“Here, take these.” He lifted one of her hands and tipped an assortment of pills into it. He put an arm underneath her shoulders and awkwardly tried to lift her. It was then that she realized one of her hands was cuffed to the bedpost.
“I don’t want them.” She let the small round pills fall to the mattress. She couldn’t know that they were really painkillers and antibiotics, he could be giving her anything.
“I said take them.” He switched instantaneously to anger, and for a moment Rylla quivered in fear.
He could kill her before anyone found her or she managed to escape. Anything she said or did could set him off. That was how Georgia had been killed. She had angered him and he had lost control.
Beau grabbed her chin and dug his fingers into the tender flesh of her neck, right above the cut he had given her the other night. Reflexively her mouth popped open, and he shoved the pills inside, then tipped some water in after them. He clamped a hand over her mouth so she couldn’t spit the pills out. Her only options were swallow or choke.
She swallowed.
“Good girl.” He patted her head as though she were a puppy that had just passed a training exercise.
“How did you find me?”
“Tracking device on your friend’s car,” he replied smugly.
She should have thought of that. Naomi had met Beau once or twice, he probably thought staking out her house and tagging her car was going to be safer than coming back to her house. “How did you get through Anton?” She knew Anton, he was a big guy, getting through him wouldn’t have been easy.
“Told him Emmy and Mac needed you, he didn't bat an eye. He was going to bring me inside, but I took him out.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Of course not. I just knocked him out and put him in the trunk of his car. I don’t kill people. Only if I have no choice. I couldn’t let those women go, they would have reported me. I didn't kill them for fun.”
He might not have killed them for fun, but he had still killed them. He would kill her too. She needed to formulate a plan on how she was getting herself out of here. Rylla glanced down her body and saw a crisp white bandage had been wrapped around her left thigh, above the bandage that was still wrapped around her injured knee. The bandage was already stained bright red. Despite what Beau thought the gunshot wound was clearly still oozing blood. How badly was she hurt? Obviously not enough to have bled to death right away, but the injury could still turn out to be life threatening.
Unable to do anything about the wound she turned her attention to the room. It was decked out just like she pictured a fairytale castle would look. The room had been modeled with a medieval theme, and while it was beautiful, and if this was a hotel or a Bed and Breakfast, and she and Nate were spending a romantic evening here it would have been amazing, it was still her prison.
It was a representation of just how far gone Beau really was. He truly believed that he was Prince Charming in search of his perfect princess. When he realized that was never going to be her, he would kill her and move on to the next woman. And then the next, and the next, and the next, until he was stopped.
There were no windows, and only the one exit. The door looked big and strong, but she knew how to pick a lock. All she needed was an opportunity to get away and she would seize it and make it work.
“Did you call an ambulance for Naomi?” Was her friend okay? Had Beau shot her after he had shot her? Even if he hadn’t Naomi was in labor, it could be hours before Nate and Sam returned to the cabin. What if there were complications? Both Naomi and her baby could die all alone in that cabin, just like Josh and Elianna had died all alone in the car.
“Your friend will be fine.”
“You just left her there? She was in labor.”
Her chastising tone obviously upset him because his hand connected with her cheek with such force it sent her head snapping sideways. “You don’t speak to me like that,” he growled. “If you have something to say you wait for permission to speak, and then when permission is granted you speak to me with the respect I deserve.”
She knew she should keep her mouth shut, but she couldn’t. “Respect you deserve? You killed four people including the mother of your children. You shot my pregnant friend and left her handcuffed to a couch to give birth alone. You shot and kidnapped me. Why should I respect you? What have you done to earn my respect?”
Rylla had thought that pushing him would result in another hit, but instead his angry face slowly relaxed, and his frown morphed into a smile. He began to stroke her hair. “I was right. You’re everything Mila had and more. You’re perfect. And one day you’re going to realize that I'm everything you’ve been looking for too.”
“That’s never going to happen, Beau,” she said softly. “You know that. It didn't work with any of the other women.”
“You’re different than them.”
“Maybe, but the result will be the same. I’ll never live up to your expectations. I'm never going to love you.” Rylla stopped herself before she admitted she was already in love with someone else. Beau didn't know about Nate, there was no reason for him to suspect that the two of them were a couple. But if he knew he could take out his anger on Nate, and she couldn’t let that happen. “I'm never going to stop trying to escape, and my friends are never going to stop looking for me. When you finally accept that I’ll never be your princess you’ll kill me.”
Knowing that she would either die in this room or die trying to escape if Nate and the others didn't find her first was heartbreaking. She finally had something to live for. After so many years where she had wished that she had died right along with the rest of her family, she now had hope for a bright and happy future, and that had all been wiped away in a second.
Her eyes grew heavy.
She was sleepy.
There must have been sleeping pills mixed in with the painkillers and antibiotics he’d given her earlier.