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head from behind and crammed into my mouth. I tried to scream, but the gag was already tied tightly. It shoved my tongue into my throat, and I started to choke. As I fought for breath, I was yanked backward off my feet and my butt slammed into the floor. Instinctively, I reached up to try to claw at my attacker, but my arms were quickly pinned behind my back and tied together with rough twine. I winced in pain as the rope cut my skin. My eyes rolled wildly around, begging the captain to look behind him, to see what was happening, to help me. But even as my feet pounded the floor, he didn't move. I tried to squirm forward using my feet and glutes, but the guy grabbed my hair and yanked me back. The pain was sudden and unexpected and excruciating. Then he placed his hand over my forehead and slammed the back of my skull into the floor, which was still covered in Upton's rose petals.
"Don't bother, bitch," he spat, his voice gruff, his face turned away from me.
I forced myself to breathe through my nose, but my panic was so great, I was barely able to take in any air. Pain radiated throughout my skull. Tears stung my eyes and coursed down my face, but I forced myself to stare at my attacker. Tried to commit any details I could to memory. He wore dark glasses that all but covered his face, and had a thick beard just like the captain, but this one was dark and wiry.
It was the last thing I saw before my eyes were blindfolded, and I was truly powerless.
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PRANK
About two seconds later, he threw me down the stairs like a sack of dirty laundry. My knees hit the ground first and I careened forward, slamming the side of my head against something sharp. I shouted out in pain and rolled over onto my back, my shoulder muscles straining as I pinned my already tethered arms underneath my weight. I struggled to sit up, the side of my head throbbing angrily, and felt blood trickling down behind my ear. The boat took a sudden turn and I slid across the floor, my entire body slamming into the wall.
That was when I really started to cry. Tears soaked my blindfold and my nose quickly stuffed itself with mucus. Suddenly, I couldn't breathe to save my life. I gasped past the gag and my lungs constricted over and over and over again. I was going to die. I was going to cry myself to death.
Get control, Reed. Calm down. Just. Calm. Down.
Coughing a few times and sucking in a few more breaths, I
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managed to clear my nasal passages. Then I sat for what felt like an eternity, breathing in and out, in and out, until my heart rate calmed to a relatively normal state.
Normal for someone who was suffering from multiple head traumas, who couldn't see and couldn't move, who was being kidnapped off the coast of a remote Caribbean island at a time when no one would notice she was missing for at least an hour.
I was completely screwed.
Overhead, I heard the pounding of footsteps and shouting voices. Obviously, my attacker and the captain of the boat were in on this together. So even if I'd gotten Red Beard's attention, he wouldn't have been any help to me. As I thought back t
o what little I'd seen of their faces, I started to realize that the beards were obviously fake. The glasses clearly a misdirect. So who the hell were these people? Was Daniel one of them? It made sense. Daniel hated Upton, and Paige hated me. Maybe the two of them had decided to kill two birds with one stone. Devastate Upton by getting rid of me. Maybe even send him crying into Paige's arms. Was that why they had been hovering out there in their boat, watching the party? Were they waiting for Upton to leave so that they could put their plan into action?
My heart seized with a sudden realization. The guy who had been arrested for shoving me off the boat had been on the Ryan family's payroll. Had Daniel and Paige orchestrated that too? Had they paid him off? Promised to take care of his family if he didn't say anything to the police about them? It all made sense. The twins could have been behind every one of my near misses. I had been on their estate when
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the horse took off and almost rode me off a cliff. One of them could have hidden in the bushes and spooked her. I had been on Daniel's Jet Ski when it malfunctioned and almost killed me. He definitely could have rigged that. And I had been on their family's boat when someone in their family's employ had shoved me over the rail and left me for dead. Plus both Sawyer and Taylor had noticed the two of them taking off right around the time I'd gone over.
It all made sense.
But knowing this didn't make me feel any better. If anything, I was even more terrified. They had been trying to kill me for days. And now they had me out in the middle of nowhere with no one looking for me. If I was late to meet Upton, he'd probably think I wasn't done partying yet. And no one on the private island would realize I was missing until tomorrow morning.
I felt my eyes start to well up again and forced the tears down. If I was going to survive this, I was going to have to be strong. Maybe they weren't out to kill me. Maybe they were just messing with me. Playing a prank. Teaching me a lesson. God, I hoped that was true.
The boat took another sharp turn and I skidded across the floor again, falling onto my side as my leg slammed into the opposite wall. I shouted out in pain, but it came out as a pathetic gargle thanks to my gag. A few seconds later, the boat jolted and the bottom scraped across rocks or sand. Whatever it was, wherever we were, we'd run ashore.
There was more shouting. I sat up straight and tilted my ear toward the ceiling, trying to make it out. The two voices were definitely male,
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but I couldn't tell if one belonged to Daniel. Maybe Paige and the other girls were in on the planning of this insanity but just didn't want to mess up their manicures by doing any of the dirty work. Whoever the men were, I couldn't make out their words. Footsteps pounded across the deck and I heard something bang against the side wall of the cabin. They were still talking as the hatch overhead opened, letting cool night air pour over my semi-clothed body. The only words I heard were the tail end of a sentence. Words that stopped me cold. "... then find somewhere to dump the body." This was no prank. These men were going to kill me.
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PRETTY BOY BILLIONARE
"Please. Please, please, please, please, please."