Kneeling down in front of her, I pressed the rag over her mouth and nose. Her eyes flew open. She gasped, breathing in as her hands flew up to fight the pressure of my hand over her mouth.

“I’m sorry, baby, just relax. I’m not going to hurt you,” I whispered softly in her ear. Her resistance began to weaken as the chloroform took effect. Within a minute, she was limp in my arms. Carefully, I wrapped her in a blanket and carried her outside, laying her down on the back seat. I was so high on adrenaline I felt like my veins were going to explode.

Honestly? I had no fucking idea what I was doing. I mean, kidnapping? I groaned and started the car. Leeta could do so much better than me. All I had to offer her was my love, and I’d managed to screw that up with all of this.

Did I expect her to forgive me? No, but if I could do over the past few months, I couldn’t see another way. I’d do it all over again, for Anna.

If that made me an asshole, then I’d live with it. Yet I still hoped like hell she would somehow find a way to understand that there was no choice here.

I’d had to do this.

Chapter Eleven

Leeta

Fuck, my head. I forced open an eyelid, and nearly vomited as the light from a passing streetlight shot through me. I felt . . . weird. Where the hell was I? I felt beside me, my fingers brushing past soft leather and the strap of a seatbelt.

I lifted my head, Mace slowly coming into focus in the driver’s seat. He looked tense, his fingers curled so tightly around the wheel that his knuckles were white. I struggled to sit up. Why was I in the back? And why did I feel like I’d just sculled a whole bottle of vodka?

Next to me on the seat lay a rag. Picking it up, I screwed up my nose at the filthy strip of what I thought used to be a bedsheet. Then I saw the bottle lying next to it. I reached for it, sure my eyes were playing tricks on me.

"Did you really just chloroform me?" I yelled, smashing my fists against the side window. I tried opening the door. Nothing. Damn childproof locks.

"I had to do something. You wouldn’t listen," he replied quietly, not taking his eyes off the road.

"So you chloroformed me?" I gasped, incredulous.

"You're taking this way out of proportion, Leets. Calm the fuck down."

“Stop the car right now, Mace, or I swear to God . . .” My voice trailed off. I wouldn’t do shit, and he knew it.

“What? What are you gonna do—call the police?” He laughed, his dark eyes levelling on me through the rear-vision mirror. “You’re not going anywhere. Not yet. Not until you hear me out.”

What do I do now? I could force my way into the front and risk us having an accident, or I could let him do whatever the hell it was he had planned. He wouldn’t hurt me . . . would he?

My heart pounded as the videos ran through my head. Who knows what he was capable of? I could kid myself all I liked that it wasn’t him. But it all matched. The tattoos along his arm and above the nipple. God, even the tiny scar below his neck.

“You can’t make me listen to you,” I muttered, scowling out of the window into the darkness.

He snorted. “You’re right, but I can keep you until you give in. Who do you think is going to win that, huh?”

“You’re an asshole.”

He sighed. “I will explain everything, Leets, I promise. I just need to make sure you’re going to hear me out.”

Hear him out? And the best way he could see to achieve that was to drug and kidnap me? Way to go, Mace, you top the class on the bright idea stakes.

I slumped back down in the seat, determined not to respond. Yes, I was being childish, but I was so pissed off and I wanted him to know it. I'd defended him to my family and taken shit from my friends. Now, for the first time in our relationship I was wondering if they had been right all along.

Nobody’s perfect, but some things just can't be forgiven . . . can they?

#

“So, what’s your plan?” I asked, my voice cool. “Keep me tied up here forever?”

I tried again to free myself from the constraints holding me to the chair I was sitting on. I glanced around. We were in a motel, that much was obvious.

Where? I had no fucking idea.

He shot me a look and then squeezed his eyes shut, his hands clasped behind his head. It was like he had no fucking idea what to say or do. And it was a good thing, too, because I wasn’t in the mood to hear his bullshit.

He finally stopped pacing and crouched down in front of me. I winced as he placed his hands on my knees. I jumped, for the first time not sure what he was capable of. Flashbacks of my relationship with Ben filled my head.

“Are you scared of me?” He looked crestfallen as he stared at me, his eyes red. Defeated. He slouched back on his shoes, his shoulders slumped forward.

I felt sorry for him. For the tiniest moment, I really did.

He had kidnapped me after cheating on me, and I felt sorry for him? What the hell was my problem?

It’s those eyes.

Those damn eyes, full of so much emotion; I couldn’t look at them and not feel something. The betrayal hurt me more than anything else at the moment, which was ridiculous. He was a rapist, and I was upset because he’d cheated on me? But I couldn’t help it. I’d thought we had something.

I just couldn’t understand where this had come from. I ran over things in my mind—times when we’d been together. Had there been things I should’ve been looking out for? Could I have somehow prevented this? Was it something I’d done . . . or not done that had made him want to go elsewhere?

Snap out of it, Leeta. You will not blame yourself because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.

“Yes, I’m scared of you, Mace. What do you expect?”

He knew I knew. There was no point pretending. Tears stung my eyes. I closed them, refusing to display my devastation in front of him. He didn’t deserve my tears.

“Leet, you gotta know, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.”

“Right, so you thought fucking other women was a great way to show me that? Flowers would’ve been a better way to go,” I shot back. “Were they even aware you were fucking them? Because they looked pretty knocked out to me.”

He cursed and stood up, walking over to the armchair. I jumped as he kicked it, repeatedly. This side of him—this anger—was so new to me. It scared me.

“No matter what I say, it’s just not going to be good enough, is it?”

“Excuse me?” I bellowed. The nerve of him! “You think you have a plausible explanation for this? You think I’m being unreasonable—this from the guy who kidnapped me?” I shook my head, my eyes narrowing at him. “You have no idea what the word even means.”

He groaned and sat forward, placing his head in his hands. “I don’t know what I can say to you without getting you involved in this mess, so right now, I’m going to say nothing.” He cursed again and stood up. “I’ll be back soon.”

Huh? I watched, open-mouthed, as he headed for the door. He was leaving me here, just like that?

“Mace Jordan, if you don’t get back here and untie me I am going to slice your balls off and feed them to my neighbour’s dog,” I growled, wrestling with myself in my chair as the ropes burned into my skin.

Storming back over to me, he grabbed me by the shoulders, forcing me to look at him.

“You hate me right now, and I get that, but please, Leeta, if the last few months meant anything to you, give me the chance to explain things when I know it’s safe. Can you give me that?”

I shut my mouth.

The urgency in his voice, the aggressiveness in his eyes told me to just shut up. I had no reason to believe him, but something inside me refused to let go of the tiny glimmer of hope I was clinging to.