Since taking over the club, I’d been helping newbie Doms with their subs. Kent and Sarah were struggling to communicate, and Kent was having a hard time reading Sarah’s body language. I agreed to help them this afternoon. Doing a teaching scene was the last thing I wanted to do. It felt weird, touching someone else’s sub, even though I knew it was a teaching moment.

“Kent, see when I hit here, how she turns and how her body reacts?” At his nod, I continued to flog Sarah. After about a half hour, I let Kent try, and the session seemed to get them more in sync. “I think you guys are heading in the right direction. You need to be open to each other and talk about what’s going right and what’s going wrong. If you need anything else, let me know.”

Not needing to see any more of their scene, I headed toward the bar. Eric was working, and he didn’t look happy. “What’s got you looking under the weather?”

He placed his hands on the bar and leaned forward. “You didn’t think it was appropriate to tell Jessica you were helping Doms?” His anger vibrated off of him.

His comment threw me for a loop. “Kent and Sarah came to me today. I didn’t think it would be any big deal.”

“No big deal? Jessica stormed out of here because she saw you with Sarah. That was exactly what her ex-husband used to do. What do you think her first conclusion was?”

I had never even thought about it that way because I wasn’t doing it for me. I headed straight upstairs to the apartment. I needed to talk to her before she got too upset or did something irrational.

The second I walked in, I knew something was wrong. I called Jessica’s name from the entryway, but there was no answer. An eerie feeling came over me as I walked back to the bedroom. My suspicions were proved true when I found her closet empty. When I walked over to the dresser, I noticed she had left her necklace.

She’d put herself in danger by taking off for no good reason because she didn’t stop and talk to me. Now I had no way to find her. The first thing I did was run down to my office and pull up all my video surveillance to see if she’d gone to one of her houses.

The video footage came up as I reached for a Mountain Dew. I had pulled up all the camera footage. Each of my five monitors was streaming a camera. Everything looked the same as it did the other day. She wasn’t in any of the houses or at her condo. I pulled up the video feed for the club to see what time she had left.

While that was loading, I reached for my phone and called John. After a couple rings, he answered. ”I don’t have time to talk right now!”

“I don’t care if you don’t have time. Jessica is missing. She misunderstood something, and now I can’t find her.”

I heard John huff on the other end. “Misunderstood? You were doing a scene with another woman. Why didn’t you tell her what you were doing? She jumped to the conclusion that you were like her ex-husband.”

I had fucked up so bad, and now all I wanted to do was get her back. “I know, but we need to find her so I can explain. I was helping Sarah and Kent.”

“I know what you were doing. Jessica doesn’t. I saw her leaving, so I jumped in my car. I’m trying to catch up to her, but she’s driving like a maniac.”

“Keep me posted if you catch her. I’ll pull up the GPS on your car.”

I screamed in frustration. I didn’t do that scene for my pleasure. I needed to hand the training off to someone else. I never wanted to hurt Jessica. I did it to help someone, and if she would just stay around long enough for me to explain, it would be better. But now she was probably in danger.

My phone rang. Figuring it was John, I swiped my finger across the screen. “What do you have?” I demanded.

“Hello to you too.” Sam’s voice came through the line, dripping with sarcasm.

“Sam, I don’t have time to talk right now. I have a situation.”

I heard Sam wrestling with something on the other end of the phone. “Well, you need to make time. We have a bigger situation than whatever your problem is.”

“Tell me what’s going on, and make it quick. Jessica misunderstood something she saw, and now we can’t find her.”

“You have got to be kidding me! How could you lose her? What the fuck did you do?”

“I was helping a Dom and his sub. She misinterpreted it and took off. Now we can’t find her. So what the hell do you need help with?”

There was a long pause before Sam’s voice came through again. “The King had more men turn on us. Axmed escaped.”

How could things get any worse? First Jessica ran off, mad but probably okay. Now the man who had tortured her had escaped, and I didn’t know where she was.

Sam informed me he had everything under control in Shialia. All he had to do was keep the newest traitor in jail.

“If you had killed Axmed like I asked, we wouldn’t be in the situation.”

“Don’t start on me with that shit. You did something foolish, and Jessica took off. We need to locate her before Axmed’s men do. I’ll talk with Patty and see if she’s heard from Jessica. Keep me informed.” The line went dead.

Come on, Jessica. Where did you go?

* * *

Jessica

I made it to the airport in record time. I had made a call to Patty on my way to the airport and let her know I was coming and asked her not to tell Sam. I explained what Brock had done, and she was livid. She agreed to keep my secret. She wouldn’t let Sam or Brock know where I was going. Once I arrived in Shialia, it would be easy to not be seen by Sam.

I ran up the stairs of the airplane. Cody, our pilot, was standing at the entrance. I was surprised not to see Isabella, the regular stewardess.

“Thank you for doing this on short notice. How long before the plane takes off?”

Cody was acting strangely, not looking me in the eye when he answered, “We can leave now.”

I sat down in the first set of chairs. Cody headed toward the cockpit, and I saw the door close. Knowing we would take off soon, I put my seatbelt on. The stewardess headed to the galley kitchen to get ready for takeoff.

The realization hit me a few minutes too late. This wasn’t the family jet. I wasn’t able to ask Cody what was going on. When I went to ask the stewardess, the Fasten Seatbelt light came on. I sat back down. Once we were to the point where I could walk around, I would get my answers.

Needing to take my mind off the strange situation with the plane, I thought back to the scene Brock was doing in the club. I remembered he had flogged the lady a couple times and then turned to the left. What was he turning toward? A man had been standing there, and Brock was talking to him.

If he was there with the woman, why would he be talking to somebody else? He had never spoken to anyone else during our scenes unless he was teaching someone. Eric’s words came back to my mind. It’s not what it seems. You need to talk to him.

I had jumped to a conclusion, thinking Brock was like my horrible ex-husband. But I knew better than that. Brock was nothing like Doug. He acted like the world revolved around me.

How could I have been so stupid? I needed to go back and explain my reaction to Brock. We had finally reached an altitude where I could take my seatbelt off. Not wanting to wait for the stewardess to come out, I jumped up and ran toward the galley kitchen.

“I need to speak to the pilot.”

“You can’t speak to him right now.” Her friendly demeanor from earlier was gone, replaced by an icy cold exterior.

Her words startled me. I took a step back and bumped into something. One strong arm wrapped around my waist, holding my arms in place, while the other one wrapped around my mouth so I couldn’t scream. The man hauled me back into the seating area and pushed me down into the chair I had occupied earlier. Another man was already on me, tying my wrists to the chair. Another was tying my feet together. I struggled to get away, but the men overpowered me.

Once the men had me strapped to the chair like they wanted, Axmed stepped back. How can he possibly be here? I thought. He’s supposed to be in jail. This has to be a nightmare.

“I told you it was a only a matter of time before I got you back.”

“You better enjoy this while you can. People are looking for me. When I don’t show up, Patty will alert everyone.”

Axmed sat down in the chair next to me. He had aged over the years. His dusty brown hair was now gray, and he had wrinkles next to his eyes. He used to be in shape, but now he had a potbelly. The only positive thing I noticed was that he no longer stank of body odor.

He did that evil villain laugh that grated on my nerves. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. They won’t be looking for you. We had somebody else fly your plane toward Shialia. Your flight won’t make it there, though. It’s going to crash into the ocean.”

Why did I not talk to Brock? I wouldn’t be in this situation if I had. Instead, I let my emotions run high, and I ended kidnapped. Again. And since we were in their plane, nobody would come looking for me.

“Where are you taking me?” Maybe I could figure out a way to alert Brock.

“I’m taking you back to where all of this started.” That was good news. Brock had men stationed in Somalia, watching sex trafficking trade. Maybe they would find me.

“I think that’s enough talking for today.” Before I had time to register what Axmed had said, I felt something hit the side of my head, and everything went black.