Aria's POV
I was falling.
Thirty floors of empty air beneath me. Wind screaming in my ears. Damien's arm locked around my waist like a steel band.
I couldn't even scream. Terror had frozen my throat completely.
Then something jerked us violently sideways. Not down—sideways.
A rope. Damien had attached a rope to his belt. We swung toward the building next door, glass and concrete blurring past my face.
We crashed through a window on the twenty-fifth floor of the adjacent building. I hit the ground hard, knocking all the air from my lungs. Glass cut into my palms. Pain exploded through my shoulder.
Damien was already up, grabbing my arm and hauling me to my feet. "Move!"
I stumbled forward, barely able to think. We were in an office building. Empty cubicles stretched out in rows. Emergency lights cast everything in red.
"Where are we going?" I gasped.
"Quiet." He pressed a gun against my spine, shoving me forward. "One sound and I'll shoot you in the kidney. You'll live long enough to suffer, but you'll wish you hadn't."
We ran through the office building to a service elevator. Damien pressed the button for the basement. The whole time, that gun stayed pressed against my back.
My mind raced. Kade had seen Damien drag me out the window. He'd come after me. Marcus and his team would track us.
But Damien had planned this. The rope. The building next door. He'd known exactly what he was doing.
"You can't run forever," I said, finding my voice. "Kade will find me."
Damien laughed. "Kade Thornfield. The boy who thinks he's smarter than me. He's been playing detective for months, gathering evidence, thinking I didn't notice."
"He was going to take you down."
"Was he?" Damien's smile was cruel. "I've been feeding him fake evidence for weeks. Everything he gave the feds is useless. Made-up transactions, falsified records, actors playing my associates. By the time they figure it out, I'll be long gone."
My stomach dropped. Kade's entire case was fake? All those months of work, for nothing?
"Why tell me this?" I asked.
"Because you need to understand something, Isabella." Damien grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him. "I always win. Three years ago, you thought you could escape by testifying. Look how that turned out. And now, your stepbrother thought he could save you. He can't. Nobody can."
The elevator reached the basement. Damien pushed me out into a parking garage. A black van waited, engine running.
"Get in," he ordered.
I had two choices: get in the van and disappear forever, or fight and probably get shot.
I chose fight.
I spun around and slammed my elbow into Damien's nose. He cursed, stumbling backward. I ran.
Not toward the exit—that's what he'd expect. Instead, I ran deeper into the garage, between parked cars, looking for somewhere to hide.
"You stupid girl!" Damien shouted behind me. "You can't hide from me!"
A gunshot rang out. The bullet hit a car window beside my head, glass exploding.
I screamed and dove behind a concrete pillar. My hands were bleeding from the glass earlier, my shoulder throbbed, and I was wearing nothing but shorts and an oversized shirt. No phone. No weapon. No way to call for help.
I was going to die here.
"Isabella," Damien called out, his voice echoing through the garage. "Listen carefully. You have two options. Come out now, and I'll make your death quick. Keep hiding, and I'll torture you for days before I kill you. Your choice."
I pressed my hand over my mouth to muffle my sobbing. Think, Aria. Think!
The emergency fire alarm. If I could reach it, pull it, the whole building would evacuate. Police would come. Damien couldn't take me with that many witnesses.
The alarm was twenty feet away, mounted on the wall near the elevator.
I'd have to run across open space to reach it.
"I'm getting impatient, Isabella," Damien sang out. "Ten seconds. Then I start shooting randomly. Nine... eight..."
I ran.
Another gunshot. The bullet missed me by inches, hitting the wall and sending concrete chips flying. I grabbed the fire alarm handle and yanked down with all my strength.
Nothing happened.
The alarm was disabled. Of course it was. Damien had planned everything.
"Clever," Damien said, right behind me. "But not clever enough."
He grabbed my hair and slammed my head against the wall. Stars exploded across my vision. My knees buckled.
"Enough games," Damien hissed. He dragged me toward the van. "You're coming with me. And we're going to have a very long conversation about what happens to people who cross me."
I tried to fight, but my head was spinning. Blood dripped into my eyes. I couldn't focus.
He threw me into the back of the van. I hit the metal floor hard, gasping in pain.
"Drive," Damien ordered someone in the front seat.
The van doors slammed shut, locking me in darkness.
We started moving.
I was being kidnapped. Really, truly kidnapped. And nobody knew where I was.
I curled into a ball on the floor of the van, trying not to panic. Kade would come. He had to come. He'd promised to protect me.
But what if he couldn't find me? What if Damien's plan was too good?
The van drove for what felt like hours but was probably only twenty minutes. When it finally stopped, Damien opened the back doors.
"Welcome to your new home," he said cheerfully.
He dragged me out. We were at a warehouse by the water. I could smell the ocean, hear seagulls crying. Red Hook, like the gunman had said.
Inside the warehouse, it was cold and empty except for a metal chair bolted to the floor in the center of the room.
"Sit," Damien ordered.
When I didn't move fast enough, he shoved me. I collapsed into the chair. He pulled out zip ties and bound my wrists to the armrests, my ankles to the chair legs.
"There," he said, stepping back to admire his work. "Perfect."
"Kade will find me," I said, trying to sound brave. "He'll kill you."
"Let him try." Damien pulled out his phone and started recording a video. He pointed the camera at me. "Say hello to Kade, Isabella."
I turned my face away.
Damien grabbed my jaw and forced me to look at the camera. "I said, say hello."
"Go to hell," I spat.
He slapped me hard across the face. My ear rang, and I tasted blood.
"We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Damien said calmly. "Now. Tell Kade that you're safe. For now. But if he wants to see you alive again, he needs to bring me something."
"I won't—"
Another slap, harder this time. My vision blurred with tears.
"Tell him," Damien ordered, "that he has twenty-four hours to bring me the real evidence. Not the fake stuff I fed him. The actual recordings, the actual proof. If he doesn't..." He pulled out a knife and pressed it against my throat. "Well, you can imagine what happens."
He stopped recording and smiled at his phone. "Perfect. One little video, and your boyfriend will come running. Then I'll have you both."
He sent the video and pocketed his phone.
"Now we wait," Damien said. He pulled up another chair and sat across from me. "While we do, why don't you tell me everything you remember from three years ago? Every detail of what you saw. Who you told. What evidence you gave the prosecutor."
"I won't tell you anything."
"You will." He pulled out the knife again, testing the blade with his thumb. "Everyone talks eventually. It's just a matter of how much pain it takes."
He leaned forward, the knife catching the dim light.
"Let's find out how brave you really are, Isabella."