FREE (The Billionaire's Rules, Book 16)

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© 2016 by Kelly Favor

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S
he was in the dark
, and had been, for what felt like forever.

A hood had been placed over her head. She had been kidnapped at knifepoint.

After the drive to nowhere, in which she rarely heard anything but the occasional muttered comment that was usually too muffled to hear through her hood—they hustled her out of the car and then walked her for a few minutes.

She heard a door being opened and then she was shuttled inside somewhere, down some stairs and then plopped onto a hard chair, where her wrists and feet were bound.

Then they left her alone.

Lanie finally came back to herself after she was sitting for a long enough time. It occurred to her that they hadn’t yet killed her, which meant there was a chance she could live.

I can still survive this.

Otherwise they surely would’ve killed me by now.

She stopped shaking, but the fear was pulsating, writhing around her belly and spine like a snake.

The darkness moved in on her, closing around her, making her feel as though she couldn’t catch her breath.

It was as though she was drowning, and she screamed out. Screamed again and again for someone to come and just take the damn hood off her head, give her some air and some light.

When the hood was finally removed, she looked around and saw that she was in some old, dank, windowless basement.

All that was in the basement were some boxes, an old rusty bicycle, some broken television sets, and the two people standing in front of her.

One of the people was Frida and the other was a tall man with a big potbelly. His age was difficult to tell, but she felt like she somehow knew him.

And then he spoke. “I think you want to get out of here, don’t you?”

She nodded miserably. “Please just let me go. Please.”

The man had a thin head of hair and gleaming, mischievous eyes. “Only if you do something for me,” he said, a smile stretching his thin lips.

When he smiled, she recognized him. He was the one in the hacker video wearing that prosthetic nose—that bizarre penis nose that had been grotesque and disturbing. In the video, his voice had been distorted, but now he spoke and his voice sounded almost normal.

Almost—but not really.

“What do you want me to do?” Lanie asked.

Frida glanced at the man and then at Lanie, her grotesque mouth forming words that were chilling. “You need to tell the truth about Brayden. You need to tape a confession.”

“What kind of confession?”

“A true one, the best kind,” the potbellied man giggled.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

The potbellied man’s smile faded and Frida grimaced. “Don’t lie,” she said. “Don’t protect him, Lanie.”

“I’m not protecting him,” Lanie insisted. “Please, please just let me leave. I swear I won’t tell anyone or get you in trouble. I just want to go home.”

Frida’s eyes were predatory. “Who said anything about us getting in trouble?” she asked. “Seems to me that you must be thinking about doing it, or you’d never have tried to reassure us in the first place.”

“She’s not ready yet,” the man replied sadly.

“Wait, don’t—please—“ Lanie began, but then the black hood was whipped over her head again, drowning her in the darkness once more.

She whimpered and then it was closing in again.

She couldn’t take it.

Couldn’t be in this blackness anymore.

She was falling into it, dying into it, her lungs frozen, her body tortured with the terror coursing through her.

The world became still and she vaguely heard voices and footsteps fading and then there was nothing but the blackness surrounding her.

This was her worst fear come true. The blackness was so horrifying to her that she’d have rather kept talking to Frida and the pot-bellied man than be alone in the dark like this.

She strained against her bonds but they held fast. She screamed until her voice was hoarse and the tears dried on her face.

Nothing happened, but her heart continued to race and pound.

Time passed, but her fear wasn’t abating. If anything, the panic attacks continued to worsen, the feeling of being trapped underwater, drowning, perpetually unable to breathe…

Eventually she lost all track of time passing, and the fear pounded in her and against her until she just broke.

She broke into what felt like a thousand pieces.

Lanie fell back, all the way back in time—spinning in the darkness….

She remembered in a flash when it had happened, when it had all begun for her. All the fear had started so long ago, and now she was seeing it as if for the first time.

Saw her old room in the first apartment, before her mother had moved to the newer place.

Just a tiny little bedroom, and Lanie was lying in the small child’s bed, her room appropriate for the age. She must have been three or four years old at most.

And then she seemed to float into herself, and she was actually in the bed, shaking, as the night closed in around her. She saw the shadows on the walls and how frightening they looked.

Especially the bad man. The bad man in the new poster that her mother had put in the room earlier that day.

It was a large poster on the wall of a fireman sitting in a fire truck, but the man was too big for the truck, and his enormous eyes and smile weren’t friendly. Not at all.

He smiled at her and his huge eyes seemed to follow her no matter where she shrank to in her bed, trying to get away from him

Cowering under her covers, she screamed for her mother.

Finally, there was the telltale stomping of feet and then her mother’s sharp voice, demanding to know what was wrong.

Lanie peeked out from her covers. “That man,” she said, pointing. “That man, he’s bad. He’s bad.” She cried, blubbering, even though her mother hated blubberers and said so often.

“What man?” Lanie’s mother said, hands on hips turning around to face the opposite wall. “You mean the fireman?”

“He’s scaring me.” She moaned a little.

“Why?”

“He’s…he’s bad.” She didn’t have the words to describe the way his oversized body in proportion to the fire truck seemed so wrong. The way his large eyes followed her no matter where she went, and his smile seemed to indicate a willingness to continue to follow her, even if it meant coming to life in the middle of the night…creeping to her bed…

Lanie started to cry louder.

“Just stop it, young lady. I don’t tolerate that ridiculous behavior, and you know it. Now there’s nothing wrong with the poster. Jack Babson gave it to me and I’m not taking it down because you blubbered. Understand?”

“But—“

“No buts. I’m going back to finish watching my show, and if I hear another peep out of you, I’ll give you a hiding and I mean it.” And then Lanie’s mother turned and stomped out of the room, shutting the door with a slam.

Lanie whimpered, crawling down under her covers and lying still in the darkness, heart pounding and pounding, closing her eyes and picturing that face…that horrible grinning, stretched face as it came to life, and the bad man crept towards her.

The memory seemed to fade as she came back to herself, found herself sitting in the darkness of the hood, still tied to the chair.

Still imprisoned in the basement.

She was breathing heavy, but her heart was pounding less now.

That memory was something she’d never had access to before. Her fear of the dark had always just been there, as far as Lanie was concerned. She hadn’t known where it originated from, only that since she was a little girl, she’d been scared of the dark more than anyone else she knew.

But now she was shocked to realize that it had all been over something so small.

A silly, goofy poster of a fireman that had scared her as a toddler had turned into a fear of the dark, of being left alone in the dark with no one to save her.

It’s nothing, really. All of that fear and anxiety over nothing at all.

And as she sat there in her hood, in the most dangerous situation of her life, Lanie started to laugh.

At first, it was just a little chuckle, but then it turned into a giggle and then a louder, stronger belly laugh.

She shook her head, surprised at how sometimes the biggest demons could turn out to be nothing but a child’s nightmare. Something that when exposed to the light was just a joke, a misunderstanding, the confusion translating into years upon years of anxiety and terror.

But she no longer felt afraid, and the ironic thing was that these stupid hackers had kidnapped her intending to frighten her. But instead they’d cured her of a lifelong phobia.

Lanie’s laughter grew in volume.

“What the hell’s so funny?” Frida said, pulling off the hood.

Lanie shook her head, blinking. “Nothing. Private joke. You had to be there.” She smiled.

Frida exchanged glances with the potbellied man, who was holding a camera now. He motioned to Lanie. “We’re going to untie you,” he said. “But only if you agree to make a statement that calls Brayden Forman a sexual predator, a disgusting pig who harassed, violated and raped you. Of course, you can use your own words, but the more convincing the better.”

Lanie sighed. “I’m not giving a statement,” she said.

Frida stared at her with black eyes. “You will give a fucking statement, little shit. Or the hood goes back on. And I know you don’t like that hood.”

Lanie turned and made eye contact with her. “I can see why Brayden never wanted you,” she said. “Because he saw how ugly you are inside.”

Frida made as if to punch her, but the potbellied man called out to her.

“Don’t do that,” he said. “If you mark up her face, the statement becomes meaningless. They’ll know it was coerced. And besides, we don’t do that kind of thing here. We’re an ethical community.”

Lanie stifled a laugh. They called kidnapping and torture ethical? How cute.

“I’m not going to make a statement,” she repeated. “You can put the hood on, you can torture me, you can starve me. But I’m never going to lie about the man I love.”

Frida’s face went pale. “You love him? You liar.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the man said. “Put the hood on her again. We’ll be back soon enough.”

Lanie settled into her chair, and this time, there were no tears or wailing, no pounding heart or any heavy breathing as she gasped for air.

She felt strangely calm and composed.

In the darkness, she turned her mind to Brayden, thinking of his face, making it so clear that she felt she could reach out and touch him. And Brayden was looking at her too, his eyes kind, his lips playing a smile.

His eyes told her to stay strong and not to worry.

Lanie smiled back, telling herself that as long as she could think of Brayden—none of the darkness mattered anymore.

It’s not real
, she told herself.

What’s real is us.

And I’ll never be afraid, as long as I know I have him. I’ll never break, I’ll never say horrible things to make them let me go. I won’t ever betray Brayden again.

* * *

A
long time passed
, but Lanie stayed quiet, and nobody came to bother her.

After awhile, she fell into an uneasy sleep.

She was startled awake by someone untying the bonds around her ankles, and then she was picked up and brusquely made to stand, forced to walk, even though she was stumbling with numb feet after so many hours tied to the chair.

Nobody was talking or telling her anything, but Lanie was compliant, although she instantly felt alert and awake.

Something was happening and her senses told her that it was something big.

A thrill of fear ran up her spine.

Is this it? Are they going to kill me?

Please, no. I need to live—I need to see Brayden again, to be with him, to hear his voice. We haven’t even really had a chance to have our life together yet.

But we will, I think—if I can just get through this.

Up the stairs she went, guided roughly, pushed, then pulled as she was walked through some other area. It was difficult to tell where she was going with the hood still on her head.

And her hands were still bound.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the hood was taken off her head. She blinked, even though it was still night. How could it be night when they’d kidnapped her at night and she’d been sitting for so long?

She shook her head, disoriented by her surroundings. She was outside.

The pot-bellied man stood beside an old, rusted out blue van. He turned to Frida. “Come on, let’s go. It’s over.”

Lanie frowned. “I never gave you a statement,” she said. “I never confessed.”

“You didn’t need to, silly,” the man chuckled. “We never really needed it from you anyway, although it would’ve been a nice bonus. Your boyfriend gave a statement that was better than anything we ever hoped for.” Opening the driver’s side door, he climbed into the van and started it.

Lanie turned towards Frida, the woman who’d held her at knifepoint, manipulated her and destroyed Brayden’s company and reputation over some bizarre personal grudge over being snubbed.