It’s not what you think. Ian’s words echoed in her mind.

Bella hadn’t moved from the blow-up mattress in the master bedroom. After she got home the previous day, she walked past the contractors and up to the room then curled up in a ball and cried. The last time she’d cried that hard was when she lost her mom to cancer. She’d heard the workers downstairs, but she couldn’t bring herself to face anyone.

Luckily, today she would be home alone because the contractors didn’t work on Sundays. Her head hurt from crying all night, and her eyes felt tender. Bella couldn’t understand how Ian could betray her. He’d made her laugh, and she felt protected with him, even though sometimes his overprotectiveness had pissed her off.

Bella turned on her phone. Message after message appeared on the screen. She couldn’t get herself to read them yet. She went to the bathroom and took a shower. She could hear another ding coming through. It was time to face the world.

Ian: Bella, I need to know you made it back.

Ian: Bella, please call.

Ian: I drove by, and I know you are back safe.

That made him sound like a stalker.

Ian: I’m not giving up, Bella.

Ian: I had Tex look into your past when you were getting attacked. I tried to figure out who was after you. It wasn’t for my reading enjoyment.

Could she believe him? Had he done it to help find whoever was after her? It made more sense than him looking into her background because he was suspicious about her.

Ava: Hey, girl, I want all the deets.

Ian: Good night, Bella.

Ava: You better call me.

Bella wasn’t quite ready to forgive Ian. She picked up the phone and dialed Ava’s number.

Her friend answered on the second ring. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for twenty-four hours. What did he do, lock you in a room?”

“Well, hello to you too.”

“I want deets, woman. Did you have fun?”

Bella picked at her leggings and wondered how much she should tell her friend. She needed someone to tell her problems to. “It started out amazing. The bat thing was really cool, and then we went to a jazz bar and spent the rest of the night in bed.”

“I hear sadness in your voice. Was he that bad in bed?”

The tears started to leak from Bella’s eyes. “No, he was amazing. But the next morning, he received a text.”

“From a girlfriend?” Ava shouted.

“No, from some guy with an attachment that held my whole life. He had me investigated, Ava, down to my high school GPA.”

When Ava didn't answer right away, Bella looked at the phone to make sure they were still connected.

“Did he tell you why?” Ava finally asked.

“At the time, I didn’t give him a chance. He invaded my privacy, and I thought he did it because he thought I knew what Mr. Ainsworth did.”

“I’ve met Ian a couple times. He doesn’t seem like the type of person to just invade your privacy.”

Bella let out a huff. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I am, but I also want what's best for you, and Ian made you happy.”

“I turned my phone off yesterday for a few hours. I figured I would have caved if he kept calling. I just turned it back on. And… he said he had someone look into my past when people were after me.”

Ava hummed on the other end. “Now, that sounds like him. When are you going to go apologize?”

“In a few hours. I want to work around the house first. I need a little more time to think.”

“Don’t think too long. Go have great makeup sex, and call me tomorrow so we can talk about plans to list the house.”

Ava was right. Ian looking into her past to protect her sounded more like him than looking into it because she’d done something wrong. The look of disappointment in his eyes had haunted her the night before when she’d tried to fall asleep, and she’d reached for her phone numerous times but hadn’t called him. Now she wished she had.

After hanging up with Ava, Bella walked downstairs to see what work had been completed the day before. She stopped dead when she came to the kitchen. Happy tears formed in her eyes. She’d ordered white cabinets to offset the dark wood counters, but what caught her eye was the new window above the sink, which looked out into the backyard. The added window brought natural light into the room. Bella had wanted to capture the essence of the Victorian home and add touches a chef would die for, so she’d also had a six-burner gas stove installed.

She ran her hands over the countertops and couldn’t help squealing with excitement. The house was close to being done. In the bathroom, the contractor had laid the white-marble tile, and the claw-foot tub sat against the far wall. White flooring contrasted perfectly with the light blue walls. Bella couldn’t help herself—she climbed into the tub to see how it felt.

Bella had brought contractors in to get the house done more quickly. She’d dipped further than she wanted into her savings, but if she could sell the house fast, it would work out. Ava had sent her comps for the area a few days ago, and Bella planned to make a huge profit on the house.

None of the other houses in the neighborhood had as much square footage as her Victorian home. She’d renovated both bathrooms and the kitchen. The other rooms had fresh paint and re-sanded hardwood floors. If the schedule stayed intact, she could list the house at the end of next week.

When she passed by the fireplace, an image of Ian helping her clean up the mess brought back a good memory. She had so many good memories of their time together over the past few weeks. Bella already ached to go back. She planned to listen to his side of the story, but she would make him wait it out. He didn’t need to know she’d caved within twenty-four hours of being mad.

A loud knock at the front door startled her. When she swung the door open, she expected to see Ian on the other side. Instead, a man and woman stood there. The man wore a dark suit. He was on the skinnier side and not much taller than her five-two frame. The woman towered over both of them. Her tight red dress fit her model figure.

“Hello. Can I help you?” Bella asked. She kept the door partially closed.

The woman was the first to speak. She seemed irritated and tapped her toes against the porch floor. “We would like to look at the house.”

Bella knew Ava had planned to send feelers out to other real estate agents. But she’d expected them to call, not show up and demand a showing, especially since the house still needed more work.

“Please excuse my partner. It been a long day. My name is Ryan Smith, and this is Tina Jones. We’ve been eyeing this house for a while for one of our clients, and we saw that it’s going on the market soon. We hoped if our client liked it to make a high offer and keep it off the market.”

Looking over their shoulders, Bella saw a red Maserati next to her car. It would be a dream come true if she’d already found a buyer for the house. The first person she thought she would want to tell was Ian. He would be proud of her. But he still needed to grovel before she completely forgave him.

“Please come in.”

Tina breezed by her with her high heels clicking across the hardwood. The woman needed an attitude adjustment, but if Bella sold the house, dealing with the bitch would be worth it.

They gathered in the living room, and Bella explained what she had changed and what she had kept original. She detailed how she’d kept the original Victorian mantel and updated the fireplace with a whitewash. The tour continued throughout the house and ended in the kitchen.

“Jesus Christ, how long are you going to keep up the charade?” Tina asked.

Everyone was quiet for a second before Ryan pulled out a gun and pointed it at Bella.

Fuck, she thought. This house will be the death of me. Two attempts on my life within a month. “Do you always point guns at someone when making an offer on a house?”

Tina tapped her fingers on the wood countertops. The sound echoed through the house. “We aren’t here to buy the house. We are here for you.”

Cold washed over Bella as she stared down the gun pointed at her. She reached for her phone in her back pocket, and it wasn’t there. Earlier, after talking to Ava, she’d left it in her bedroom.

“I don’t understand what you want from me. The house isn’t overpriced.” It was hard for Bella to keep her voice from shaking. She started to slowly walk backward toward the stairs. If she could make it to her room, everything would be okay.

“Stop.” Ryan’s hands shook.

Tina walked up next to him and pulled the gun from his hands. She looked as if she had done this a few times. “Cuff the bitch. We have a plane to catch, and she is wasting my time.”

If Bella had learned anything from her two classes in self-defense, it was never get caught, and run whenever possible. She should have kept up with the classes. Damn. As with all fitness classes, she’d started well the first week and stopped by the second.

“Please put your hands out.”

The fucker had actually said “please.” Tina rolled her eyes at Ryan, and her movement distracted him for a second. Bella used the opportunity to run toward the living room. She didn’t get more than three feet before the gun fired. The bullet missed her by a millimeter. Bella stopped in her tracks. There was no way she would outrun the gun. Ryan tackled her from behind, and she hit the floor with enough force to knock the wind out of her. Before she had time to fight back, he wrapped a zip tie around her hands.

Ryan and Tina shoved her out the front door. If the intruder hadn't pressed a gun to her spine, she would have tried to call out to the neighbors. Ryan popped the trunk when they neared the car.

“I’ll be good. Please don’t put me in there,” Bella said, but her begging landed on deaf ears.

Tina shoved her in with such force that Bella lost her footing and smacked her head on the side of the trunk. Darkness crept into her vision, and her head pounded. When the trunk door closed, she became terrified. Who were these people, and what did they want?

Bella closed her eyes for a couple of seconds and tried to get her nerves under control. Her head pounded from when she’d hit the side of the trunk, but she needed to power through the pain. It was hard to see inside the trunk. Bella remembered that most trunks had a lever to pop them open. She worked from one side to the other and felt the inside of the trunk. The lever wasn’t there.

Bella couldn’t hold the sob in any longer. She felt defeated. She let the tears run down her face. Was this how she would die—at the hands of two idiots?

No. She would fight. She used her foot to kick where the taillight was. If she could break the back taillight, she might be able to flag down a car. She kicked at it for the next twenty minutes. Ryan and Tina hadn’t said where they were going, so she didn’t know how much time she had left. Right when she was about to give up, the taillight split. She pounded the rest of the light off the car and peered through the hole she’d created.

Her heart sank. They had pulled into a private airfield. Bella recognized it from times when she had flown with Mr. Ainsworth. She grabbed one of the glass shards from the taillight to use as a weapon for when they opened the trunk. She needed to fight.

How long would it be before someone noticed she was missing? The crew wouldn’t show up until Monday. Ian knew she was mad at him. Whoever had her would have more than a twenty-four-hour head start. And would the crew notice she wasn’t there Monday, or would they think she was with Ian? If she made it out of this, she planned to never storm away from Ian again, even if he was an asshole.

Car doors slammed, and Bella knew her time to fight was about to come up. She had the glass shard in front of her, ready to swing at the first person. When the trunk door opened, she surged forward and dug the shard into Ryan’s stomach.

She didn’t have time to pull back and attack Tina. The woman took the butt of the gun and brought it down on Bella’s head. Pain radiated across her head, and darkness followed.