Sleeping with the Billionaire (Rendezvous with the Billionaire Book 3) (7 page)

But I tried to remember the steps. I knew I had to use my hips to snap them off of me, which wasn’t going to be easy since I couldn’t move my legs very well. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts where the chair wobbled far more than I was comfortable with, I maneuvered myself to get my back against the wall. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked.

But I was still doing something wrong. The hard plastic bit into my wrists, leaving a fine line of bruises. But what was I forgetting? It shouldn’t have been so hard, the ties weren’t even that tight.

Wait.

That was the problem. The first step was to tighten them as much as possible.

I looked down and flexed my hand. If I tightened the cuffs and it didn’t work, I’d lose circulation which would put me in an even worse place. But I was pretty sure it was going to work. At least 70%. Okay 65%. What choice did I have? Dylan was coming back sometime, and he could at any moment realize that I didn’t plan on helping him. Then I would get dead in a hurry.

Not giving myself another moment to think, I bit down on the loose end of the cuff and tightened the plastic until it hurt. I could no longer turn my wrists around. It would have to do. On the count of three I was going to slam my wrists down against my hips and get out.

One.

Two.

Two and a half.

No, no hesitation allowed. I just needed to do it. Okay.

Three.

My hands came down and the cuffs popped.

I had to bite my lip to keep from yelping. It hurt a lot more than I anticipated. I could feel the skin break and a little blood dribbled down the inside of my wrist. I hadn’t nicked anything important, but it felt like I’d been cut by a ragged knife.

But my hands were free, and that solved half of my most obvious problem. I wasn’t going to be able to use the same technique to get out of the ankle cuffs. They were tight, but I couldn’t get the leverage that I’d gotten by wrenching my arms down. I needed something to cut through the plastic.

When he left, Dylan had done me the courtesy of leaving the dinky little light on. In such a small room, it was enough. I made myself calm down, slowing my breathing in and out until I could focus, could figure out a way to do what I needed to do next.

My best bet was the kitchen area. There wasn’t much else in the apartment that could be used. I worked my way over there, inching forward, the metal legs of the chair screeching along the linoleum floor. It was slow going. Eventually I stood up, careful to only step as far as the chair would allow without making me fall over.

Once I made it to the kitchen, nothing on the small counter leant itself to getting me out of the cuffs. But opening a few of the drawers was more fruitful. I found a plastic butter knife and some weird scrubber that had a sharp end. It looked like something you would use to clean a grill.

Nothing convenient like a pair of scissors, but I’d make do.

My legs were secured right above a small metal bar on the chair, I couldn’t just slide my leg down until it came free. I tried the butter knife first, unsurprisingly it didn’t work. After more than a minute of sawing at the plastic and making little headway, the knife snapped. I tried the scraper thing next. The angle was weird and my abs hurt from bending straight over.

Out of sheer frustration I lifted my leg up, trying to get a better angle. The heel of my foot butted against the metal bar on the chair. The bar jiggled. That gave me another idea very quickly.

I needed to put the scraper down to brace myself against the back of the chair. I pulled my legs up, my heels sliding up the metal, and let them rest against the bar. Taking a deep breath, I pulled up my knees a little more and slammed down as hard as I could, my butt jumping out of the chair a bit.

The bar jiggled some more, but didn’t come loose.

I tried it again, letting out a yell as I kicked.

The bar came free. I was free.

Holy crap, I didn’t expect that to work. No time to ponder my success. What did I need to do next? One, get out of the room; two, get to the ground floor; three, call for help. If three didn’t work; four, run away. Better to be out on the streets without my purse or any cash than in here just waiting for Dylan to come back and decide to shoot me.

But as strange as it sounds, it took some work to convince myself to walk out the door. I didn’t know if Dylan was standing out there waiting for me to move, or if he had hired someone to guard me. I pressed my ear against the door to try to get some idea of what was going on, but I couldn’t hear anything over the rapid beating of my heart.

There was no use waiting around. Either someone was out there or they weren’t, and I wasn’t going to find out by waiting behind a closed door. I eased the door open slowly and peered into the hall. It was empty. I let out a breath and crept back towards where I thought the elevator was. It was the fastest way down, of course, but should I take the stairs instead? Anyone could get in the elevator at any time. I’d have no place to run. The stairs gave me options.

Stairs. In case of emergency. And this certainly qualified as an emergency.

I found the door and walked through it like it was something I did every day. The staircase looked just like any other. Industrial, cement steps and cement walls, a metal railing and doors which indicated the floor number at every other landing. Dylan was keeping me on the seventh floor. I hadn’t seen anyone at all, but I didn’t want to appear out of place. I took the stairs two at a time but slowed down after three stories. I didn’t want to use all my energy if I had to run later. After seven flights of stairs I finally reached the bottom.

Okay, steps one and two were complete, now for step three. Find a phone and call for help. But I needed to get outside to do that. I had no idea what part of the city I was in or even if we were still in New York. For all I knew we could be sitting in Jersey and I wouldn’t have a clue. If I didn’t know where I was, I couldn’t be very helpful to whoever I called.

I followed the exits signs and made it all the way to the door. But just as I opened it, everything came crashing down. Dylan walked in and saw me. I tried to run, but he grabbed my arm with one hand and punched me in the face with the other.

It stunned me, I’d never been punched before in my life. I tried to fight back, but I was already stumbling as he dragged me back towards the elevator, cursing at me the entire way. He pushed me into the elevator hard enough that I slammed up against the opposite wall. As the door closed, he sank his fist into my abdomen and I fell, sliding to the floor. Everything went dim except for the pain and I felt the hard sole of his shoe kicking me.

I tasted blood just before I passed out.

I wasn’t tied to the chair anymore. This time, Dylan had bound me in the corner, my hands wrenched behind my back and my feet tied together. My head feel like it was about to explode and the entire room was spinning. I couldn’t quite focus on anything. The world had taken on a subtle fuzziness around the edges. That wasn’t good at all.

Dylan was sitting on the floor, his eyes crazed as he raked his gaze up and down. I felt dirty just being looked at. He straightened when he saw my eyes open. “Why did you have to do that?” He was really complaining about me escaping? I would have scoffed if my throat didn’t feel like I’d swallowed broken glass. “I had a plan. It was all going to work out fine. Why did you have to ruin it?” He yelled that last bit and I flinched.

I had no idea how long I’d been out. I thought Dylan was wearing the same clothes that he’d been in when he’d kidnapped me, but I wasn’t sure. Now they looked rumpled, like he’d pulled at his shirt’s collar and maybe laid down for a while. I felt like I’d been run over by a truck. My muscles were stiff and sore and each little movement was a new agony. If this is what it felt like to get into a fight, I was never doing that again.

Assuming I survived.

His cell phone rang and he jumped. But he stood, placing his gun on the kitchen counter while he spoke. I guess he realized I couldn’t very well fight him while I was bound on the floor. He was right.

I wanted to curl into myself and cry. I didn’t deserve this, I had barely done anything wrong. And certainly nothing that warranted being held at gunpoint by a murderous lunatic. But tears weren’t going to get me out of this situation. I needed my wits, I needed to pay attention to what Dylan wanted me to do, and I needed to do whatever it took to get out of the cuffs and out of the apartment. I tried not to think too hard about what he might ask, it only made my stomach turn.

I eased onto my side, rolling over a tender bruise in the process. A little yelp escaped, but I kept going, wedging myself up against the wall until I was in a sitting position. That didn’t help my head and I felt like I was going to throw up. But sitting was better than lying down and I was determined to stay there.

Dylan came towards me and I was sure he was going to hit me for the noise. Instead, he held the phone up to my ear. “Tell them you’re okay, they need to know you’re alive.”

“What? Who?” I didn’t know what he was talking about. Why would someone think I was dead?

An authoritative voice on the other end of the line spoke, “Is this Amy Bowen? Are you alright? We’re going to get you out of this, Miss Bowen, but I need you to remain calm.” She spoke quickly, as if she knew Dylan would take the phone at any moment.

“Yes, I’m Amy,” I choked out. My throat felt even worse when I spoke. “Who are you? What’s going on?”

“I’m Cynthia Watt with the New York City Poli—“ Dylan took the phone away before she could finish.

He placed it next to his ear and walked away, speaking quietly. I could barely hear him, but I concentrated past the fuzz in my head. This was important. “She’s alive. We’re both alive. Just let me out of here and you can have her.” He spoke harshly, spitting the words.

The cops knew he had me. They were talking to him. That made this a hostage negotiation. My thoughts were coming slowly, but I thought this had to be a good sign. After all, at least someone knew where I was. Someone who didn’t want me dead.

But I couldn’t feel that relieved. Dylan wasn’t in his right mind. One wrong move from the cops and he was going to kill me. One wrong move from me and he was going to kill me. And I had no idea what the right move was.

He put his phone back in his pocket and picked up the gun again. Great. “I don’t even know how I got in this mess.” He said. I didn’t think he was talking to me, but it wasn’t like there was anyone else in the room.

I looked him over. He was crouched down against the opposite wall, one hand gripping his hair, the other holding the gun. He looked scared and desperate. I shouldn’t antagonize him, that much was clear. So I tried sympathy. Anything that made him less likely to kill me. “You said you had no other choice, right?” I tried to sound friendly. I didn’t even remember if that was what he told me, but it sounded like what he wanted to hear. And as far as I was concerned, telling Dylan Marquez what he wanted to hear was my new job.

He looked up, eyes bright. “That’s right. If they all had just listened to me none of this would have happened.” He relaxed a little, shifting to sit on the floor rather than crouch.

“Was that a problem? Your friends not listening?” I felt like a therapist and each word was tearing a hole in my throat. But Dylan seemed to be calming down and I wouldn’t stop until this was done.

He nodded. “It was!” He smiled, happy that I seemed to understand him. I listened, but each of his words made me sicker. He told me how Evan always took control and how Nick followed his lead like a sick little puppy. Of course, Amanda was always the innocent one, in her brother’s eyes, she was an angel. But I didn’t contradict him.

Each time he tried to get their group to try something new, do something different, they wouldn’t pay any attention to him until one of the other three got it in their heads that it was a good idea. And on and on he rambled. I said the right words each time he paused for breath. Yes, they really did treat you bad. No, I understand why you had to do it. I’m glad you got to tell me why you’re doing this.

Strangely enough, my fear started to fade. I knew that if I made one wrong move he was going to kill me, but by the time he started rambling about the puppy he got when he was seven years old, I thought he might have moved on from that. I shifted slightly where I sat and he pointed the gun at me for a moment before lowering it once he realized I was just repositioning myself.

I had no idea how long he talked. It just kept going. Every detail about his life. Six different reasons why killing Nicholas Bitterman was the right decision. Why he clearly had to kidnap me. And as my hands went numb I kept agreeing with him.

When the phone rang again, he didn’t jump. He just put up a hand to tell me to keep quiet and answered. “Let’s talk.”

And I let myself hope.

The little standoff didn’t end right then. But Dylan talked to Mott for a long time before hanging up. And then he started talking to me again. The wait for her next phone call wasn’t as long. And by the time it was done, Dylan had emptied the clip of the gun and set it as far away from himself as possible.

I didn’t know that a standoff could end peacefully. The police knocked on the door and Dylan answered, his hands raised in a sign of surrender. They took him into custody and an older woman with shocking red hair approached me.