Chapter 71 CHAPTER 073
"No." I say quietly. Even though I knew exactly what he was talking about. Kathryn didn't care much about me either. Though she was present in my life, it would have probably done me much good if she simply wasn't. But I can't tell Tyler that. He doesn't care. He can only see himself.
He scoffs at me, "Of course."
Then he kicks the chair back and gets up. Dread fills me up and I cower back, away from his looming figure. I am totally at his mercy and I don't want to find out how far he can go if he wants to. The thought makes my stomach go sour.
"Well, that is enough story for tonight. You should try to get some sleep. You have got a long day ahead of you. We are going to call our dear daddy early morning tomorrow." He sneers at the word 'daddy' making it sound as impure and ugly as possible. Making sure I get his double meaning.
He turns around and my panic bubbles out of me in a desperate cry.
"Tyler! Please, at least, untie me. I am very uncomfortable. I can't spend the night like this. Please. I want to be able to see Ashley. Please...or you can just turn me around or move me closer to where she is. Please." I plead, desperate and shameless. The thought of spending more hours bound to this chair like an helpless animal terrifies me. The silence. The darkness. It taunts me. I can't breath.
Tyler looks at me over his shoulder with a coldness that sends icy prickles down my spine and he smirks. Then he just continues walking and I stare at his outline till the door slams shut, jolting me out of my reverie into darkness.
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Linc POV::
I haven't slept a wink in over twenty four hours now and I feel like absolute shit. I have not felt this winded since my wild college days. I hate the nostalgia it brings up for me because those were really dark dumb years. Nobody should be staying awake for that long for no reason.
Partying, drinking, having random sex with perfect strangers at raves with my gang of insane friends. Drugs. All kinds of drugs. Because my friends were rich, access to whatever hard drugs was not a problem. I still keep in touch with only Chris from that life. The others have either ended up in really dangerous businesses or going in and out of rehab. Most eventually simply overdosed.
It is currently past six in the morning, a streak of sunlight shines through the high windows of the den and I am seated at the mini bar, having singlehandedly gone through half the content of my whiskey collection. My head pounds and I feel like absolute shit. The phone lays face up in front of me. Waiting. Hernandez said he would call and we have been waiting ever since.
Somewhere between leaving my office to come back home in a rush like I predicted what was going happen, and Creed blinking up at me to tell me Amelia made up some dumb excuse to leave the house and he let her, then calling Hernandez immediately and having him come straight to the mansion, Abbie is here too, she arrived in the middle of all the action, in between all these and more events of the past twenty four hours, I lost my mind and found it again, only to lose it again and again. I can't keep hold of the damn thing. I am racked with intense bouts of disbelief.
How can he take her? How can he just take her?
I kept asking myself and others, to no answer. I was angry at first. Wildly so. I was murderous with rage yesterday, I called everyone I knew who could be of help, and when hours went by without any positive feedback, my anger became fear.
Real fear like I have never felt before. It choked me up and had me reaching for my bottle of whiskey more times than I should till the fear mellowed out to a simmering agitation.
One that made me lash out nastily to anyone who had the guts to ask me to hold off on the drinking. I sent everyone out of the mansion in a fit of short lived rage. Keeping only Hernandez. I don't know where he slinked off to in the course of the midnight phone watching and drinking but he is around somewhere.
How dare that darn Tyler kid just take my Amelia? How could he? What does he want so badly that would make him do himself this kind of disservice? Does he not know what I am capable of doing to those who wrong me?
I spent the night just daydreaming about it. It kept me awake.
We didn't find Ashley yesterday. The apartment was the first place I ran to. Hernandez had strong suspicions that Amelia went there on invitation from Ashley. I thought the same. She was the only one that could make Amelia leave the house without worrying.
I went to that apartment with murderous intents on my mind. But when we met an empty apartment and Amelia's car down in the parking lot, my anger simmered to fear. Again. Terrible dread sneaking up my spine to choke the life out of me.
I have never in my life come so close to passing out as to when Hernandez detected hurriedly cleaned bloodstains on the concrete floor close to the elevator.
I pulled some strings and managed to get a blood test done, by the time the results came back negative for Amelia but strong suspicions that it was positive for Ashley, I had lost my mind with worry.
It was just a few hours before the sunset even, but those couple of hours defined everything. In that moment, nothing else mattered, but Amelia.