Page 6 of Forever

I’m not bad luck.

Miller believed that.

Matt believed that.

And I needed to start believing it myself.

Nothing else bad was going to happen to me or my family. Because I wasn’t 16 and in high school and being bullied by my crazy half-sister. I wasn’t the same girl anymore. I was Brooklyn Miller. Soon to be Brooklyn Caldwell. And I fucking believed in myself.

I clenched my jaw harder as I tried to think of a plan to get out of this mess. But all I could hear was the blood pounding in my ears.

I’d heard the ticking down in my head earlier. I’d heard it and ignored it.Again.And this was what I got for not trusting my instincts. I’d never make that mistake again. I knew when I was in danger and I just needed to believe when my body warned me.

Matt would know I was gone. There had to be cameras everywhere in that fancy club. But I didn’t know how long he’d take. And a part of me hoped he’d just go to make sure Jacob was safe.

I took another deep breath. For some reason, my mind kept wanting to focus on homecoming with Isabella. No, I wasn’t the same girl I’d been in high school. But I was the same in one way. Sixteen years ago, when Isabella had kidnapped me during the dance, I hadn’t waited for someone to come rescue me. I’d rescued myself. And I knew I could figure out a way out of this too. I just needed to think.

I was definitely sitting on something soft. A couch maybe? And I knew he’d taken me to the roof of Club Onyx. We’d only been in the helicopter for a few minutes before we landed. So we were still in New York City.But…I couldn’t even picture any of the buildings nearby the Caldwell Hotel. That wasn’t anything to go off of.Think!

I’d started hearing the clock ticking down when my father started texting me incessantly. Saying we needed to talk. Whatever was going on had to do with him. And as long as I wasn’t screaming for help, there was no reason for my kidnapper to do anything to my son. “How do you know my father?” I asked as I started fidgeting with the restraints holding my wrists together.

“Everyone knows your father, Brooklyn.”

I remembered my father saying something odd when we first met. Something about me not reading newspapers because I didn’t recognize him. Was he really that notable in this city? I was pretty sure he was only notable in one circle. The worst one. The one that did this kind of shit. “Did he…did he do something to you?”

“No. This isn’t about me.”

Then why the hell did you kidnap me?!“Is there something you want? Money? You can have everything in my account.” I still had that bank account filled with my father’s money that Miller and I didn’t touch. “Millions.”

He laughed. “I don’t need your money.”

“Then what do you need?”

“I told you. This isn’t about me.”

“Then who is it about?”

“My boss. And your father.”

His boss and my father?Yeah, that definitely screamed mafia to me. My dad had told Matt that he was retired. But of course that was a lie. Because the only thing my dad knew was lies.

I tried to focus on my kidnapper’s words. He was doing this for his boss. So he was just doing his boss’s dirty work. Which meant he was like Miller. A bodyguard ofsome sort? An enforcer? Maybe he wanted an out just like Miller had. Maybe there was a heart of gold hidden somewhere inside of him. Somewhere deep inside of him. Miller had never hidden his heart from me. He’d always been kind. “If this isn’t about you, then maybe we can come to some sort of arrangement instead?”

“And what exactly did you have in mind?” His fingers lightly touched the bottom of my chin.

I shifted back and he laughed.Don’t touch me.

“You’re a little timid for my taste,” he said.

“You don’t know me.” I wasn’t timid. I knew how to defend myself thanks to Miller. If this man hadn’t threatened my son, I probably wouldn’t be sitting wherever I was still blindfolded and at his mercy. After the deer had scared me in the middle of the night at the lake house, Miller insisted that I learn to use a gun. But he taught me how to defend myself in other ways too. I kept playing with my restraints, trying to find a weak point. The ones around my wrists weren’t as tight as the ones on my ankles.

“I know everything about you,” he said. “Your mother died when you were 16 and you moved in with your uncle. But your uncle got sick too and then you moved in with your father. You were engaged very young, probably so that you could hide your true last name and not be in danger at all.”

That definitely wasn’t why, asshole.I loved Matt. And my father didn’t want to hide me from guys like this. He was trying to keep me safe from Isabella. Hell, my father had been trying to get me to take over for him not too long ago. This man didn’t know me at all.

“And then you mysteriously died. But my boss never believed that. It took us a while, but we eventually found you.”

No.The blood in my veins turned to ice.No.

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