Page 110 of Finding Lexie
She dropped the glass container with a grunt, hearing it shatter as it fell into the sink. Before she could get her bearings and figure out what the hell happened, Magnus had spun her around to face him—and had his hands around her throat.
Lexie was shocked beyond belief.
More than that, she immediately knew she was in deep trouble. Magnus wasn’t fooling around. He was squeezing her throat so tightly, she couldn’t get even the smallest breath of air.
Immediately, her hands flew up, clawing at the fingers around her throat.
And she realized with horror that he was wearing gloves.
He hadn’t been wearing them when he’d walked into the kitchen. She would’ve noticed. He must’ve put them on while her attention was on the coffee pot.
He’d planned this.
“You fucking bitch,” Magnus growled in a guttural tone she’d never heard from him before. “It should’ve been you. You should’ve died out there in that desert. Not my brother! Dagmar was worth ten of you. A hundred!”
Lexie opened her mouth to beg him to stop, but nothing came out.
“That’s right,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “From the second I heard those assholes had doubled their price and wouldn’t let Dagmar go, I swore you’d pay. All your emails. Those goddamn phone calls. Even this fucking job. All a means to an end. Your end.”
For some reason, something she’d seen while watching one of those crime shows on TV suddenly popped into her mind. A father was mourning the murder of his daughter…and the fact that it took seven and a half minutes for her to die by strangulation. He’d said he couldn’t believe how long seven and a half minutes actually were.
For Lexie, right this moment? It seemed too short. Way too short.
Her mind instantly switched to Midas. How happy they’d been…
She wasn’t ready to die.
She fought for her life, clawing her fingernails down his face. When that didn’t make him loosen his hands, Lexie jerked her knee as hard as she could into his groin.
She didn’t get a direct hit on his balls, but she must’ve at least glanced off them because Magnus grunted and his hands loosened for a fraction of a second. It was enough for Lexie to get a bit of oxygen into her lungs—but not enough for him to let go of her throat.
Magnus shifted and practically threw Lexie to the floor, tightening his hold around her neck as he followed her down.
She felt her head bounce off the floor, but it didn’t hurt. Nothing did.
“Bitch,” he snarled as he straddled her chest, putting all his weight on her.
Lexie’s feet scrambled against the tile floor, trying to get some traction, without luck. She tried to buck Magnus off but he was too heavy. Too strong.
She tried to move a hand between them to grab and twist his dick, but she couldn’t quite reach. She was quickly running out of options.
“Just fucking die already!” Magnus shouted, panting now as he squeezed her throat. “It’s all planned. Theo’s dead already. I invited him in when I arrived and stabbed him in the back. And when you die, I’m gonna drag your body out and put you under him. I’ll tell the authorities I found him strangling you. I had to stab him to get him to stop…but it was too late. I’ll tell them all about him following you…about the fact he’s fucking batshit crazy. Everyone will back me up! And I’ll be free to head home, knowing I’ve avenged Dagmar.”
Blackness began to creep in from the sides of Lexie’s eyes. The shit thing was, his plan had a pretty damn good chance of succeeding.
And she’d had no inkling he’d hated her so much.
“Die, bitch!” growled the man she’d come to think of as a friend, even as he leaned forward, putting yet more pressure on her neck.
Lexie had no idea how much time had passed. Three minutes? Four? She desperately tried one more time to kick her legs, to dislodge him, but it was no use. He was bigger and heavier, and he had rage on his side.
Her thoughts once again turned to Midas. How upset he was going to be that he hadn’t protected her. And the thought of Magnus playing the part of the grieving coworker, and everyone believing he was a hero, was absolutely repulsive.
The last thing Lexie saw before she lost consciousness was a pair of evil blue eyes glaring down at her.
* * *
Midas was irritated. When he pulled into the coffee shop parking lot, the line at the drive-through was eight cars deep. It would take forever to get Lex’s coffee, return to Food For All, and then get back on the road. At this time of the morning, there were usually only one or two cars ahead of him. He hated not to get Lexie her treat, but he didn’t want to be late for PT.
