Page 52 of Pretend I’m Yours
“From the looks of things there was trouble in paradise,” he said. “I saw the two of you in the bar, and I happened to be close enough to hear him tell you that things weren’t as perfect as you hoped. If he comes home tonight, as you say, I’m sure he’s not going to be looking to spend time with you.”
“And you hope that we just broke up and never talk again? Is that it?” I asked. “He’s not going to be upset forever, and he’s going to start to wonder why I never came back to my own place.”
“It’s going to be too late by then,” Brandon said as he pulled into the garage of his house. “By the time he figures out that you are missing, you and I are going to be on a plane heading out of the country. We’re leaving here, and we’re going to start our lives over somewhere else.”
“I’m not getting on a plane with you!” I nearly shouted. “How the hell do you think you’re going to get me through customs?”
Brandon sighed. “How many times do I have to tell you that I was a cop? There are so many ways around these things, and you’re going to find out just how easy it is to smuggle a person in or out of a country even if they insist that they don’t want to go. Trust me, you are going. Now let’s get inside.”
He pulled a gun out of the glove compartment and I cringed. Of course he would be armed. He turned to me and brandished the weapon. “I’m sure you know this means you’re going to be fucking quiet on the way from here to there. I would hate for an accident to happen.”
“Fuck you,” I said. But, as he got out of the car and walked around the side to open the door for me, I knew I was going to have to oblige. Brandon wasn’t stable enough for me to trust with the gun, and it didn’t matter if he got caught for shooting me or not. He was clearly willing to kill me if I didn’t go along with his plan. If he couldn’t have me, no one else ever would.
I didn’t want to die, and I wasn’t going to risk him killing me. I walked in front of him into the house and back to the room, then sat on a chair while he tied my hands behind my back.
“Let’s just hit the restart button on everything, okay? We’re going to get out of here, and we are going to live happy lives far away from all this shit. You’re going to be happy with me, I promise,” Brandon said.
“Never!” I replied. “I’m going to spend every day of my life trying to get away from you. You can’t just take me and think I’m not going to fight back!”
“Listen, Hannah!” he snapped. “I have been very patient with you ever since that night you broke up with me. Now, you are going to realize that either I can have you, or no one can! If you want to try to get away fine, but you aren’t leaving me again unless it’s in a box!”
I gave him a look of defiance but said nothing. I wasn’t sure if he was crazy enough to go through with his threats, and I didn’t want to find out. All I knew was that I’d lost a few things out of my purse in the struggle, and I hoped against hope that my phone hadn’t fallen out, too.
The only person who could know I was missing any time soon was Drake, and if he did, he’d be able to track me through the GPS. I knew he was angry with me, but maybe, just maybe, he’d realize something was wrong.
I hardly dared to think that it could turn out that way, but it was the only shred of hope I had left.
And I was going to cling to it with everything I had in me.
23
Drake
I left the bike a few blocks away from where Hannah’s tracker had stopped. I wasn’t sure if it was a rendezvous point, or if Brandon had reached where he was going to keep her, but either way, I knew I had to act fast. I had been trained to deal with hostage situations when I was in the military, and I knew every minute was precious.
And this was especially true since we were dealing with a dangerous ex-boyfriend who had been stalking her for nearly a year. I was more than familiar with the things this sort of man was capable of, and I didn’t want to even let my brain go to the possibilities.
Hell, for all I knew, she could already be dead and hidden somewhere, and he was using her phone. Perhaps he was going to stage the disappearance as an accident, or as something that had nothing to do with him.
