Billionaire's Secret: Exposing Jay: A Chicago Suits Romance (Loving Jay Book 2) (17 page)

“
W
hat do
you want from me?”

I’d been pleading and crying for an explanation since I woke up. Since I’d regained consciousness.

My head pulsated in pain, from the crying and screaming but also from the aftereffects of whatever drug they’d given me. And I’m sure they’d given me something.

How else was it possible to explain the black hole in my memory of how I got here?

I can’t even remember if they’d grabbed me on the street or not, and it scared me senseless.

“Tell me!”

What was happening? Would I be okay? Oh no, what if Jenny didn’t report me missing because she assumed I went back to Jay? And that Jay didn’t report me missing because he assumed I was still and Jenny’s?

The realization sent my pulse rate even higher. How long could a pulse be crazy high before your heart burst?

A door opened and there was a shuffling around. When I first woke up, I'd gotten to my feet and crashed around the room, trying to escape. Ever since then someone had been in the room with me, keeping me from moving around. This seemed to happen every thirty minutes or so. It seemed like a changing of the guard. Every other shift, the guard reeked of cologne that made the air hard to breathe. Something about him seemed familiar but I couldn’t put my finger on what, or who, it was.

Calvin. It must be Calvin.

“What do you want from me?” I screamed as loud as I could, the words ripping apart my throat and vocal chords.

“Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!” Delirious with fear, I’d lost all reason. “Tell me! NOW!” My throat hurt like hell but I would not stop. “Tell me! Who are you? Tell me! Now!”

“Would you shut the fuck up.”

My lungs stopped. My heart ceased all movement. The throbbing in my ears the only thing letting me know I was still alive. I swallowed.

With my voice quiet and wavering, almost too sore to speak, I said, “Matt?”

* * *

H
e let
out a cackling laugh and ripped off my blindfold. His frame towered over me, threatening and angry. I cowered as deeply into the sofa as possible.

“Stupid bitch, why couldn’t you have been quiet?”

A million things ran through my head. A million things I wanted to ask, to know. But he frightened me far too much to make any sense of which thing I wanted to know most.

“How?” I don’t even think my voice qualified as a whisper.

Matt cracked a smile that took far too much pleasure in my position. Here I’d been thinking it was Calvin. Was something to do with Jay. Meanwhile it was my psycho ex-boyfriend.

He sat down on the armchair, never taking his eyes off me. My stomach wrenched. I closed my eyes to calm it, knowing it was empty anyway. Breathe. In, out. In, out.

“Bring this bitch a drink,” Matt called out.

While I was desperate for a drink to sooth my throat, the idea of seeing the other person in on this kidnap terrified me. After all, isn’t that when things went bad in the movies? When the victim found out who the assailants were?

“I’m okay.” Saying the words killed my throat, but I didn’t want to find out who the other one was.

Maybe Matt intended to keep me as some kind of sex slave, like that guy in Cleveland. How would anyone ever find me?

The door opened, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

“What’s going on?”

My eyes flew open at the sound of Calvin’s voice.

* * *

“
Y
ou two
.” I cleared my throat, trying to sooth it. “You know each other?”

“Of course we know each other you dumb bitch, why else do you think we’re in this room together?” Any hatred I’d previously held towards Matt was quintupling by the second.

Calvin’s presence relieved me. Now the police would know who’d taken me. I’d given them Calvin’s name myself. I might be relieved compared to how I’d been two minutes ago but my body still trembled with fear.

Laid on the sofa, my arms ached from their position behind me. Calvin left the room and returned with a can of Coke. It hissed when he opened it, then shoved in a straw and held it near me.

I wriggled my body, pushing off as best I could with my arms, until I got myself into a seated position. I stretched my neck until I got my lips on the straw. The cool liquid soothed my throat, and I gulped down as much as I could before Calvin took the can out of my reach.

* * *

“
N
one of this
would have happened if you hadn’t gotten me fired,” he said as he set the can on the end table.

My mind raced as fast as my pulse. Over the details of the blackmail conversation with Jay in Vegas. Over his spreadsheet on the jet.

“Why, because I exposed the embezzling?”

Calvin laughed at my comment.

“Get real Abbie, you didn’t expose a damn thing. Other than your tits.”

Humiliation washed over me again. Calvin had stood in those woods and watched Jay and I. Who knows how many more photos he took. Or how much more explicit they were.

“How did you know to follow us in the woods anyway?”

“I’d recognized you the second I started working at Force McAllister.”

“But, our relationship…”

“Oh, I didn’t know you didn’t know who James was until Sam told me at the bar that night. That just upped the price for the photos.”

Jay must not have paid. At least the price they were asking.

Calvin carried on, “I knew you were the sucker Matt swindled.”

I interrupted, “Because you were friends.” What had Jay said again? That he’d fired the consultant and Calvin wormed his way into the company to keep the embezzling covered up?

“Sam’s comment told me you were being suckered again, and that I could up my price.”

Calvin left the room, his words still ripping through me.

My eyes bore into Matt. “Are you the one who used to work at Force McAllister?"

“Yeah. Before James got fed up and kicked me out.”

I couldn’t figure out what he was saying.

“Were you the consultant?” I asked. Matt smacked his hands together, the noise echoing around the room.

“Classic, consultant, is that what he’s calling me?”

“Why, what else would he call you?”

“If I told you that, I wouldn’t get anymore money out of him, would I?”

“But you sold solar panels?”

“Just the next scam I moved onto, Sugar.”

Matt left, and I was alone in the room.

* * *

I
slumped back
into the sofa, trying to digest what was happening. Why was Matt at Force McAllister? If he’d had a job there as a consultant, why did he take my money? Because I’m an idiot, obviously. A sucker, just like Calvin said.

The big question was how was I still being suckered now? What was Jay’s current lie? And was he still paying for their silence?

The spreadsheets had shown they’d been embezzling a million or two a month. In the scale of Force McAllister’s income it was an insignificant amount.

So it had to be silence they were blackmailing him for. I twiddled my wedding and engagement rings with my thumb. Calvin is right. I am a sucker.

* * *

T
hey’d left
me alone for hours. I stood and bent over the table, taking the straw into my mouth and drinking the rest of the Coke. It wasn’t enough to re-hydrate me, but it at least made my throat feel a little better, and helped with my stomach pangs.

Overwhelmed and overloaded with information, I closed my eyes and shut down.

* * *

T
he door banged open
, awakening me. Matt brought in a ham sandwich and held it to my face. Humiliated, I bit away at it and chewed as fast as I could, until he shoved the last piece into my mouth.

He turned to walk away, and I swallowed it, almost choking.

“You’ll go to jail for this you know.” Matt looked back at me and grinned.

“Not a chance, Jay will never report it.” Why? Why wouldn’t Jay report it?

“He doesn’t have to, I already did. I even gave them Calvin’s name.”