Page 45 of The Assistant
I don’t spare a moment. I rush from the office to my limo downstairs. The driver is sitting in the front seat, reading a newspaper, startled by my sudden appearance.
“I need to go home,” I say, snapping my fingers to let him know this is urgent. He tosses the newspaper down on the passenger seat and immediately puts the car in drive, peeling out of the parking garage. “Listen, if you need to run somebody down, do it. I don’t have a lot of time here.”
“Yes, sir,” he says as he picks up the pace and slams his foot on the gas pedal. I’ll pay whatever speeding ticket I need to. I just have to make sure Harper is okay.
When we arrive at the penthouse, I practically jump out of the moving car as I swing the door open and race toward the entrance. I shout an apology to a couple as I push past them into the elevator, tapping my foot anxiously on the metal while it crawls to the top floor.
It finally opens, and I make my way to the door, only to see it’s already open. My heart is in my throat as I shove the door aside and take in the scene before me. Maggie is on the floor by the door, bleeding from a wound on her head. I kneel down beside her and hold two fingers to her pulse to make sure she’s okay.
I run around the penthouse looking for any sign of Harper, only to discover she’s missing entirely.
“Fuck!” I shout as the realization hits me. She’s gone.
Her room is a mess. The door is kicked down, and there are clear signs of a struggle. Her desk chair is knocked on its side, and her bedspread is wrinkled like she might have jumped over it.
I hear Maggie groaning by the door, and I rush over to her, helping her get up as I assess the damage of her wound.
“What’s happening?” Maggie asks in a frail, terrified voice.
“Maggie, I need you to tell me who did this to you,” I say, kneeling on the floor in front of her with a desperate look on my face. She squints her eyes and shakes her head, bringing her hand to the wound with a wince. I feel terrible for her, but I need her to focus.
“I’m not sure,” Maggie begins, shaking her head as tears stream from her eyes. “The doorbell rang, then three men stormed in when I opened it. One of them struck me, and I fell to the ground.”
She lets out a quiet sob, and I grab her hand, squeezing it in mine as I pull my phone out of my pocket to call an ambulance for her. I’m preoccupied mentally with Harper during the call. With what Maggie described, I know exactly what happened here.
Malik.
I don’t know how long ago this happened, and I wonder how much damage Malik could have done in such a short time span. It makes my stomach twist and churn, and I have to steel myself to do whatever I can to make sure Harper is okay.
“An ambulance is on its way,” I say to Maggie when I’m off the phone. She nods, and I help her get to her feet so she can sit down and wait for them.
When she’s comfortably seated, I make my way into my bedroom and immediately call my dad. He has to know something about this. How he could do something like this to his own stepdaughter is beyond me. I just need him to tell me whatever he knows.
“How the fuck could you do this?” I shout into the receiver as soon as he answers.
“Calm down. What are you talking about?” he asks, annoyance thick in his voice.
“She’s gone. Malik came here with a bunch of his fucking goons, and they took her,” I slowly say as if I’m spelling it out for a toddler. “You must have known something about this. You and Malik have been working on this plan very closely together.”
There’s a long moment of silence on the other end, and I can hear my father taking a few deep breaths. I wish I could reach through the receiver and strangle him, but technology hasn’t come that far.
“I had no part in this, I swear,” Dad eventually says. “Malik did this on his own, but it was inevitable. You can’t keep him waiting for very long.”
His callousness is disturbing. I’m not sure he understands the gravity of the situation. Harper, his stepdaughter, was just kidnapped by a man who has tortured and killed women. He’s been trying to sell her off to him as if her life doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t be surprised by his disinterest and what’s happening to her now, but somehow, I am.
“Malik’s got what he wanted now, though. This is going to make him happy,” Dad says casually, as if shrugging on the other end.
I bark out an annoyed laugh as I run my fingers through my hair. That really is all he cares about. He needs Malik’s men, and Harper is just an innocent victim in all of this. He knows very well what Malik is going to do to her, but he doesn’t care.
I take great pleasure in knowing I get to spoil that for him.
“Actually, he’s not going to be happy. When he has her examined, he’s not going to like what he finds,” I say.
There’s another long moment of silence, and I can perfectly imagine the surprised look on my father’s face as realization sets in
“You just killed us all,” Dad says before the line cuts off, and I’m left standing in my room with the weight of knowing how serious the situation is.
The ambulance arrives and triages Maggie in the living room. I don’t have a lot of time to spare, but I give them all the details I can. While they’re preparing her, I call her children to let them know what happened so they can meet her at the hospital.
