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“As soon as Jace picks up Heather, I’ll head out to collect the soil samples and come back here to finish up the report. I’ll probably be able to meet you for dinner later if that works?” Nico worried they were making a mistake, breaking the team apart, but he knew that sooner or later, life would catch up with them and they would have to make some hard decisions. Still, even though there hadn’t been sight or sound of Zac for over a week now, he didn’t want to let his guard down. Zac was smart enough to anticipate him getting comfortable and that would leave his defenses down for disaster.
“Sorry, boss,” Heather moaned.
“It’s not your fault,” Nico said, trying to make her feel better. He watched as Toni grabbed her keys and bag, heading out the back door. He had a knot in the pit of his stomach and everything in him was screaming not to let her go. The rational side of him knew he was overreacting, but he couldn’t help it. Watching Toni leave felt wrong.
Toni
Toni got about halfway to work when she realized she had left the file for her meeting at home. “Fuck,” she barked. Having to go all the way back home to grab the file meant she would be late for her first big meeting. She called her assistant to let her know she was going to have to push the meeting back by thirty minutes, telling her to feign car trouble or something. She ended the call and tried Nico, to let him know she was heading back in his direction, but her call went right to voice mail. Jace must have picked up Heather and Nico would have headed directly to the docks, since it looked like a storm was coming in fast. He’d want to get his samples and get home before it hit. Toni left him a quick voice mail, letting him know she was all right but had to head back to the house for her files. He’d want to know where she was, and she loved the way he worried about her.
She pulled up to their little beach house and left the car running, not wanting to waste a single minute. She was going to be cutting it close as it was. She ran into the house and found it completely empty. Toni grabbed her file and turned to leave, running right into Zac’s hard form. He banded his arms around her, and the smell of his aftershave made her want to gag. Toni saw flashes of past memories with him and panicked.
She closed her eyes and realized she could remember things that had happened to her over the past year with Nico. Her memory had been coming back to her in flashes here and there, but this seemed like an explosion of memories flashing through her brain all at once. It was almost too much for her to process, but everything she saw reminded her of just how strong she was. How strong she and Nico were as a couple. Just before she opened her eyes, she saw Zac standing over her on his boat, dragging her body to the side. She remembered being conscious just before her body hit the cold water after he threw her overboard. Her father was right, Zac tried to murder her, and now he was back to finish the job. Toni didn’t want to let on that she remembered snippets from her past. She needed to keep her wits about her and remember she wasn’t dealing with her childhood friend anymore. Zac Bierman had turned into a cold-blooded killer.
“Zac,” she whispered. “Please don’t do this. Just let me go and I won’t tell anyone you were even here,” she pleaded. His laugh sent chills up her spine and she knew he was going to enjoy playing with her.
“Well, this is a nice surprise,” he barked. “I wasn’t expecting to find you or your scientist here, so I’m counting this as a bonus,” Zac said. She struggled against his hold, but his arms just tightened around her. She knew fighting him wouldn’t work.
“Why are you here?” she asked. Toni thought that if she could get him talking, she might be able to distract him enough to find a way to escape.
“I was just leaving a little message for your boyfriend,” he said. “But it looks like I won’t have to go to the trouble now that you’re here.” He pulled her toward the back door and Toni knew if she didn’t try to make a break for it, he would end up taking her and she might never be found again. The thought of not seeing Nico again terrified her.
Toni remembered some self-defense moves Nico had taught her just in case she had to face Zac alone. She stomped on his foot as hard as she could with her heels and when he loosened his hold, she elbowed him in the ribs with all her strength and ran. She almost made it down the back steps to the beach path when she slipped, tumbling the rest of the way down. She hit her head and the last thing she thought of was Nico before her world went dark.
Toni woke to a killer headache and a man annoyingly humming. She tried to sit up, but her throbbing head had her quickly groaning and lying back down. The man stopped humming to laugh at her and she was jolted awake by the realization that Zac was in the room with her.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t sit up too fast, sweetheart. You took quite a spill down the steps at your adorable little beach cottage. Really, Toni, slumming it doesn’t suit you.” Zac’s voice sounded cold, and she knew that the boy she grew up with, the sweet boy who used to tell her how much he liked her and would go out of his way to make her feel special—he was gone. In his place stood the stoic man who seemed to want revenge as much as he wanted his next breath.
“Why are you doing this, Zac?” she croaked. Her voice sounded as if she had swallowed shattered glass.
Zac chuckled again. She hated he had that power over her and Nico. For the past few months, they had been running scared and she knew that sooner or later, the trouble they were running from might catch up to them. She just never expected Zac to get his hands dirty. He had too much to lose, too much risk involved in not pursuing them himself.
“Well, I decided I want you back, baby,” he crooned, crossing the room to sit next to her on the small bed she was bound to. She pulled against the coarse rope he had tied around her ankles and wrists, trying to get some leverage, but Zac had made sure the bindings were good and tight.
“You can’t do this; Nico will be looking for me. He’ll find us, and when he does—” Zac covered her mouth with his manicured hand, effectively stopping her words. She wanted to fight him, to tell him to go to hell, but her head was screaming at her, and her body felt as though she had run the Boston Marathon. God, just thinking of Boston reminded Toni of her trip with Nico and everything they had rebuilt together. She worried he would return home to find the house empty and her missing—what would that do to him?
“Don’t you worry about your new fiancé, baby. I’ve gone to great lengths to make sure he won’t be returning from his little erosion survey. I can’t have him messing up my plans again now, can I?” Zac uncovered her mouth and ran his hand down her cheek. She felt a wave of nausea hit her and she thought for sure she was going to be sick.
“What did you do?” she whispered. Zac’s smile was mean, and she could almost read his mind. He wouldn’t let Nico live. He was a liability and Zac didn’t like obstacles.
“Now, now, sweetheart. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up after we’re married. I plan on making you my wife in the morning, so rest up.” Zac stood to leave the room, and Toni felt a wave of panic.
“Wait,” she begged. He turned to face her, and she hated the smirk of amusement on his face. Now wasn’t the time for her to fight back. Zac did best with pliant women, and she needed to remember that.
“Please untie me. I promise to stay right in this bed. My head hurts too much for me to try to escape, and being tied up like this is very uncomfortable.” She pulled at her ropes again, eliciting another chuckle from Zac.
“Yeah, from what I found in your bedroom night table at the cottage you shared with Nico,” he almost spat Nico’s name, “I’d say you like it a little rough, baby.” Toni knew she wasn’t helping things with the murderous look she shot him, but she couldn’t help it. It felt like a violation that Zac had gone through their things.
“Tell me something, Toni, when you both showed up at my office a little over a month ago, did you really not know Nico?” Toni didn’t want to tell Zac anything, especially not something that involved Nico. But she also knew if she could keep him talking, she might be able to get him to trust her enough to untie her from the bed. Then, she could try to find a way to get a message to Nico or even find a way to escape.
“No, I didn’t remember him or the year we spent together,” she admitted.
“Then why the hell did you stay with him?” Zac yelled. She felt her whole body jump from the loud boom of his anger. “Why didn’t you come to me, ask me to take care of you? I would have, you know, Toni. Even though you turned me down and humiliated me, I would have given you another chance.” Toni watched as Zac paced the small bedroom. She tried to look around while he was distracted to gain some clue as to where they were. The little room felt familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.
“I was confused and didn’t know what to do,” Toni lied. She knew staying with Zac would have been a mistake. The day she and Nico went to his office to find out what happened to her father, she was sure Zac knew more than he was letting on. Hell, she would have bet money that he was somehow involved in both her disappearance and her father’s death. But she lacked the proof she needed to take back her father’s company and her life.
“Did you fall in love with him again?” Zac barked, causing her to yelp. “Did you let him have your body?” He shot her a disgusted look and she nodded, not trusting her voice. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t any of his fucking business who was in her bed but now wasn’t the time.
Realization dawned on him, and he sat down in the corner chair, running his hands over his face. “You got your memory back, didn’t you?” Toni almost didn’t want to answer his question, because by doing so, she would be admitting she remembered the day he called her to have her meet him at his sailboat. Once she got to the dock, he forced her to get on his boat and that was where she was still a little fuzzy. Zac seemed to be able to tell from the expression she had remembered that day.
