Page 75 of Under Control

“Not on me,” Danica said slowly, confused. “Is there something wrong?”

“It’s declined, Miss Jacobs.” The attendant eyed the card suspiciously before looking up.

Danica found herself searching for words. Her fake names were starting to pile up, and so were the bridges she’d left burning in her wake. Slowly, she shuffled backward, explaining that she was going to come back with ID. As she walked quickly through the terminal, she checked her phone, seeing that her accounts had all been frozen.

What the hell is going on?

Zipping her clutch back up and stuffing it into her black backpack, she looked around at the bustling urban train depot. Quickly making her way outside the exquisitely designed art deco metal-and-stone front entrance of the downtown LA station, Danica ran across the concrete sidewalk in the city park garden. She frantically looked back and forth, wondering if it was Carrick. He was a SEAL. Wouldn’t he have connections?

Her mind racing, she decided that she had to regroup, to think things through—make a new plan and act fast. Damn, she needed to take her mind off the burning hole she had in her heart. But, more than anything, she had to keep going.

I can’t stop now.

Danica wasn’t thinking about where she was going. She just ran—with her pink hoodie Carrick had washed but that still had a little dirt stain on it, her black mini skirt that he’d watched her slip off before he’d taken her for the first time and with her glasses sliding down her nose, the ones that Carrick said made her look like a sexy librarian.

People darted out of the way as she hurried through downtown, tears falling from her eyes. No one seemed all that surprised. Obviously, it wasn’t the weirdest thing downtown LA would see that day. Finally, she hit a red light and had to stop to catch her breath. Something about few calories and little caffeine had debilitated her athletic prowess.

Panting on the street corner, feeling lonelier than ever, she knew there was something about being downtown that made it all worse. She needed nature. She needed something to guide her.

What am I doing?

She heard her cellphone’s text sound and pulled it out of the pocket of her pink hoodie. It was her roommate, Addie.

What’s going on with you and Rambo?I miss you. It sucks here without you.

Danica exhaled slowly, missing Addie as well but wishing the words had come from someone else, that someone else missed her. As throngs of pedestrians whipped around her, busily moving to wherever they needed to be, Danica leaned against a metal post off the curb. She inhaled, slowly reliving the whirlwind of the past few days. She found herself struggling to put together coherent thoughts, especially when her betraying mind let in visions of Carrick’s delicious smile, twinkling eyes and wide, strong chest.

Danica let out an exasperated moan, closing her eyes as the world moved about around her. She pushed Carrick out of her thoughts—or tried to. She needed to stop remembering how he’d held her down and run his tongue along her body, what it felt like to fall asleep in his arms, in his bed—and how desperately she wanted him to love her, how she wanted to just marry him.

But I can’t.

Because… Because I love him.

Pressing her cheek against the cool steel of the street pole, Danica felt like the lost child she once had been. She was a runaway girl all over again. A deep pain rose in her throat and she desperately wished her mom and dad would pull up on the side of the road and pick her up, like how they used to get her from school. They’d bring her snacks and hug her and kiss her cheeks until they were tender. An only child of immigrant parents, she’d never had anyone else. It had been just them.

Until they were gone.

Feeling a wet trickle down her cheek, Danica opened her eyes briefly—just as arms were reaching around her. Masculine arms grabbed her, throwing her into the back seat of a dark SUV. She screamed, but it didn’t matter. The engine roared and they were already moving. She realized what had happened.

I’ve been kidnapped.

“Andriy!” she cried out, seeing the tall, blond man’s face as he held her down. “What the hell are you doing?”

He had a black eye and cuts on his cheek—consistent with the injuries on Carrick’s knuckles that she’d seen earlier.

“You’re late,” Andriy snarled at her, grazing his hand over his purple, swollen cheekbone.

“For what?”

“Our wedding.”

Danica’s eyes widened with horror as she realized that the worst had happened. She had been kidnapped by the two people on earth she wanted to see the least.

“You can’t do this.” She grabbed for the SUV’s door handle. She’d jump out. It wouldn’t be the first time. She could still run.

Andriy pulled out a pistol from his jacket.

“I hadn’t wanted this to be at gunpoint, but your boyfriend’s visit this morning changed my mood,” he barked, narrowing his eyes on her with a viciousness that she couldn’t describe. “Cooperate now and marriage won’t be as bad as you think.”

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