Abby

 

The silence returned as Zed removed the headphones from her ears, and the dim light stabbed into Abby's eyes like a needle as he removed the makeshift blindfold.

 

Abby licked her dry lips and coughed, her throat dry from hours without even a drink of water.

 

The cold metal blade of the scissors dangerously caressed her skin as Zed began to cut her free from her bonds. She tried to move her arms and legs as the last of the duct tape came free, but her body resisted the sudden return to a more natural state.

 

She groaned as she tried to push herself up from the chair, her whole body sore and screaming.

 

“Here,” Zed said, as he offered her a hand, “let me help you.”

 

Numb from lack of sleep and from the stressful position her body had been left in, Abby gratefully accepted his help before she could remember that this was the man who had put her in the position to begin with. By the time she'd reminded herself she should be outraged and fighting him, though, he'd already scooped her into his strong arms.

 

She sighed and lay her head against his chest as he carried her the short distance to her bed, which was already set up for her to slip beneath the covers. “You're not going to break me,” she whispered, her voice sounding foreign and strange in her ears now that she could actually hear it.

 

“You need to sleep,” he said, laying her down on the mattress. He'd clearly been digging around in her garage. There was light nylon rope on the bed, cut down to size so there would be enough to tie her legs and arms to the bedposts.

 

She stretched out her sore legs, her muscles sending alarm bells at first. Still, though, she went on. “My mother was a fucking neglectful bitch,” Abby continued, as he began to wrap the rope around her wrists, binding them together. Her mind was jumping for joy at the chance to finally talk to someone—anyone. “She never hugged me or kissed me on the head. All she did was bitch if I gained half a pound, or asked if I was really going to eat everything on my plate. Living with her was fucking hell, even if she played nice women on the big screen. At home, she was the worst human being you could imagine. Nothing you can do will equal living with her.”

 

With her hands bound together, Zed moved down to her feet. He grabbed the length of rope and began to tie her ankles together.

 

“Know what it's like to be sexually harassed for years? Try being the daughter of a famous woman at University of Chicago, or Wharton. I was eighteen when some guy tried to slip a hand up my skirt for the first time. You playing with my pussy isn't anything new.”

 

He tightened up the knot and made sure it wasn't too tight, but would still hold. He straightened up and turned back to her. Zed's face was passive, devoid of emotion in the dim light as he looked down at her.

 

“I even had an ex-fiancé who beat me,” she said, then paused to yawn. When she was finished, she kept going, her eyes boring into the eyes of the man standing over her. “He tried to control me, just so he could try and get to my mother's money. I finally got away from him, just like I'm going to get away from you. I still made it to the top, too. Everyone said I never would, and that a woman as pretty as me wouldn't ever be CEO. But I proved those fuckers wrong, Zed. I proved them wrong.”

 

“You sure did,” he said. “Now get some sleep.”

 

She gritted her teeth. She wasn't going to listen to his orders. She needed to show him resistance, just like she had all her life, even if he was able to hold her in one arm and was suddenly being nice to her. She owed herself that much.

 

“You know,” she said, “if you don't let me contact my company, at least to touch base with them, this won't do you any good. I won't be the CEO for much longer if I just don't show up at the conference.”

 

He frowned a little as he considered her words.

 

“I need to at least speak to them,” she prodded. “To let them know I'm alive and haven't just dropped off the face of the earth.”

 

He sighed and ran a hand down his face. Without a word, he went and grabbed her phone from the other room and returned with it. “Who are we calling?” he asked, as he stood over her.

 

“I can't hold it?”

 

He shook his head. “I can dial for you and hold it to your ear. Now, who are we calling, Abby?”

 

She sighed. She'd thought about calling the cops when she went with this ploy, but knew that they wouldn't get there in time, even if she had. Still, though, she'd wanted to actually hold the phone in her hand, just to be able to show some sort of independence from him.

 

Apparently, though, it wasn't to be.

 

“Who are we calling?” he asked again.

 

“Mark Letterman,” she said, a resigned sigh escaping her lips.

 

He opened her phone—she never bothered to lock it—and pulled up Mark's info. “It's ringing,” he said, as he put the phone next to her ear.

 

It rang two more times as she tried to sit up a little. Then Mark answered. “Abby? What the hell's going on? Why aren't you at the conference? The organizers are frantic!”

 

“Slow down, Mark,” Abby said, her voice automatically switching back into commanding bitch mode, even as she looked up and locked gazes with her overbearing captor, “I've just had a car accident overnight. I'm fine, but doctors say I'm not fit to travel or work for a while.”

 

“Oh my God,” Mark said on the other line. “Are you okay?”

 

“I'll live,” she said, truthfully. She hoped. “But, listen, I need you to book a flight ASAP and get out there to take over while I'm out of action. Can you do that for me?”

 

“Can I do that?” Mark asked, his voice perking up at the opportunity to undercut her at such an important function. “Of course I can!”

 

Abby lowered her eyes and stifled a groan of disgust at his blatant display of opportunism. “Thanks Mark. Let everyone know I'll be back as soon as I'm well.”

 

“Will do, Abby,” Mark said, before hastily hanging up without a goodbye. Clearly, he was desperate to get the flight booked and the schedule rearranged so he could deliver his speech in the slot reserved for her.

 

Her stomach dropped as she thought about how all she'd done with that call was to put Mark one step closer to cutting her out. She looked up at Zed and nodded. “See?” she asked, as she slumped back into the pillow. “That's all it took.”

 

He took the phone away and turned off the screen.

 

Now all she had to do was stay awake and keep resisting. Her staying awake as long as she wanted would wipe that look off Zed's face. He didn't deserve to have the satisfaction of breaking her.

 

Too bad she wouldn't have a say in the matter.

 

# # #

 

Zed

 

He pulled out another syringe full of the same sedative he'd found earlier in her purse. Whether she stayed away or went to sleep was no longer her choice to make. She needed to learn that, and the sooner she did, the faster this would go.

 

Abby saw the syringe in his hand and reacted immediately, shaking her head and beginning to beg as she struggled against the nylon cords holding her in place. “Oh, please, Zed, no. I even helped you keep my company off your back. Don't inject me, please.”

 

“Sorry, Abby,” he replied, “but it's not your choice.”

 

She made a whining noise as he stabbed the sedative into her naked thigh and pressed down on the plunger. He withdrew the needle from her flesh and she groaned. “I fucking hate you,” she said, without fire or passion.

 

Zed watched her as she drifted off to sleep. When she was finally unconscious, he left the room and headed back into the rest of the large house.

 

He'd explored it a little bit after he'd tied her up the afternoon before, but having to keep her awake with the vibrator had required his focus, so he hadn't had a chance to complete his search. Now, though, he knew he'd have the time.

 

As he walked around, bottle of bourbon in hand, he marveled at the luxury of the place. For someone who lived all alone, this place might as well have been a big, lonely castle. Kai had a pretty big house, Zed figured, with four bedrooms to just three people. But, even that seemed like a hovel next to Abby's home.

 

He wandered into her office, bitterly musing about how some people just had too damned much. Some people had more than they needed, that was for sure. For instance, she had a backyard and a garden she couldn't even do anything with. Hell, he'd wandered into rooms here that looked like the only time someone had entered them was when they were decorated. It was a damn shame that someone like her had someplace like this.

 

Abby's office was dominated by a large, messy desk constructed from some hard wood—maybe oak or walnut. Built-in bookshelves lined the walls, old encyclopedias and law books filling the shelves just for show. Zed sat down behind the desk, put his bottle of bourbon whiskey on the wood, and began to pull open drawers at random.

 

Office supplies and stationary were in the top drawer. Nothing interesting there. The bottom left drawers only contained work documents that had been filed away. The one above that had a stack of old pictures stuffed into it—family stuff from the looks of it. He pulled out one and looked at the sad blonde girl, maybe eight or nine, center-stage. She must have been a young Abby. He kept going, hoping to catch a glimpse of her family—of her mother, maybe. But there were no pictures like that. There were only pictures of her with other adults who looked like nannies and tutors—all hired help.

 

He frowned a little, feeling somehow dirtier for going through her personal belongings like this than he had about what he'd been doing over the last twenty-four hours. Feeling a little sorry for Abby, her upbringing, and the neglect she must have felt, he put the pictures back in the drawer and shut it. He took another drink, the liquid fire filling his belly and burning his throat.

 

He switched to the other side of the desk and opened up the bottom drawer. More file folders hung neatly in place, labeled by year. He pulled out the current year's folder and opened it up. Bank statements were hole punched and attached by brads. He scanned through the documents like some sort of fiscal voyeur, taking it all in.

 

He looked at the balance for the current month, and his eyes widened. “Wow,” he said aloud to the room. “Thirty million fucking dollars?” He closed the folder and slapped it down on the desk. “Holy shit,” he said, barely believing the number.

 

He closed his eyes and tried to think about what that would look like in cold, hard cash. He realized he couldn't picture something accurate and just shook his head. Maybe he hadn't read it right, he considered. Zed picked up the folder and looked the number over again, staring at it as he counted the digits. “Yep,” he said. “Thirty mill.”

 

What he could do with that much money. Hell, he could hire the best legal defense possible for his brother. The real question was whether there was anything he couldn’t do, with that much money.

 

All he had to do was get the money.

 

He scratched his bristly chin and considered his options. He could hold her for ransom. The difficult part—kidnapping her—was already done. All he had to do was put out a demand, maybe to Mark, the guy she'd already communicated with. Zed grabbed the bottle of whiskey and took another drink as options ran through his mind.

 

That's a bad idea, Zed, and you know it, the voice of his brother Kai seemed to whisper to him in the emptiness of the silent room. You can't pay for my law counsel with illegal money. You know that.

 

Zed ignored the thoughts, though, and took another drink.

 

You've already taken things too far, as it is, little bro. Kai was only a minute older than Zed, but he took that role as big brother seriously. It takes a broken person to break a person, and you're still not there, despite everything you've done. You still know right from wrong, which is why you couldn't even look through the pictures in that drawer.

 

He knew Kai was right. Or, the memory of Kai was, at least. Zed pictured him continuing, If you want to get what you need, she has to get what she needs. You see all the signs. You need to give her what she needs, not what she wants.

 

Zed took another drink of whiskey and nodded as he followed the memory of his brother's train of thought.

 

She needed to be put in her place.