“Where are you taking me?” I swallowed.
“Back to your apartment.”
My jaw hinged open, but I couldn’t force any words over my dry tongue.
He gestured for me to move, and I fell into line, heels jarring into the pristine floor while his hand branded my lower back. My entire body was trembling by the time we reached the exit, and for a split second, I felt his eyes on my face. I couldn’t return his gaze, but I wondered if he was sorry for whatever he was about to do.
Without hesitation, he hooked a finger under the strap of my clutch and removed it from me. Fishing around for the claim ticket, he handed it to the valet once we were on the curb and then tucked the bag inside his leather vest. Further proof this was not a random incident. He knew I was here. He knew that I’d turned over my car to the valet on arrival, and the ticket was in my bag.
My brain tried to formulate a question, but before I could, the driver returned with my car, opening the passenger door for me first. I looked at the baby-faced employee, silently pleading for help, but his eyes didn’t move from my boobs. And that was how I ended up strapped in beside my abductor without a word or a fight. He looked even larger cramped into the driver’s seat of my tiny sports car, but he handled it with ease.
I didn’t give him directions. He knew exactly where to go. All I could do was stare out the window, my legs a jittery mess against the leather seat. Just three possible scenarios had caused this chain of events to unfold, and none of them were good.
“Do you have a name?” My hands twisted together in my lap as I asked.
The bearded stranger glanced at me across the small space of my front seat, pinching his eyebrows together slightly. That small action told me he had to think about it, and that was a good indication he was working for someone else. I knew I hadn’t ever conned him, and while there was a possibility Gypsy had, he wasn’t the type she usually went for either.
“You can call me Ace,” he grunted.
The gulf between us fell silent and remained that way until he pulled into my designated parking space at the apartment. I glanced at the spot where Gypsy’s car should be, but it was gone. It triggered a response in me that I hadn’t felt since I was a girl. My sister was the only thing I had in this world. I couldn’t lose her.
Ace got out of the car and left me to trail him up the stairs. I contemplated the possibility that he didn’t even know where Gypsy was. Maybe this had all been a lie designed to lure me back to the apartment alone.
The muscles in his shoulders flexed with every step he took, thick and menacing. I considered darting in the opposite direction. There was no way I could fight him off, so once we crossed that threshold, I was at his mercy. He had my Taser and the pepper spray I carried in my purse. I had nothing. But the thought of Gypsy propelled me forward, as he knew it would.
Ace used a key on his own ring to unlock our front door, and I stared at him in disbelief as he gestured me inside.
“Who the hell are you?” I demanded.
“I’ll tell you when you get your ass inside and sit down.”
My eyes narrowed, and I felt the first spark of rage simmering in my gut. That wasn’t a good sign of things to come. I needed to stay calm, and I needed to focus on Gypsy. If I lost control, there was no telling what would happen.
I tottered forward on unsteady heels, my legs suddenly boneless and weak. Somehow, I made it to the couch, and Ace shut the door behind him. He sat down beside me, leaving enough distance to give me hope that he wasn’t a physical threat. At least not yet.
My clutch clattered onto the side table as he dragged an envelope from the pocket of his vest, forking it over to me.
“What is this?” I squeezed the paper between my fingers, noting the thickness.
He leaned back and kicked his boot up onto the opposite thigh with a quietude that cemented my suspicions that this was just a job to him. One way or the other, he didn’t care. He wasn’t invested in my feelings or my humanity. He was here to perform a service for someone, and I needed to know exactly who that was.
Peeling back the metal prongs that held the seal in place, I dumped the contents of the envelope onto the coffee table. A choice I regretted once my hand moved over the photographs, spreading them apart. They were pictures of me. At clubs, casinos, hotels… pretty much anywhere I’d been over the course of the last few months. And some of them weren’t pretty. There was evidence of me stealing. Still shots of me cleaning out wallets, safes, and the like. I didn’t know how he’d even snapped them, but I could only conclude I must have been set up somehow. It was exactly what I’d feared, but that wasn’t even the worst of it.