TRAP (The Billionaire's Rules, Book 15) (5 page)

Lanie agreed. “You definitely have that. You’re stunning.”

“Thanks.” Frida grit her teeth and her eyes suddenly flashed. “He made a fool of me,” she said, her nostrils flaring as she tore the napkin into even smaller pieces. “He just acted like I’d never even said a word, he ignored me. He ignored
me
, Lanie.” She turned her gaze on Lanie, and in that moment—Lanie knew she was insane.

This girl is not playing with a full deck. Not even close.

“That’s why…that’s why you did what you did to Brayden?”

“That’s why I reached out to the hacker group in the first place,” Frida said. “It was me who handed him to them on a silver platter. I didn’t do it because he fucked me, Lanie. Or maybe, in a way, I did. Because if he had fucked me, then he wouldn’t have fucked me. Sometimes a guy fucks you over by not screwing you, if you get my meaning.”

Lanie didn’t get her meaning at all. But she did know that Frida had just told her the truth and admitted helping the hackers get into his network, which was a crime. And Lanie had gotten it all recorded on her cell. Now all she had to do was check and make sure that the recording was audible.

“Hey, mind if I run to the bathroom really quick?” Lanie asked.

Frida seemed to snap out of her trance. She blinked. “Oh, yeah. Sure. But when you come back, you’re finishing that drink,” she smiled. Her eyes were black and humorless.

“Absolutely,” Lanie lied, getting to her feet and grabbing her purse from the table.

She walked quickly to the restroom and went inside. It was thankfully empty. She checked under the two stalls and saw nobody was in there but her.

Good. Now, quickly, just to be sure.

If the recording was audible and the admission of guilt clear, then she could get the hell out of there. Otherwise, she was going to have to find a way to take the conversation to a quieter environment and try to get Frida to admit what she’d done once again.

Which would really suck, because Lanie was ready to get the hell away from that woman. There was something very, very wrong with her.

Lanie dropped her purse on the sink and grabbed her cell from it. She checked and saw it was still recording. She stopped it and rewound, checking the bathroom quickly once more just to make sure nobody was coming in.

Still clear.

She pressed play and heard her and Frida’s voices coming through, fairly clearly. But she wasn’t at the right point in the recording yet to hear if the admission of guilt had come through.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Come on, say it already.”

And then, like magic, it was there. Frida was saying the words that Lanie needed—the words that Brayden needed—to get her dead to rights for what she’d done to him.

Frida’s voice was as unmistakable as anything, and even the band’s music in the background had died down so that her voice rang through like a bell in the recording.

The recording was so loud, in fact, that Lanie immediately turned off the recording, just as the bathroom door opened.

Her heart stopped beating for a moment, as Frida walked through the door and came towards her, a slight smile on the taller woman’s face.

“Hey,” Lanie said, fumbling her cell phone and dropping it back into her purse.

“Hey,” Frida said, still walking towards her. “I was hoping you didn’t get sick from all the drinking,” she said, grinning.

“I hardly drank anything,” Lanie said. “Just…”

Frida was right in front of her now. “Just checking your recording?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lanie said, her voice trembling.

Frida’s eyes were blacker than ever, and her smile died. The smile, Lanie realized, had never been remotely real to begin with. “I’m not as stupid as you and Brayden think I am,” she rasped, her teeth like tiny little shark’s teeth in her mouth.

And then Frida’s hand moved, and suddenly Lanie felt something pressing into her lower belly. She inhaled sharply, her legs trembling.

“Frida,” she said, the world around her growing faint and spots forming in front of her eyes as the panic set in.

“What you’re feeling against your stomach right now is the point of a serrated blade, Lanie,” the woman whispered softly, almost sensually. “If I so much as twitch my hand the wrong way, your guts are going to spill out all over this stinky little bathroom floor. Nod if you understand me.”

Lanie nodded, but she was barely standing.

“I feel sick,” she said, as her gorge rose.

“Don’t fucking move or speak, you little shit. Not unless I tell you to.” Frida reached out slowly and grabbed the purse from the sink while keeping the blade pressed into Lanie’s stomach.

Lanie didn’t look down. She couldn’t stand to see the knife, to see it would make it more real than she could handle.

“Okay,” Lanie whispered, nodding her comprehension.

Once Frida had the purse and the phone, she would probably turn and be gone in a flash, which sounded pretty good to Lanie right about then.

Only that isn’t what happened.

“I want you to turn slowly around,” Frida said calmly. “Do not make a sudden movement or I’ll slit you from hip to sternum, and I’m not kidding. There’s nothing I’d love more right now than to make you pay for trying to help him.”

Lanie did as she was told, slowly spinning, trying not to even breathe too much. She didn’t doubt Frida’s intention to hurt her for even a moment, and she was merely trying to survive now.

“That’s good,” Frida chuckled, as Lanie completed the turn.

The knife was pressing into Lanie’s lower back.

Frida spoke again. “You’re going to start walking, very slowly, but acting as if nothing’s wrong. Keep a smile on that stupid face of yours. When we get out of the bathroom, you’re going to slowly turn left, allowing me to stay with you the entire time. And then you’ll walk down the hall, slowly of course. Do not make any sudden moves, do not speak or yell or even make a fucking sound. If you do, I’ll insert the blade, sever your spine and make sure you never walk again if you’re lucky enough to somehow live.”

Lanie swallowed and nodded.

She had never been this afraid in her entire life. Nothing had ever even approached this level of danger, and her body was responding all on its own.

It was as if she’d floated up to the ceiling and was watching herself from above, completely disconnected from what was happening.

She started to walk, and the knife pressed more sharply against her back, sending a tingle of pain through her entire body. “Ouch,” she breathed.

“Oh, shut up,” Frida muttered. “Keep walking. Now open the door. Slow.”

At the door to the restroom, Lanie slowly reached out her hand. She grasped the cool handle and then opened the door wide.

Frida prodded her to continue walking, and she did, turning to the left as she’d been instructed.

She was praying that someone would see what was going on. Someone in this café would have to notice how strange the two of them looked, with Frida practically glued to her back as she walked like a robot.

At the end of the hall, they approached an emergency exit.

Lanie stopped at the door.

“Push it open, slowly, and go outside,” Frida said.

Lanie hesitated briefly. What was going to happen once she got outside? Maybe she should call Frida’s bluff.

But then she felt a searing pain and wetness spreading across her lower back. “That was the first cut,” Frida hissed. “It was a superficial wound but the next one won’t be. Move it.”

Lanie whimpered, pushing the door open and walking out into the back alley. Not far away, a large dumpster was filled overflowing with trash from the café.

The place smelled rank.

A moment later, someone came from the side and there was a rustle of movement before something came down over her head and rough hands grabbed her arms.

“In the car, get her in the car,” a male voice growled.

They’d put a hood over her head.

She screamed, but the scream was muffled and then she was being shoved into what must have been a car.

She went sideways, crashing into something, her body sprawling, as she heard the muffled sounds of a door closing, an engine revving.

“Go! Go! Hurry the fuck up!”

There were more shouts and then the squeal of tires.

No
, she thought.
No, no, no.

I’m in the dark.

Please no.

Please.

But it was too late.

She was alone in the dark. For real, this time.