Free FREE (The Billionaire's Rules, Book 16) by Kelly Favor

FREE (The Billionaire’s Rules, Book 16)
    S he was in the dark , and had been, for what felt like forever.
    A hood had been placed over her head. She had been kidnapped at knifepoint.
    After the drive to nowhere, in which she rarely heard anything but the occasional muttered comment that was usually too muffled to hear through her hood—they hustled her out of the car and then walked her for a few minutes.
    She heard a door being opened and then she was shuttled inside somewhere, down some stairs and then plopped onto a hard chair, where her wrists and feet were bound.
    Then they left her alone.
    Lanie finally came back to herself after she was sitting for a long enough time. It occurred to her that they hadn’t yet killed her, which meant there was a chance she could live.
    I can still survive this.
    Otherwise they surely would’ve killed me by now.
    She stopped shaking, but the fear was pulsating, writhing around her belly and spine like a snake.
    The darkness moved in on her, closing around her, making her feel as though she couldn’t catch her breath.
    It was as though she was drowning, and she screamed out. Screamed again and again for someone to come and just take the damn hood off her head, give her some air and some light.
    When the hood was finally removed, she looked around and saw that she was in some old, dank, windowless basement.
    All that was in the basement were some boxes, an old rusty bicycle, some broken television sets, and the two people standing in front of her.
    One of the people was Frida and the other was a tall man with a big potbelly. His age was difficult to tell, but she felt like she somehow knew him.
    And then he spoke. “I think you want to get out of here, don’t you?”
    She nodded miserably. “Please just let me go. Please.”
    The man had a thin head of hair and gleaming, mischievous eyes. “Only if you do something for me,” he said, a smile stretching his thin lips.
    When he smiled, she recognized him. He was the one in the hacker video wearing that prosthetic nose—that bizarre penis nose that had been grotesque and disturbing. In the video, his voice had been distorted, but now he spoke and his voice sounded almost normal.
    Almost—but not really.
    “What do you want me to do?” Lanie asked.
    Frida glanced at the man and then at Lanie, her grotesque mouth forming words that were chilling. “You need to tell the truth about Brayden. You need to tape a confession.”
    “What kind of confession?”
    “A true one, the best kind,” the potbellied man giggled.
    “There’s nothing to tell.”
    The potbellied man’s smile faded and Frida grimaced. “Don’t lie,” she said. “Don’t protect him, Lanie.”
    “I’m not protecting him,” Lanie insisted. “Please, please just let me leave. I swear I won’t tell anyone or get you in trouble. I just want to go home.”
    Frida’s eyes were predatory. “Who said anything about us getting in trouble?” she asked. “Seems to me that you must be thinking about doing it, or you’d never have tried to reassure us in the first place.”
    “She’s not ready yet,” the man replied sadly.
    “Wait, don’t—please—“ Lanie began, but then the black hood was whipped over her head again, drowning her in the darkness once more.
    She whimpered and then it was closing in again.
    She couldn’t take it.
    Couldn’t be in this blackness anymore.
    She was falling into it, dying into it, her lungs frozen, her body tortured with the terror coursing through her.
    The world became still and she vaguely heard voices and footsteps fading and then there was nothing but the blackness surrounding her.
    This was her worst fear come true. The blackness was so horrifying to her that she’d have rather kept talking to Frida and the pot-bellied man than be alone in the dark like this.
    She strained against her bonds but they held fast. She screamed until her voice was hoarse and the tears dried on her face.
    Nothing happened, but her heart