The twenty-four-year-old was thrown inside a locked bedroom by her stepmother and abandoned to a man old enough to have fought in wars she had only ever read about.
Twenty minutes later, she was running barefoot during a thunderstorm.
“Have you seen her? Did anyone find her?”
“No, ma’am. She headed to the back road.”
Rain pelted the earth hard enough to make the distinction between sky and land disappear. The mud from the rain stuck to Elena Vargas’s legs as she limped behind the property, struggling for breath that wouldn’t cooperate. Her silver dress, so elegantly selected by her stepmother for the evening’s “business dinner,” was now tattered around her, dripping wet and stuck to her skin like a second layer of skin.
She had a bruise on her cheekbone. The shape of a ring was still visible beneath the swelling. But she kept walking.
Not out of the belief that she could get away. Just because stopping felt even worse.
Behind her, beams of flashlight shone through the trees.
“Elena!”
Her whole body froze.
This wasn’t a plea. It was the voice of someone who was suddenly losing control of a high-stakes situation.
“Get back here before you make things worse!”
Isabel Vargas rarely spoke in such terms unless she was too angry to pretend to care anymore.
Tonight had cost her dearly.
But an hour before that, she was standing smiling among rich guests under sparkling chandeliers, touching Elena’s shoulder softly while talking about business deals and family ties. For everyone in the house, Isabel seemed graceful. Refined. Devoted.
For Elena, Isabel was a monster hiding behind a smile.
“You could save this family, Mr. Becerra,” she murmured, fastening Elena’s necklace. “It is your turn now to cooperate,” she told Elena.
And then she bolted the bedroom door from the outside.
When Elena resisted, Isabel slapped her so hard that her world spun. Elena wept, but Isabel reassured her that gratitude looked better than fear. And when Oscar Becerra untied his tie and poured himself a glass of wine next to the bed, Elena noticed that the bathroom window was cracked open against the storm.
Instinct took over.
She climbed out into freezing rain and dropped nearly eight feet into the mud below.
The branches clawed her arms as lightning crashed around her head as though buildings were falling. The sounds of voices remained behind her. Searching men. Men who had been well-paid enough not to have to ask any questions.
Then headlights appeared through the rain.
A black vehicle pulled from the darkness and sped down the wet highway without making a sound. Luxurious. Unattainable.
Elena walked right in front of it.
“Please!”
The brakes screamed.
The car halted just inches away from her knees.
Nothing happened for what seemed like eternity. Rain fell against the windscreen. Steam rose from the hood. Panic tightened its grip on Elena’s throat as she stared blindly through tinted glass.
She then went to the passenger side window and pounded it with both fists.
“Please, help me! Don’t leave me here!”
Matthew Carranza raised his head slowly from the backseat of his limousine.
It was clear that he wasn’t the kind of person who liked to be interrupted. He wasn’t used to anything out of the ordinary happening. Least of all, to someone barging into his night. Power emanated from his figure; calm eyes peered out of an intimidating face, dressed in a well-tailored suit. The glow of a half-finished telephone conversation flashed across the device in his hand.
The power seemed as natural to him as his skin.
“Sir?”
Matthew did not respond right away.
His gaze scanned Elena closely: the bruise on her face, trembling hands, bloodstained feet on wet asphalt, panic so clear that it was obvious it wasn’t staged.
This was not some trickery.
Or some trap.
This was the truth.
The flashlight spots closing in on her from behind.
“Unlock the door,” Matthew whispered.
The locks unlocked.
Without delay, Elena stepped into the car, slamming the door behind her almost fast enough to cut off her own fingers. First, she felt warmth. Then, the smell of leather, cedarwood, and an expensive fragrance; there was another smell underneath all of this—that of authority.
The car drove off smoothly.
She did not dare exhale until the lights at the manor faded behind curtains of rain.
“She cannot take me back,” she said quietly, grasping the frayed material on her chest. “If they locate me, she will kill me.”
He shrugged off his coat and gave it to her, not uttering a single word. His fingers touched her arm, briefly.
Cold as ice.
His jaw clenched imperceptibly.
“Who?”
“My stepmother.”
The air in the car shifted, taking on another form.
“Tonight, she tried to sell me,” Elena said softly. “One of her business partners. She told me that after all she paid for my upbringing, there was nothing else left valuable except my body.”
Not even the driver could help but tense.
The sky outside was torn apart by lightning.
“After I turned down her offer, she slapped me. Then she locked us in the room and left me there with her.” Elena gulped nervously. “I managed to get out through the bathroom window. I’ve lost my phone. I don’t know where we are. I just kept running.”
Matthew observed her closely.
Still showing no emotion.
Yet he seemed to possess something else now. Something hidden. Dangerous.
But then Elena caught sight of headlights from behind them.
It was an SUV quickly approaching them.
“It’s them,” she said.
Matthew moved slightly towards the front seats. His voice was calm enough to be terrifying.
“Take Blackwood, instead of the highway.”
The driver did not hesitate.
Then Matthew stared straight at Elena.
“Get down.”
Elena dropped further into her leather seat as the SUV started catching up with them through the rain. Everything outside the car windows blurred into silver and black streaks.
Then she saw the cell phone.
The very last thing that appeared on Matthew’s screen before it went dark was the name Isabel Vargas.
She felt her blood run cold.
Matthew noticed that Elena saw the name.
And then there was a complete silence.
The SUV caught up to them.
Elena’s hand shot towards the doorknob involuntarily, yet before she could say anything, Matthew grabbed a slim black satellite phone and hit one button.
“Marcus,” he stated coolly. “Route Nine and Blackwood Lane. Patricia Salgado awaits roadside with a leather belt. Get her out of there.”
Elena went still.
“She calls the police,” Matthew continued, “make sure she remembers the upcoming audit into her logistics firm. If Becerra contacts you, give him twenty-four hours to liquidate his assets before I liquidate them for him.”
Then the conversation was abruptly ended.
Just like that.
No second thought, no shouting, no emotions displayed.
Yet it felt even more terrifying because of it.
She stared at him in shock.
He knew them.
Not casually. He knew them in the sense that he was one of those men operating in the same perilous realm as them. A realm in which dangers rang smooth and destruction occurred silently behind locked doors.
She wasn’t running away from danger; she was running away sideways.
The car raced even faster through the rain as Seattle faded away behind them in scattered bursts of light and darkness. Within the car, only two noises remained audible: the rumble of the engine and Elena’s irregular breathing.
Finally, Matthew turned towards her completely.
The dashboard light exaggerated the angles of his face, making him appear less human and more like someone chiseled out of material that could withstand fire.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Elena Vargas.”
He focused his eyes on her.
“Arthur Vargas’s daughter.”
It wasn’t a question.
Elena nodded. Her father passed away two years ago, leaving the shipping business under Isabel, along with any money and property that would have been Elena’s inheritance. Ever since then, Elena’s world became one of intimidation, manipulation, and abuse concealed from public eye.
Tonight, however, was the first time she had seen Isabel drop her act.
“Oscar Becerra was supposed to take care of her debts,” Elena whispered. “That was the plan.”
Matthew’s face didn’t move at all.
However, the atmosphere within the car seemed to become much thicker.
Much more tense.
Finally, Elena fell to pieces completely, crying and too exhausted to stay awake, as the adrenaline left her system.
“I didn’t know where else to go.”
Matthew stared at her silently for several seconds.
He showed no signs of pity or anything soothing in his expression.
Instead, he reached over, took a blanket made of heavy wool from somewhere, and threw it over her lap.
“Dry yourself off,” he replied calmly. “I don’t want any blood on my seats.”
The words were harsh, but the blanket was warm.
And for some reason, that scared Elena even more.
Two hours passed, and iron gates opened silently before them.
Beyond the gates, there loomed a huge cliffside manor made of black steel and glass that overlooked raging waters below. Flashes of lightning revealed huge windows, immense pine trees, and buildings so harsh they looked more like prison cells than homes.
The car rolled beneath a covered entrance.
A well-groomed driver was suddenly there holding an umbrella.
Matthew got out first, never once turning around.
And for one more moment, Elena just sat there inside the car staring up at the looming mansion through the downpour of rain.
But then it clicked her.
The nightmare wasn’t over.
It just changed owners.
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