“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m fine. I’m going to call for help,” she says.
“You aren’t calling nobody! Not until she fixes everything!” Eric glares at me. “Because of you, I can’t get an internship anywhere! You’re going to tell everyone it was a misunderstanding and get me a position at the Pryce Family Foundation.”
Ha! I don’t think so! “No! There was no misunderstanding. You’re just a jerk! You wouldn’t fit in at the foundation.”
His face turns red with rage. He starts toward me.
“Okay, that’s enough.” A couple of men in tank tops step between me and Eric, forcing him to back off. Maybe chivalry isn’t dead. “You heard the
lady. She’s got nothing to say to you, punk.” One of them shoves Eric in the chest, causing him to stumble back.
Both men are huge, shoulders and biceps bulging. You can hardly see their necks, and their upper bodies are covered in tattoos. One has a couple of thick gold rings on his right hand.
“Thank you,” I say quickly, putting a hand on the one closest to me. Eric’s made enough of a scene, plus he probably doesn’t want to face two huge guys on his own. But I don’t want a physical altercation. It could get these men into trouble.
“You okay?” the one without the rings asks.
“Yes, thank you. I’m fine.”
“Cool.” The man grabs me by the upper arm as his partner opens the door to a car that’s sitting at the curb. No Rings pushes me roughly inside. I try to grab on to the doorframe or something, but my hands slip off the metal. I try to go out the other side, but No Rings keeps hold of me, and before I can jump out, Rings has come around and gotten in. Now they’re on either side of me.
Trapped!
“No! Stop!” I switch directions and try to climb over No Rings to escape. But Rings yanks me back into the center of the seat, his hand carelessly rough.
They slam the doors, the light changes to green and the vehicle takes off, throwing me into the seatback.
“What are you doing?” Terror and confusion thrum in my veins, my blood already chilling. How can these guys go from nice to bad so fast?
“Just doin’ a job,” the driver says with a smile.
“Who hired you?” I ask, praying it’s some inexplicably weird method Tolyan decided to use without telling me. But I already know deep inside that this kind of roughness isn’t his MO. He prefers to be more elegant and efficient—and he doesn’t leave witnesses.
This kind of blatant kidnapping…
It’s no hit-and-run, but that makes my situation even scarier. I have no clue what to expect, what Roy’s going to do to make me suffer before he kills me, but he isn’t kidnapping me to say hello. My mouth dries as a harsh denial surges in my gut. I curl my cold hands into fists. But they aren’t strong enough to hurt either of the men next to me.
I can see the driver’s smirk in the rearview mirror. “Roy says hi.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Tolyan
My phone rings. Rhonda. The lunch break isn’t over yet, and she went out with the little fawn.
So Roy has finally made his move.
“Tolyan,” I answer.
“Oh my God!” She sounds like she’s been crying. Her breathing is staccato with panicked hitches. Is she going to be able to talk coherently?
Consoling an emotionally unstable woman isn’t my forte. Besides, I have a job to do.
“Somebody kidnapped Angelika!” she shrieks.
I wince at the volume. “Calm down. Did you call 911?”