The startled woman’s eyes glazed over with fear and Mace stepped between us, forcing me to release her. His voice was firm, but he didn’t put his hands on the woman.
“The two men that were in there” – he pointed to the conference room – “where are they?”
“Um…they went to lunch, I think.”
“Lunch?” Mace repeated.
“Yeah. I went in there to ask Mr. Sadorsky if he wanted me to order him and Mr. Nichols something and he told me no.”
“Mr. Nichols, did he look hurt or upset?”
“No,” she stammered. “But I only saw him for a second because I spoke to Mr. Sadorsky at the door, not in the room.”
My skin felt like it was crawling as I grabbed my phone from Mace’s hand. I dialed Seth’s number but there was no answer. I hit another speed dial and tried not to scream out my frustration as it rang three times before a woman’s voice finally answered.
“Daisy, get me a GPS location on Seth Nichols’s phone right now.”
To her credit, Daisy didn’t ask me why or balk at the fury in my voice.
“His number?” she simply asked and when I gave it to her, I heard her typing. It took several long seconds before she gave me the information. I hung up on her and looked at Mace.
“He’s still in the building.”
Since we’d both been covering the main entry and exit, I strode to the fire door and shoved against it. Raw panic settled in my gut when the alarm failed to sound. And for the second time in my life, I completely froze.
Mace snatched the phone out of my hand and dialed. I instantly heard Seth’s ringtone but I knew in my gut that it wouldn’t be that easy. We followed the sound down several flights of stairs, but when I saw the phone in front of the door that led to the parking garage, I couldn’t stop the anguished cry that tore free of my lips.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Seth
The first thing I noticed when I came to was the pounding in my head. It hurt like hell, but it was bearable. What wasn’t bearable were my hands.
Because they were tied behind my back.
I tried not to panic as I struggled to get my bearings, but the coppery taste of blood in my mouth had me desperately trying to yank my hands free. I could feel that whatever I was tied up with was plastic and there was absolutely no give to it. I forced my eyes open and cried out when everything remained cloaked in darkness.
“Shut the fuck up!” a sharp voice yelled a second before someone kicked me in the stomach. I was already laying on my side, so the blow didn’t knock me down, but the pain did have me folding in on myself. My sobs were muffled because of something that was stuffed in my mouth and tied around my head. My brain flashed back to the night I’d been in nearly this same position as masked men beat my father and mother before turning on me. The only difference was that I didn’t have something over my head like I did now. The smooth material had me thinking it might be a pillowcase.
I tried to bring up my most recent memory, but the only thing that came to me was sitting in the meeting sending Ronan suggestive texts. Stan had caught me staring at my phone on more than one occasion as the men we’d been meeting with spoke and he’d finally nudged me and sent me a dirty look when I couldn’t hide the grin on my face as I imagined the expression on Ronan’s face when he saw my suggestion that he bend me over the couch as soon as we got back to the hotel.
Stan.
An image of Stan pressing a gun to my side hit me hard and then everything came flooding back in a rush.
After the meeting had ended, Stan and I had remained in the conference room to wrap up and I’d told him that I’d already made the decision not to pursue the sale of the company or even discuss the possibility of a merger. The bottom line was that I wanted to run my father’s company myself. And the merger hadn’t been an option when I’d learned about all the safety and equal rights complaints our competitor was being investigated for.
I’d known Stan would be upset with me and I’d allowed him a few minutes to try and talk me out of it. We’d been interrupted by the receptionist knocking on the conference room door, but I hadn’t heard what she’d said to Stan. Once Stan had returned to the table, he’d ripped into me about how I was making a mistake and that our company would go under if I didn’t reconsider. But I’d been adamant and he’d finally relented. When we’d gotten up to leave, he’d told me that Ronan had asked the receptionist to have me and Stan meet him and Mace downstairs in the parking garage where they had the car waiting. I hadn’t even considered questioning the change, nor had I thought it strange when Stan told me we could take the stairs because the fire alarm wasn’t working.