The suite is gorgeous, but it’s sterile in the way that expensive hotel rooms always are. Everything is perfectly arranged, from the fresh flowers on the side table to the stack of fluffy towels in the bathroom, but there’s no warmth here. No personality.
It’s a beautiful cage, and I’m the bird trapped inside.
The lock clicks my captor, and the sound echoes through the room like a gunshot. I wait, listening for footsteps in the hallway, but the carpeting is too thick to hear anything beyond the door. The silence that follows is deafening.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, my legs finally giving out as the adrenaline that’s been carrying me through this nightmare starts to fade. The Egyptian cotton sheets are softer than anything I’ve ever owned, but they might as well be sandpaper for all the comfort they provide. This isn’t a guest room. This is a prison cell dressed up in designer furnishings.
My head throbs, and the injection site is still tender. My mouth tastes like copper and fear, making me suspect I bit myself at some point during the abduction or unconscious period afterward. I touch the spot on my neck gingerly, wincing when my fingers find the small puncture wound. Whatever he used to knock me out is still making me dizzy, and every time I move too quickly, the room spins.
I need to think. I need to figure out what the hell is happening to me and how to get out of here alive.
The man who brought me here thinks I’m someone named Irina Volkov, a woman who disappeared ten years ago with information that got his brother killed. The resemblance is notable, but I’ve never seen that woman’s face before in my life. I would remember. You don’t forget something like that.
He doesn’t believe me, of course. That much was clear from the way he questioned me, probing for inconsistencies in my story like he was expecting me to slip up and reveal my true identity. The problem is that my true identity is exactly what I told him—Sabrina Clyde, twenty-six years old, from Modesto, California. I’m a woman drowning in medical debt and working at a nightclub to keep her head above water.
There’s nothing particularly exciting about me, and I’m definitely not worth kidnapping.
The sitting area has a leather sofa that’s buttery soft, and a stack of windows offering a peaceful view of the mountains and forest.
I walk over to test the glass, pressing my palms against the cool surface. It doesn’t budge. The windows are sealed, and the glass is thick enough that I suspect it’s bulletproof.
So much for an easy escape.
I examine the rest of the room, looking for anything that might help me get the hell out of here, or at least understand what I’m dealing with. The bathroom is stocked with expensive toiletries and thick towels, but there’s nothing that could be used as a weapon. The furniture is too heavy to move, and everything breakable has been removed or secured.
He’s thought of everything.
A soft knock at the door makes me freeze. I back away from the windows, my heart galloping as I wait to see who’s coming in. The lock disengages with an electronic beep, and the door opens to reveal a man I haven’t seen before.
He’s younger than my captor, maybe early thirties, with the kind of build indicating he spends serious time in the gym. He’s carrying a tray with water, sandwiches, and what looks like soup, and he enters the room like I’m a guest instead of a prisoner.
I press myself against the far wall. “Who are you?”
He sets the tray on the coffee table without answering, then straightens and looks at me with the kind of professional detachment that’s somehow more unnerving than outright hostility. This isn’t personal for him. I’m just another job, another problem to be managed. “Eat something,” he says finally. His voice is surprisingly gentle. “You’ll feel better.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Eat anyway. Boss’s orders.”
He turns and walks back toward the door, and I realize this might be my only chance to get information from someone who isn’t playing mind games with photographs and accusations.
“Wait.” I take a step toward him. “What’s your name?”
He pauses at the door but doesn’t turn around. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“Eat the food, drink the water, and get some rest. Someone will be back to check on you later.”
The door closes behind him with an electronic click, and I’m alone again. The smell of the food makes my stomach growl despite everything, reminding me I haven’t eaten since starting my shift at the club. How long ago was that? Hours? Days? Time has lost all meaning in this nightmare.
I approach the tray cautiously, half-expecting the food to be drugged. I guess if they wanted me unconscious, they wouldn’t need to be so subtle about it. They could just inject me with whatever they used in the alley, so my hunger overcomes my fear.
The sandwich is turkey and Swiss on sourdough bread, and it tastes better than anything has a right to in a situation like this. The soup is tomato basil and seems homemade, while the water is cold and clean. I eat mechanically, my body demanding fuel even as my mind races through possible escape scenarios.
Looking up, I suddenly notice a small, dark circle in the corner of the room. It’s positioned high up near the ceiling and camouflaged among the decorative molding, but once I spot it, I can’t look away.
A camera.
They’re watching me right now. They’re probably recording everything I do to analyze every expression on my face and dissect every word I speak. The realization hits me like ice water, and I drop the spoon I was using for the soup. It clatters against the coffee table, sounding unnaturally loud in the silent room.
Panic floods my system, sharp and cold and overwhelming. I bolt toward the door and start pounding on it with both fists. “Let me out!” I scream, hammering against the solid wood until my hands ache. “Let me out of here right now!”
There’s no response to indicate that anyone can hear me or cares I’m falling apart. I keep pounding anyway, because the alternative is to collapse on the floor and give up, and I’m not ready to do that yet. “I’m not who you think I am,” I shout at the camera, turning away from the door to face the lens directly. “My name is Sabrina Clyde, and I’ve never heard of Irina Volkov before tonight. This is kidnapping. This is insane!”
My voice cracks on the last word, stress and exhaustion finally overwhelming the anger that’s been keeping me upright. I slide down the door until I’m sitting on the floor, my back pressed against the wood, my knees drawn up to my chest.
I don’t know how long I sit there. It’s long enough for the remaining food to get cold and for the shadows outside the windows to shift. I remain there long enough e to cycle through anger to fear to desperation and back to anger again.
When the door finally opens, I scramble to my feet and back away, putting the coffee table between myself and whoever is entering.
It’s him. My captor. The man with winter-storm eyes and the kind of stillness that suggests he has no problem using violence.
He steps into the room and closes the door behind him, then leans against it with his arms crossed. He’s changed clothes since I last saw him, trading the expensive suit for dark jeans and a black sweater that makes him look less like a businessman and more like a predator. “Irina.” He says the name like it means something, like it carries weight and history and pain.
The sound of it makes something cold settle in my stomach. “That’s not my name.”
“No?” He tilts his head slightly, studying my face with the intensity of someone trying to solve a puzzle. “Then why are you so upset?”
I gesture wildly toward the camera. “Because you’re holding me prisoner. Because you drugged me and brought me to God knows where, and you’re watching me like I’m some kind of lab rat.”
He doesn’t react to my outburst. He doesn’t flinch or step back or show any sign that my words have affected him at all. He just watches me with that same unnerving stillness, like he’s waiting for something specific.
“You kidnapped me,” I continue, my voice rising with each word. “You drugged me unconscious and brought me to this place and locked me in a room, and now you’re asking me why I’m upset? What kind of man does that? What kind of monster are you?”
Still nothing. No reaction, no explanation, and no sign he feels even a flicker of remorse for what he’s done to me. There’s something deeply wrong with this man.
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly aware I’m still wearing the black dress from the club. It feels like a costume now, a reminder of the life I had before this nightmare began. “I want to go home.”
“Where is home, Irina?”
The way he keeps using that name makes my skin crawl. “My name is Sabrina. Sabrina Clyde. I live in an apartment on Maple Street with my roommate, Jessica. I work at Haus Modesto serving drinks to people like you who think their money makes them untouchable.”
“People like me?”
I sneer. “Rich. Entitled. Used to getting whatever you want no matter who gets hurt in the process.”
That gets a reaction, finally. Not anger or defensiveness, but something that might be amusement flickering in those handsome gray eyes. “Is that what you think I am?”
“You kidnapped me because I look like a photo. That’s insane.”
He pushes away from the door and moves closer, and I instinctively back toward the windows. He stops when he reaches the coffee table, close enough that I can see the small scar that cuts through his left eyebrow and smell the expensive cologne he wears. “Tell me about your mother,” he says quietly.
I stare at him in disbelief. “Are you serious? You want to ask me the same questions again?”
“I’ll ask them as many times as it takes to be satisfied they’re true.”
“Or until you’ve convinced yourself I’m Irina,” I counter, crossing my arms. “No matter what I say, you’re going to keep pushing until you hear what you want to hear. Honestly, you’re obsessed with that woman.”
“I am,” he replies flatly.
I groan. “Well, I hope you don’t have a girlfriend or wife or anything because she’d be terribly jealous of how much you talk about Irina.”
He doesn’t deny it, which somehow makes everything worse. He just uses the same dispassionate tone and says, “Your mother. Tell me about her.”
I don’t want to talk about my mother with this man. I don’t want to share anything personal with someone who’s holding me prisoner, but there’s something in his voice, a gentleness that wasn’t there before, that makes me answer despite myself.
“She died three years ago. Cancer.”
“What kind of cancer?”
“Stomach. It took two years to kill her, and every day of those two years was agony.” Tears sting my eyes, and I blink them back furiously. I won’t cry in front of him. I won’t give him the satisfaction.
“You took care of her.”
It’s not a question, especially since he knows my answer from the last round of questions, but I nod anyway. “Someone had to. My father certainly wasn’t going to do it.”
“Where is your father now?”
I tense, gnashing my teeth as instinctive anger floods me, directed purely at my father. “Living his best life with his new family. He has money, you know. Plenty of money. He just didn’t want to spend it on us.”
He’s quiet for a moment, processing this information. “The medical bills.”
“Twelve thousand dollars and counting. The insurance company decided three years after the fact that her pain medication wasn’t necessary.” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Apparently, dying of cancer doesn’t qualify as sufficient justification for morphine.”
“So you work at the club to pay off debt that isn’t legally yours.” He summarizes my previous answer.
“It was my mother’s debt, which makes it mine.” I meet his stare directly, refusing to look away. “That’s what decent people do. They take care of the people they love, even after they’re gone.”
Something flickers across his face, too quickly for me to identify. Pain, maybe. Or recognition. “And Irina Volkov? You’re certain you’ve never heard that name before?”
I glare at him. “I’m certain. I would remember if I met someone who looked like me. I don’t know her and didn’t know she was a missing person until you told me.”
“Missing person.” He repeats the words slowly, like he’s testing how they sound. “Is that what you think she is?”
I let out a sound of frustration. “I don’t know what she is. I only know what you told me. She disappeared ten years ago with information that got your brother killed.”
“My brother.” His tone sharpens. “What do you think happened to my brother?”
The question feels like a trap, but I answer anyway. “How the fuck should I know? I’d guess he’s dead. I think someone killed him, and you blame this Irina woman for it.”
“And what do you think I plan to do when I find her?”
The temperature in the room seems to drop ten degrees. “I think you plan to kill her.” I shiver as I say the words.
He doesn’t confirm or deny it. He just watches me, and I realize I’m standing in a room with a man who’s killed before and will kill again. The knowledge sits in my stomach like a stone. “Are you going to kill me?” The question comes out softly.
He’s quiet for so long that I start to think he’s not going to answer. When he finally speaks, his voice is soft and controlled. “I’m going to decide what to do with you once I’m sure you’re not a threat.”
I want to rage at him, but fear keeps me more subservient. I sound meeker than I’d like when I say, “I’m not a threat to anyone. I serve drinks for a living.”
“People who serve drinks hear things. See things. Remember things.”
I moisten my dry lips. “I don’t know anything. I don’t listen to those kinds of things.”
His smile lacks genuine amusement. “Maybe, or maybe you deal in the kinds of things that get people killed.”
The words linger, and I press my back against the window, as far from him as I can get in the confines of the room. Desperation seizes me, and I remember from a self-defense class that I need to humanize myself to an attacker. He already knows everything about me, but I don’t know anything about him. “What’s your name?”
He doesn’t answer.
“If you’re going to hold me prisoner, the least you can do is tell me your name.”
“No.”
I frown. “Why not?”
“Because names have power. Because once you know who I am, everything changes.”
“Everything’s already changed. You kidnapped me. You brought me here. You’re threatening to kill me if you decide I’m a threat.” My voice rises again, stress and exhaustion making it harder to control my emotions. “How exactly could things get worse?”
“Knowing who I am might mean I can’t let you go if you aren’t Irina.” With those stark words, he moves toward the door, and our conversation is apparently over. “Get some rest. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
“Wait.” I take a step toward him, desperation making me bold. “How long are you going to keep me here?”
He pauses with his hand on the door handle. “As long as it takes.”
“As long as what takes?”
“As long as it takes for me to decide whether you’re telling the truth.”
I sigh in vexation. “I am telling the truth. I’ve been telling the truth since the moment I woke up in your SUV.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about.” The words aren’t at all reassuring when delivered in that disconnected way. He opens the door, and a second later, the door closes behind him with a click, leaving me alone again. This time, the silence feels different. Heavier. More final.
I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor once more and stare at the camera in the corner. Somewhere in this building, he’s probably watching me fall apart. Studying my reactions, looking for cracks in my story, or waiting for me to slip up and reveal whatever he thinks I’m hiding.
There’s nothing to reveal. I have no secret identity, no hidden agenda, and no information about missing women or dead brothers or dangerous secrets. The problem is, he doesn’t believe me. If he continues to disbelieve me, if he decides I’m lying about who I am, he’ll kill me for being Irina.
If I convince him of the truth, that I’m Sabrina, not Irina, I’m no longer a hostage. Then I’m a loose end. If he decides I know too much about his operation, this beautiful room will become my tomb.
I need to get out of here and soon before he makes his decision and I become a problem that needs to be eliminated. Right now, being Irina or Sabrina seems likely to lead to certain doom.
I stand up and walk to the windows, pressing my palms against the bulletproof glass. Jessie is probably wondering where I am. Maya might have noticed that I never came back from my break. Someone might be looking for me, but they’ll never think to look here.
I’m on my own.
The thought should terrify me, but instead, it makes something hard and determined settle in my chest. I’ve been on my own before. I survived my parents’ divorce, my father’s abandonment, my mother’s illness and death, and the financial catastrophe that followed. I’ve been fighting to survive since I was a child.
I can fight now.
I just need to be smart about it. I need to watch and listen and learn everything I can about this place and the people who run it. I need to find weaknesses, opportunities, and ways to turn their own security measures against them. I need to do it before my captor decides the safest thing to do is make sure I never leave this room alive.
The camera in the corner is still watching, recording everything I do and say. Let it watch. Let him see I’m not giving up, and I’m not the kind of woman who breaks easily.
Let him see I’m going to fight.
