morning light filtering through the food window in the door. They then flit over to Lila, who has her hand on my thigh as she pushes herself to her feet.

  She’s looking at me, and she looks shocked— she must have just woken up as well.

  “Oh! Um, sorry,” she stammers as she stands up and takes a step back.

  “You must sleep like a rock,” I say.

  “Did I…spend the night like that?” she asks, brushing her hair out of her eyes and looking around as if waking up from a dream, but not a nightmare. There’s a faint blush on her cheeks that I almost want to ask about.

  “You dozed. I stayed.”

  “Oh my god, I’m sorry,” she said. Apologizing to her captor isn’t something I normally expect, but it’s not that surprising from her.

  “For what?” I grunt.

  “I’ve just…never really slept with a guy before,” she says with a nervous laugh, and her blush grows.

  “Yeah, I guess we did sleep together, didn’t we?” I chuckle back. “Hope it beat the floor.”

  “I have to admit, it was a better sleep than I usually get,” she admits, biting her lip. “I can’t remember the last time I woke up feeling well rested.”

  I cross my arms, still sitting, and I cock my head to the side, peering into her.

  “You live a pretty high stress life. This is the first time in a while you’ve gotten a night’s sleep without having to worry about your own responsibilities the next morning. You don’t have the weight of your whole life waiting to come after you as soon as you climb out of bed.”

  “That’s…insightful,” she says with some hesitation, and I can hear the word surprisingly unspoken behind her lips.

  I smile at her casually.

  “Just treat this like a vacation. Easy.”

  She laughs softly, but she looks ashamed of herself for doing so.

  “I’m serious,” I say, losing a little of my gruff edge I’ve been maintaining— and I barely notice that I do so. “Think about it. How does it make you feel, having that burden off your shoulders for a second? Knowing you can’t fuck things up for once in your life? That you’re not in control of whether you succeed or fail?”

  She hesitates for a longer moment, and I think I might have touched on something she wasn’t expecting to have to confront this soon after waking up.

  “Feeling powerless?” she says. “No, not really- I mean, maybe.”

  She’s wrestling with something, and she tries to change the subject.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Shoot,” I say as I peer up at her.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Call me Chains.”

  She gives me a look that tells me she knows that’s not my real name. That’s obvious, but it doesn’t make a difference. I stand up slowly, and I see that faint blush cross her cheeks again as she gets a reminder of my full height.

  “Before you ask, it’s better if you just call me Chains,” I clarify, and in my defense, that is what everyone calls me.

  “Where are you going?” she asks as I start to walk past her toward the door.

  “Need to go have a chat with your dad,” I say simply.

  Suddenly, I feel something warm on my bicep. I stop and turn my head to see her narrow hand on my muscles, hesitating halfway between squeezing me and holding back. I look up to see worry in her face, anxiety behind those beautiful blue eyes.

  “Don’t be gone long,” she asks, and I can hear the request dripping with shame for asking for comfort from her captor.

  I’m a cold man, but I’m not heartless. I put a hand over hers and give it a reassuring squeeze, nodding before I move on toward the door.

  “If you really want my dad to pay attention,” she says, making me stop with the door halfway open, “you’d be better off threatening his mansion. That old place is worth more to him than me.”

  The tone in that statement is interesting, caught somewhere between a bitter joke and a truth she’s afraid and ashamed of. I glance back at her over my shoulder, but I don’t say anything. I just let her know that I’ve heard her.

  And with that message received, I let the door shut behind me.

  I have work to do.

  Lila

&n
bsp; I reach out a shaking hand, my fingers outstretched toward the wall. I’m sitting cross-legged on the filthy floor, wearing the clothing Chains brought me from home. I run my fingers over the tally marks in the wall, feeling the deep ridges and wondering whose hands were here before.

  Who was desperate enough to leave a mark in this cell as to undoubtedly destroy her fingernails to tally up the days in captivity. Judging from what I have gleaned about their kidnapping business from Chains, the last tenant here had to have been another girl. Probably young like me. I’m sure she hails from a well-to-do family. I bet she drives a sports car and carries only the finest designer handbags straight off the runway. She probably has a walk-in closet full of clothes so ritzy and fancy that she could pay off a family’s mortgage with the proceeds if she sold her wardrobe off in auction. She probably wears elaborate jewelry. Diamond pendant necklaces. Rose gold bracelets with numerous charms. Rings set with ruby and sapphire. She almost certainly gets her nails done professionally once or twice a week.

  I can picture her so vividly. Beautiful, waifish, fragile. Tearing her dyed-blonde hair out in loneliness here. Scraping those flawless, blood-red acrylic nails down the wall to keep some measure of her existence in order. Tally after tally, snapping her nails off, reducing her to something less pampered and precious, ruining those perfect hands just for the chance to feel some control over her predicament.

  But she’s gone now. Long gone. The cell does not smell of a woman. It smells like dank, damp earth and dust. Like hopelessness. I lift my sweater sleeve to my nose and take a deep whiff. My stomach churns. This sweater is from my house, but it’s starting to lose that familiar scent of home. It’s fading out, overtaken by the musty odor of the holding cell.

  I wonder if the cell will change me on the inside, too. Will I slowly lose bits and pieces of myself while they keep me locked away in here? Will I lose my mind, driven mad by the timelessness and the cold and the fact that every surface is at least slightly clammy and damp? There is no suitable place in here for a human being to be comfortable. Even the pile of old clothes and fabrics I’ve scrapped together into the corner feels more like the kind of place where a dog would sleep. Not my Henry, of course. He has his own little doggy bed. I keep him spoiled and treated like royalty.