Something was around my eyes, but it wasn’t thick enough to prevent me from making out shapes. Trees. Flowers, maybe.

The smell of chemicals was everywhere in the air.

I could hear noises. Water running, maybe.

A figure stepped toward me.

I didn’t dare even try to move now.

“I think she’s waking up, Father. What do you want me to do with her?” an unfamiliar voice said.

“I’m not ready for her to begin her repentance yet. Keep her quiet so I can concentrate.”

That was the voice I’d heard in the car. I‘d heard it before. I still couldn’t place it.

“Why don’t you use the same sermons you prepared for her sister?”

“She’s not a drug addict. We don’t have to take her through withdrawal to repent for the unholy sins she committed on her body.”

“What about her adultery? Perhaps you could use the lessons you already designed to atone for the sin of adultery.”

“Enough! She’s not an adulteress—yet. My goal is to prevent her from becoming one. I need some time to think. Her repentance must be unique to her.”

Was I in church? What was going on? I started to squirm. Tried to scream.

“Give her another injection so she doesn’t get away from you like her sister.”

My sister. He had taken my sister?

Frantic and scared, I scraped at the ground beneath me. My hands were tied together, but still I tried to heave myself up. I wasn’t weak. I did know how to defend myself. I could take him . . . if I could just figure out which way was up and which was down.

Before I could distinguish direction, that horrible Band-Aid smell was back in the air and I heard a flick, flick.

“No, please no,” I pleaded.

With a yank of my hair, whoever was beside me sat me up. “Shut the fuck up or you won’t like what I do to you.”

“Leave her alone. I told you I don’t want you to touch her. You’d be mindful yourself to recite your own lessons and repent for your own weaknesses.”

“Yes, Father.” His tone had completely changed to subordination.

“Let me hear it,” that familiar voice ordered.

“Now?”

“Yes, now.” I heard a slam and flinched.

Fingers crept to the back of my neck and I was left hanging there by my hair. “‘To preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes; for the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread, but a married woman hunts down a precious life. Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?’”

“Very good, now remember that.”

My body slammed against the ground as the one holding me dropped me like I was nothing more than a child’s stuffed animal. “Now, be a good girl and stop moving around,” he hissed low in my ear.

Good girl.

My mother used to say those words to me when my father was on a rampage. It was her coping mechanism. I didn’t understand it then, but in later years I did. It was the only way she knew how to deal with my domineering father. She couldn’t fight him; all she could do was try to make me understand that if I followed the rules I would be better off. “Now, Gabrielle, be a good girl and finish your peas and you won’t have to sit here all night. Now, Gabrielle, be a good girl and be brave; it will be over before you know it. Now, Gabrielle, be a good girl and don’t cry. You know he wants you to be tough.”

I wanted to scream. I hated those two words. I didn’t listen then and I wasn’t going to listen now.

I squirmed and flailed my body. He yanked my shirt up, exposing my bra to the cool air. Vomit got stuck in my throat. His fingers were on my stomach and he was pinching the skin. I didn’t whimper. Instead I tried to fight him off, but I knew it was hopeless.

The more I fought, the more his hands wandered, so I stopped. The feel of his hand drifting down ever so slightly to the waistband of my pants frightened me more than anything else. Please, please, please God, don’t let him rape me. I knew of all the things that had happened in my life, that would be the one thing to send me over the edge.

I hadn’t prayed in years, but I was praying now.

If I was in a church, maybe God would hear me.

As if my prayers were answered, I felt the sharp prick of a needle and liquid started to spread through my body like fire.

“Good job, son. Now, allow me to concentrate. We have to save her because she’s going to be our savior.” The voice was clearer now, not so disguised.

If only I could remember it.

If only the ground wasn’t so cold.

If only the blackness wasn’t sucking me in.

LOGAN

“This is a bad idea,” Miles warned.

I shot him a look.

“Let me go in there alone.”

“No fucking way.”

Elle had been missing for almost eight hours. I’d gone ahead and notified the authorities, but they hadn’t had any luck either. With nothing to go on, there wasn’t much they could do. There was no evidence of a struggle. Nothing to go on. Nowhere for them to look. Miles’s influence got a bulletin out quickly, but even so, there was no sign of her or the Mercedes—anywhere. The fucking rain hadn’t let up and that wasn’t helping. I was desperate, and if confronting O’Shea led me to her, I didn’t really give a fuck what it cost me.

I’d sell my soul to the fucking devil if it meant saving her.

Taking the doorknob in my hand, I wanted to rip it from its socket. The adrenaline rush from my pent-up rage was what was keeping me going. I flung the door open, and Miles put his hand out to stop it from slamming against the wall.

“Hi, can I help you?” A tall blonde with big tits stood from behind her desk.

I breezed by her. “I need to talk to O’Shea.”

“Do you have an appointment with Mr. O’Shea?”

The door to his office was closed and I burst in. “Where is she?”

The prick was sitting there, all pompous with his reading glasses on like he didn’t have a care in the world. At my appearance, he removed his glasses and his brow creased. “Who?”

My body was all taut energy and I was ready to snap. “You know who. Now cut the bullshit and tell me what you want.”

He stood up in his finely tailored suit looking all polished and put together. “It’s Logan McPherson, right?”

“You know who I am. Now tell me where she is,” I barked.

He cocked his head to the side as if confused. “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

My nerves were shot. I was running on pure adrenaline. And I had no reason to care about anything but where the fuck Elle was. I stepped toward him. Anger flowed through my veins. “Elle, asshole, now where is she?”

He looked at his watch. “As far as I know, she’d still be at work.”

“Well, she’s not. She’s missing.”

“She was at my house visiting my daughter this morning.”

I stepped even closer, and Miles put a heavy hand on my shoulder. “And shortly after she left, someone attacked her and took her.”

His skin seemed to pale. He was a good actor, I’d give him that. He grabbed his office phone and hit a series of numbers that I could only assume had to be her cell phone. After about a minute, he pressed the receiver and hit some more numbers. “I’m calling the boutique now.”

Silence.

His empty hand clasped the desk.

A moment later he hung up. He tried another number.

What maybe her home phone?

“She’s not going to answer. She’s gone. Now stop fucking around. Where is she?” I said through gritted teeth.

Something darkened in his eyes as he listened to a ring that wasn’t going to be answered. “I don’t know. Did she go home sick?”

“She’s not fucking sick, someone took her. Tell me who.” I lunged toward the desk, but Miles grabbed me.