The sound punched the air from her lungs. She knew that voice. He had invaded her and Liam’s dinner date, and he had known of her brother’s debt. It belonged to the handsome, blond man from the dinner weeks ago, the one who had materialized at her table the moment Liam had stepped away. Alexander Stern. No, Xander Stern. The name was a cold stone in her gut.
Her mind flashed the image: impeccable suit, a smile that didn’t touch his ice-blue eyes that looked over each part of her. The memory cut off, severed by his voice returning to the present. “Cat got your tongue? I’m disappointed. You were so much more articulate over wine.”
“Where is Lisa?” The words scraped out of her, raw.
“She’s currently… indisposed, but safe. And she’ll remain that way, provided you follow some very simple instructions. The first is this: you do not tell anyone about this call. Not your brooding keeper. Not his bloodied attack dog. Not the old man who brings the tea. If you so much as whisper my name, Lisa will experience pain you cannot conceive of. Do we understand each other?”
Elena’s fingers were numb. She could feel her own heartbeat in her temples. “What do you want?”
“Lisa’s backpack. The one she brought to visit you. I want it.”
She looked at the empty room in confusion. “She took it and left with it. I don’t have her bag here.”
“Unfortunately.” Stern’s sigh was one of patronizing disappointment. “She took *a* backpack. A lovely canvas number full of textbooks and something about flowers. Adorable, really. The backpack I want, the one with all her delightful little toys. I’m certain it’s still there with you.”
The floor seemed to tilt. Elena’s gaze shot across the dark room to the chair by the door. The olive canvas backpack was slumped against the leg, right where she and Lisa had dropped it before the shower, trying to escape the blood. She’d been in such a furious rush to leave… she must have grabbed Elena’s bag by mistake.
Elena pushed back the duvet, the cold air hitting her sweat-damp skin. She crossed the room on unsteady legs, the phone a dead weight against her ear. She crouched, her fingers finding the zipper of the black bag. It hissed open in the silence.
Inside, no books. The dim light from the window glinted off sleek, gunmetal-gray casings. A compact laptop. Several external hard drives. A tangle of cables and small, unidentifiable devices she’d seen Lisa drop earlier. The entire digital arsenal her friend had smuggled in to arm her.
“You have it,” Stern stated, no question in his tone.
“What’s on it?” Elena whispered.
“Nothing that concerns you. You will bring the laptop and the drives to me. For Lisa’s life. It’s a fair trade, don’t you think? Her expertise for her continued breathing.”
“Proof.” The word was a demand, brittle and sharp. “I need to see her. Now.”
“Of course. A modern problem requires a modern solution.” A second later, her phone buzzed with an incoming image. Elena pulled it from her ear, swiping to the message. The screen illuminated her face, casting her horror in a pale blue light.
It was Lisa. Taken from the front, in harsh, clinical lighting. She was slumped in a plain wooden chair, her wrists bound to the chair’s back with rope. She was stripped down to just her panties, her breasts shown bare. Her head lolled to the side, dark blue and pink hair obscuring part of her face. Her eyes were open, but unfocused, glassy. She could see her skin lightly glimmering with sweat.
“She was initially quite vocal,” Stern’s voice came back, conversational. “A lot of creative threats. It took her a bit to see reason. But Eros helped out a great deal. I’ll have to thank Thorn for his little invention—such a useful compound for encouraging… openness.”
Eros. Liam’s drug. The one that had been used on her. Nausea boiled up Elena’s throat, acrid and hot.
“You will bring the devices to the old pier warehouse, south dock. You have two hours. Come alone. Tell no one. If I see a shadow that isn’t yours, if I even suspect you’ve shared our little secret, Lisa will be gone forever. And don’t think that would be the end of it. A cute, clever little thing like her… I’d find good uses for her. My associates have such varied tastes.”
In the background, through the phone’s speaker, Elena heard a faint sound. A whimper. Then a low, unmistakable moan. It was Lisa’s voice, thick and slurred, devoid of fear or protest, just a hapless, drugged sound of sensation.
“Don’t you touch her!” Elena snarled into the phone, the force of it tearing from a place of pure, feral instinct. “You bastard, don’t you dare—”
The line went dead. The silence that followed was absolute, a vacuum that sucked all the sound from the world. She was left crouching on the floor, clutching the phone, the image of her bound and drugged friend burning into her retinas.
She stared at the open backpack. The items inside are now a ransom demand. A death sentence for Lisa if she refused, a betrayal of catastrophic proportions if she complied. Liam’s enemy had walked right through his security, had taken the one person she had left, and was now practically holding a knife to the fragile, impossible loyalty she felt for the man who owned her.
Her body began to shake. Not a tremble, but a deep, seismic rattle that started in her bones and vibrated out through her skin. The cold of the floor seeped up through her knees. The dark of the room pressed in, no longer safe, but watchful. He had told her not to tell anyone. The warning was a cage around her throat.
She looked at the clock. Two hours. The pier warehouse. Alone. The instructions were simple. The consequences were a yawning chasm on either side. She reached into the bag, her fingers closing around the cool, hard edge of the laptop. The weight of it was nothing. The weight of what it meant was crushing.
Elena Rossi sat on the floor in the dark, holding the instruments of her friend’s salvation and her own damnation, and began, very quietly, to plan a betrayal.
&**(
The shaking stopped.
It ended not with a whimper but with a snap, like a wire pulled taut beyond its limit. The cold floor, the dark room, the image of Lisa—they didn't disappear. They crystallised. They became fragments of art she had to piece back together. Elena Rossi, on her knees, began to process the puzzle.
Walking into the warehouse with the laptop was a death sentence. For her, certainly. For Lisa, probably. Stern didn’t trade; he took. He would take the devices, then take her and Lisa and use them at his leisure. The photo was proof of possession, not a guarantee of return. Her intelligence, the part Liam had taken and utilised, cut through the panic like a scalpel. It laid the variables bare: one hostage, one kidnapper of unknown numbers, one untrained civilian, two hours.
She stood. The movement was fluid, decisive. The laptop was placed carefully on her bed. She went to the closet, her hands not fumbling but selecting. Nothing tactical—that would raise suspicion. Nothing fragile—she needed to move. She chose dark, sleek jeans and a simple black long-sleeved top made of a soft, stretchy material. She knew it would cling without being overt. Distraction was a weapon, but it had to look like an accident. She pulled on boots, the leather snug around her ankles.
Back to the backpack. She emptied its contents onto the duvet. The laptop and hard drives she ignored—those were for show. Her fingers sifted through the strange arsenal. The lockpicking set Lisa had taught her with: a flat case of polished metal picks and tension wrenches. It went into her right front pocket, a hard rectangle against her thigh. The lip gloss tube. She uncapped it, confirming the two prongs hidden within. Stun gun. Left pocket. A few other devices: a small cylindrical object Lisa called a “USB killer,” a black disc with a button. These went into her left pocket, making it bulge slightly. She redistributed, making it look less obvious.
She looked at the laptop. The bait. The symbol of her betrayal. She zipped it into the main compartment of the backpack, slung it over one shoulder, and took a final, breathless scan of the room. No note. No trace. Just a woman stepping out for air. That was the story she would sell.
She opened her door. The hallway was silent, washed in the faint, perpetual night-lighting of the manor. Her boots were quiet on the runner. Every sense was dialled to a piercing frequency. The hum of the HVAC. The groan of ancient timber. The weight of the tools in her pockets. She moved not like a thief, but like a woman who belonged—a calm, deliberate pace toward the main staircase.
“Miss Rossi?”
The voice came from the shadowed archway leading to the servants’ wing. Presley emerged, his tailcoat impeccable even at this hour, his face a mask of polite concern. Where did he even come from. How is he awake at this hour? Elena questioned.
“Presley.” She kept walking, offering a tight, fleeting smile. “I’m just stepping out for a bit. I need some air. I’ll be back soon.”
He fell into step beside her, a silent escort. “At this hour? Forgive me, but Mr. Thorn has been most explicit regarding your safety. After the events of today, leaving the grounds is… ill-advised.”
She reached the grand foyer, the marble cold underfoot. She turned to face him, her expression one of strained patience. “I understand. I do. But I am not a prisoner, Presley. I am an employee. And right now, my head is pounding, and these walls are closing in. I need ten minutes outside the gate. To breathe. To think.” She adjusted the backpack strap, a casual gesture. “You can watch me from the door if you like. I’ll stay on the driveway.”
His grey eyes held hers. They were unreadable, but they missed nothing. The backpack. Her dressed state. The unnatural calm in her posture. “The threat is active, miss. We havnt’t located the culprit who attacked you. It is not safe.”
The mention of the man tightened her throat. She forced a scoff, a hint of Elena’s old fire. “So I’m to be locked in this compound forever? >
He was silent for a long moment. The clock in the library ticked, a sound like a slowing heart. “My instructions are clear,” he said finally, but his tone had shifted. It was no longer flat refusal. It was calculation.
“Then accompany me,” she said, seizing the opening. Her voice softened, pleading. “You can drive me. Just… down the lane. To the overlook. I’ll get out, you stay in the car with the engine running. Five minutes. Then we come back. You’ve fulfilled your duty to keep me safe, and I get to feel like a human being again. Please.”
Presley’s gaze drifted past her, to the heavy front doors. A conflict played out in the tightening of his jaw, the slight narrowing of his eyes. It was more than a butler weighing protocol. It was a man weighing an opportunity. He looked back at her, at the determined set of her mouth, the green eyes bright with manufactured desperation.
“Very well,” he said, the words crisp. “The overlook. Five minutes. You will remain in my line of sight at all times.”
“Thank you,” she breathed, the relief genuine even if the reason was a lie.
He fetched a heavy key ring from his pocket and moved to the doors. “I will retrieve the car. Wait here.”
She stood alone in the vast foyer, the backpack heavy with treason. Her right hand slid into her pocket, her fingers finding the cool metal of the lockpick case. Her thumb rubbed a smooth edge. Stage one: complete. She had her escort. Now she needed to lose him.
The black sedan purred up the driveway, stopping before the stone steps. Presley got out, holding the rear passenger door open for her. A gentleman’s gesture. She slid in, placing the backpack on the seat beside her. The interior smelled of lemon polish and leather. He closed her door with a soft thud, then took the driver’s seat.
They descended the winding drive in silence. The manor’s lights dwindled in the rearview mirror, swallowed by the night. Elena watched Presley’s profile. His hands were at ten and two on the wheel. His posture was rigid. He did not speak.
“The overlook is just ahead,” he said, as the car slowed near a pull-off that offered a view of the city’s distant glitter.
“Actually,” Elena said, her voice steady. “Keep going. Take me to the south dock. The old pier warehouse.”
Presley’s foot eased off the accelerator. The car coasted. He did not look at her. “Miss Rossi. That was not our agreement.”
“I know. But that’s where I need to go. It’s… personal.”
“It is also the single most predictable location for an ambush after today’s shooting.” His voice was low, a controlled rumble. “I cannot allow it.”
Elena leaned forward, her face near the partition. “Presley, listen to me. Lisa is there. Stern has her. He’s going to kill her if I don’t bring him this backpack. He called me. He has her tied up, he drugged her with Eros. I have two hours. I have to go.”
The car came to a full stop on the deserted lane. Presley turned in his seat. In the dim dashboard light, his face was carved from stone. “You are telling me this now.” It wasn’t a question. It was an indictment.
“He said he’d hurt her if I told anyone. But I need your help. Not to come in. Just to get me there. Wait outside. If I’m not out in fifteen minutes… then you call Liam. But you have to let me try to get her out first. If he sees anyone else, he’ll kill her. You understand?”
Presley stared at her. The hesitation from the manor was back, but deeper, more profound. His eyes flicked to the backpack, then to her determined, terrified face. He was working for Stern. The thought was a lightning strike in her mind. This hesitation wasn’t about Liam’s rules. It was about his own orders. He was weighing her value as a pawn against the risk of deviating from his script.
“Please,” she whispered, pouring every ounce of raw, shattered fear into the word. “She’s my best friend.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. He looked forward again, his hands tightening on the wheel. The silence stretched, broken only by the idle hum of the engine. Then, without a word, he put the car in drive and turned onto the road that led toward the industrial piers.
Elena sat back, her heart hammering against her ribs. She had played her card. Now she had no idea whose side her driver was on.