I wake up slowly and the room feels like it’s spinning.

I don’t know where I am. The last thing I remember was standing in my kitchen as Connor went upstairs to get changed. And then, nothing, just blackness.

I test my limbs and stretch my legs. I think I’m physically okay, although I feel a little sick and the room is still spinning. I try to sit up, but the room blackens and dips, and I have to lie back down.

I’m on a bed in a bedroom. That’s all I know so far. I have to lie there quietly breathing deep until the nausea and pain passes. Eventually, I try sitting up again, this time with a little more success.

I look around and frown at my surroundings. I vaguely recognize the room, but I don’t know how I could have possibly gotten here. I slowly roll onto my side and swing my legs around, getting up. I steady myself on the bed for a second until the spinning passes.

I walk over to the window and look out. I know instantly where I am, and there’s no doubt about it.

That’s my granddad’s back yard. This is one of his guest rooms, although I’ve never stayed in it before, but I know I’ve seen it. I probably played in here once as a child and walked past it at least a hundred times.

How the hell did I get here? I try to wrack my brain but I can’t think of anything. I walk over to the door and grab the knob. I give it a twist, but it’s locked.

I don’t understand that. There’s no reason for me to be locked into one of granddad’s rooms.

I take a sharp breath as I suddenly remember that Connor and mom were coming here. Granddad is downstairs and he’s dying. Maybe they brought me here and something happened to make me forget.

I try the door again, this time giving it some force, but it doesn’t budge. I have to stop and take some deep breaths, steadying myself, before trying again.

I start to feel better with each passing minute, but my memory isn’t coming back. I’m still confused and not sure how I even got here, but I’m not afraid. This is granddad’s house, so I can’t really be in danger.

“Hello?” I call out loudly. I lean against the wall, steadying myself. “Hello? Mom? Connor?”

There’s no answer.

I walk back to the bed and check the comforter. I don’t have my phone in my pockets and I can’t find it anywhere on the bed. All of the drawers are empty and so is the closet, so there’s nothing I can use there. I try the door again, this time hitting it harder with my shoulder.

“Mom!” I yell as loudly as I can. “I’m stuck! Someone, please help!” I wait a minute, listening at the door, before yelling again and again.

It takes maybe five minutes of yelling before I hear someone out in the hall. I back away from the door, feeling relieved. “Mom,” I say loudly. “Is that you?”

There’s no answer, but I hear the person stop outside of the door. Maybe it’s one of granddad’s nurses or something like that, and her English isn’t that great. But that doesn’t seem so likely. The person pauses outside of the door and I hear it slowly unlock. I start to feel a little uncomfortable, and so I back away further.

The door swings open. Standing framed in the doorway is a man that I don’t recognize at all. His face is beaten badly and he has blond hair. He looks like someone kicked him in the mouth and when he grins, he’s missing a couple teeth.

“Been waiting for you to wake up,” he says, coming toward me.

“Who are you?” I ask him. “Where’s my mother?”

“She’s not here,” he sys, grinning madly. “My name is Sergei, and I’m going to hurt you now.”

“What?” I run up against the dresser on the other side of the room. “Help!” I scream, but that only makes his smile get bigger.

“Nobody is coming,” he says. “There is no rescue here, pretty girl. You were kidnapped by one of my associates and brought to this house because your uncle wanted us to have you.” He stops right in front of me, an evil look on his face.

“Your uncle ordered us not to touch you,” he says, “but I got my fucking face smashed in for this job, and the money doesn’t seem like enough.” He looks down at my body and back up to my eyes. Fear ices through my veins. “But you’re fucking pretty, aren’t you? I think you’ll be a nice little bonus.”

I scream and shove him back, but he laughs. He comes at me and I kick out wildly, aiming for his balls. He twists at the last second, blocking my foot with his hip, and then he comes at me hard. He grabs my wrists and throws me onto the bed.

I struggle, screaming, kicking, thrashing. He laughs the whole time as he pins me down. I managed to get a wrist free and I rake my nails down the side of his face.

That only pisses him off more. Three red lines run down his cheek and his eyes go blank with anger. He hits me in the face once, twice, and it feels like he’s knocking my skull into tiny little pieces. The world goes spinning again and I can barely move as I feel him struggling to get my pants off.

I groan and try to roll away, but he grabs me and puts me back. I swat at him, trying to punch him as hard as I can, but he shoves me back down and hits me again.

The bastard gets my pants off. He groans and paws at my body. “You sexy fucking bitch,” he says.

There’s a noise in the hallway, and Sergei looks up. I watch as another man steps into the doorway, another man in a black suit. “Sergei, what the fuck?” he guy says.

Sergei hesitates. “Fuck this bitch,” he says. “Who cares about her?”

“We were ordered not to touch her.”

“You think I give a fuck?”

“Help,” I say weakly, and Sergei slaps me. The guy in the doorway doesn’t seem to mind.

“Fucking shit, man, be fast,” he says.

Horror fills me. For a second, I thought he might stop this and save me, but I know I’m doomed. Sergei is going to rape me, and I’m going to be left a shell, broken and used. I stare at the man in the doorway, and he just smiles back at me.

His face explodes. One second he’s looking at me, and the next his face is a mess of blood and teeth. His body crumples to the ground.

“What the fuck—” Sergei says, backing away from me. Connor appears in the doorway, wearing a black turtleneck, black cargo pants, and holding a gun with a silencer at the end. He pulls the trigger and Sergei stumbles back, two holes in his chest. There’s almost no sound from his silenced gun. Connor walks calmly up to him and puts a third bullet in his skull.

“Eat shit,” he says, and spits down on Sergei.

“Connor,” I say.

He turns to me, slipping the gun into his belt. He grabs me in his arms and pulls me against him, holding me tight.

“You’re safe,” he says.

I start sobbing. I thought I was about to be raped. I was inches away from it, moments away. I’ve never seen people die before, never seen blood like that, but Connor saved me. He came in so calmly and killed those men.

“What’s happening?” I ask him through my tears.

“We’re taking this place back.” He pulls back. “You need to stay close to me. Okay?”

I nod once. Pain rolls through my body.

He touches my face gingerly. “I’m going to kill them all for this.”

“Connor,” I whisper.

“You’re mine, Sydney. Nobody hurts you and gets away with it. I love you.”

“I love you, too.” I kiss him deeply, joy ringing through my body like a bell.

We kiss deep and full like that for a few moments. It feels like hours and hours and hours but it’s probably only a few seconds before he breaks off the kiss and looks toward the door.

I feel fear as another man steps into the doorway. I quickly pull my pants back on.

“Jonathan,” Connor says.. “You good?”

“All clear up here.” Jonathan pointedly doesn’t look at me, which I appreciate.

“Ryan?”

“Moving downstairs.”

Connor nods. “Let’s go.”

The man named Jonathan smiles at me and I recognize him suddenly. I’ve seen him around the house, he’s one of the guys that Connor hired. And I think Ryan is another of them, a younger guy.

Connor looks back at me. “Listen, Syd,” he says. “Stay right behind me. Do you understand? And if anything bad happens, you have to run.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’ll get to your grandfather and make sure he’s okay.”

I nod my head once. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Good.” He grins at me. “You’re brave as hell. I’m proud of you.”

I feel a warm sensation in my chest as I follow him out of the room and into the hallway. We creep along silently and I can hear people downstairs talking. Their voices float up the central stairwell, echoing off the wood and the marble.

Connor and Jonathan gesture to each other, and they seem to understand. We go into motion, creeping down the steps, and my heart is hammering in my chest.

I don’t know how I got to this moment. I thought I was safe at home, and things were changing rapidly but that I wasn’t in actual danger. Now suddenly I was almost raped and I just saw two men get killed.

Connor loves me. And I love him too. That’s what I’ve been feeling this whole time, the words I’ve wanted to say to him, but haven’t been able to. Now though, it seems like such a simple thing to tell him that I love him. It seems like the most natural thing in the world. Even if things are so strange in our lives and there’s so much immediate danger all around us, I still feel good and right at home with him.

We creep down the steps and he reaches back to hold my hand. We come to the second floor landing and pause there. Jonathan heads forward and sweeps through the nearby rooms, but they all seem to be empty. He comes back and we continue our descent, moving very slowly as we get close to the ground floor.

The voices are louder now, and I can make them out. They’re talking about what they’re going to do with their payment after this job is over. They seem to think it’s an easy one, and one guy keeps laughing about buying some prostitutes as soon as they get paid.

Jonathan looks over his shoulder and nods at Connor who nods back. Connor looks at me, holds one finger to his lips, and steps forward. He takes something out of his pocket and pulls a pin.

For a second, I think it’s a grenade, but instead of exploding it lets off an insanely loud burst and a bright light. I don’t get blinded, because I’m halfway up the steps, but the men downstairs start screaming.

I creep forward to watch. Connor and Jonathan go down the steps, guns out. They kill the first three guys they see instantly, no hesitation. Connor stands in the middle of the room and looks back at me, grinning, when another guy steps out from the shadows, gun aimed at him.

“Connor!” I scream.

The man’s face melts as a bullet tears through him. Connor whirls around, gun raised, but Ryan steps out from behind him.

“Got your back,” he says, grinning.

Connor grunts. “How many left inside?”

“None,” Ryan says. “Took out three. Plus this guy. There are five more outside.”

“Bar the door,” Connor says. Ryan and Jonathan head off to lock things down.

Connor comes up the steps and takes my hand. “Are you ready?”

“For what?”

“We’re going to see your grandfather.”

I nod once, nervous, but ready. “Okay. Let’s go.”

We head forward, back toward my grandfather’s library, my nerves singing with fear and excitement.