Illusion (Swept Away 1)

“What do you mean by that?” I whispered back at him, my stomach jumping as his fingers brushed my wet hair away from my face.

“Nothing.” He shook his head. “I’m just saying, I could do what I wanted to you right now, but all I’m doing is saving you. I hope you’ll trust me after this.”

“Untie me and I’ll trust you.” I nodded, unblinking.

“Can I get a kiss as well?” His eyes sparkled as his lips came dangerously close to mine.

“What?” I closed my eyes and waited to feel his lips on mine.

“Open your eyes, Bianca.” He whispered against my lips. I could feel his breath gliding over my skin as I opened my eyes slowly. I swallowed hard as I stared up at him. “We’re going to go down again now.” He looked toward the water and then back up at me.

“Fine.” I tried not to feel disappointed.

“Okay, I’m going to pull you down by your arms. Try not to move around too much.”

“I can’t really stop that.”

“Just try.” His voice was stern, and I rolled my eyes. It was then that I noticed the red on the sides of his wrists.

“My God, what happened to your arms?” I exclaimed, my eyes widening as I realized that he had scraped his skin off.

“I bumped into a sharp rock.” He grinned. “Several times.”

“Shit.” I bit my lower lip. “That must have hurt.”

“It’s fine, but now you know why I’m offering to help you.”

“Yeah, don’t scratch up my wrists, please.” I gave him a weak smile and tried not to stare at his bloody wrists.

If he had been able to scrape that much skin off his wrists in order to get free, he had to be pretty pain resistant. That meant if push came to shove, I’d have to think of a better way to escape from him than just kicking him in the nuts.

“I’ll do what I can. Now hold on. Take a big gulp of air.” He winked at me, and before I knew what was happening, we were going underwater again.

This time, Jakob held on to my arms as we went under. He gripped my wrists, and I felt him moving my hands back and forth carefully and quickly against the rock. I closed my eyes as the rock grated against the inside of my wrist. I was not going to cry. I was not going to feel queasy. I felt oddly bereft not having the warmth of Jakob behind me.

I tried to think of other things as Jakob worked on getting the rope away from my wrists. I thought back to the previous day. I’d been so excited to finally tell Rosie about the box I’d found in my dad’s apartment after he’d died. It had been a year since my father had passed away, and I’d found his letter. I wished now that I had told her what I’d found back in the beginning. I also wished more than anything that I had told her on the phone about the papers I was giving her for safekeeping. I could only hope she noticed the plastic bag full of papers in her bag and was curious enough to read them. If she read them, she would know that there was more to Bradley Corporation then meets the eye. She’d know that it was my father’s inventions that had made the company billions of dollars. She’d know that my father had been about to leave the company and take his patents with him and then my mother had died. I knew that couldn’t have been a coincidence as soon as I saw the dates. I hadn’t wanted to say anything to Rosie over the phone, because I’d been scared my phone was being tapped. It was irrational, but after the incident with the police officer, I’d no longer felt safe in my own home. I knew the Bradleys were onto me. I knew because I’d told David part of the reason I wanted to know more about his company. I wanted the Bradleys to know that I knew something. I wanted them to know because that was part of my plan. In war, the winner wasn’t the army that attacked without the other side knowing, it was the army that attacked and leaked only the information they wanted the other side to know. David knew that I wanted more information on my father’s patents because I had some questions after his death. He didn’t know that I thought his father had something to do with my mother’s death. And he didn’t know that if my father’s papers were correct, and my research was valid, I was actually a majority shareholder in the corporation. The only problem I had was that I was playing a game of cat and mouse with the kitten. David was not the kingpin at Bradley Corporation; his brother, Mattias, was. Mattias was the one I suspected of sending the notes and of orchestrating this kidnapping. He wanted to send me a message to stop investigating. He wanted to scare me. The only question now revolved around Jakob. I had no idea who he was and what role he played in this puzzle.

As Jakob moved my hands back and forth, I thought about how easy it would be for him to drown me. If he worked for Mattias, it would be easy for him to keep me quiet, though I had to believe that this wasn’t the case, I tried to turn my mind to more positive thoughts, as I didn’t want sadness and paranoia to permeate my mind. There was one fact that I knew to be true. Whoever Jakob was, he wasn’t anyone’s henchman. He was too commanding, too direct, too strong. He was a man that gave orders. He didn’t take them.

Jakob was the sort of man I thought my father must have been like before my mother died. As Jakob moved my hands back and forth, I tried to ignore the small jabs of pain. They didn’t even match up to the heartache I felt every day. I’d grown up with my single father since I was five years old. My dad had never remarried. It was as if a part of him had died with my mother. He never spoke of the pain, but the light came on in his eyes only when he spoke of her. When I had read my father’s letter, I’d been in disbelief, and then anger. I’d wanted to seek vengeance for my father, but that quickly changed to my wanting to seek out the truth. I wanted to find out what really happened to my mother the day that she died. That accident hadn’t just killed my mother, it had killed my father inside as well. I had no idea what I was going to do once I found out the truth. I figured that I would deal with that once I knew what the truth actually was.