POV Noelle
My hands are on fire.
Not literally—though at this point, actual flames might be an improvement over the rope burns cutting into my wrists like angry snakes. I’ve been tied to this chair for what feels like seventeen fucking years, but is probably more like six hours, judging by the way my bladder is staging a full-scale rebellion.
This dungeon situation is exactly as charming as it sounds. Concrete walls, one flickering lightbulb, and the kind of dampness that suggests this place hasn’t seen a health inspector since the Civil War. Very classy kidnapping setup. Really screams “professional operation.”
The best part? Learning that psychotic bitch Lucille was the one on the phone with Owen.
“You should’ve seen his face when I told him I’d kill his precious mommy,” she’d cackled about an hour ago, like she was sharing gossip instead of confessing to extortion. “Poor boy actually thought he was protecting you by breaking your little heart.”
The irony is so thick you could choke on it.
Owen was trying to save me. Said all those soul-crushing things—called me nothing, called me pathetic—because this lunatic threatened his dying mother. And what did I do? Got him fired. Threw the world’s most dramatic tantrum and basically gift-wrapped myself for kidnapping.
Congratulations, Noelle. You played yourself so hard you should get a fucking medal.
“You know what the funny part is?” Lucille’s been pacing around me like a shark circling chum. “He actually loves you. Disgusting, really. All that training, all that professionalism, and he throws it away for some spoiled brat with daddy issues.”
“Go fuck yourself,” I manage around the duct tape, though it comes out more like “Mo muck moursemf.”
“Such language! No wonder Owen was so eager to—”
The explosion cuts her off mid-sentence.
The whole building shakes like God just sneezed, and suddenly Lucille’s flying across the room like she got hit by an invisible truck. She slams into the concrete wall with a wet thud that’s probably going to give me nightmares for years.
My chair doesn’t survive the blast. The impact sends me tumbling, and the wooden chair shatters like it’s made of toothpicks. Pain shoots through my shoulder as I hit the ground, but at least my hands are free now.
Well, free-ish. Still tied together, but no longer attached to furniture.
That’s when I see him.
Owen appears through the smoke like some kind of avenging angel, all black tactical gear and controlled violence. He’s got that look—the one that means people are about to die and he’s perfectly fine with that arrangement.
“Stay down,” he tells me, voice calm as a fucking lake.
I stay down. Mainly because moving seems like a terrible idea when there’s potentially more explosions coming.
What follows is probably the most efficient ass-kicking in the history of ass-kickings. Lucille tries to fight back, but Owen moves like violence personified. Three moves, and she’s unconscious on the floor looking significantly less threatening.
“Are you hurt?” He’s beside me in seconds, cutting the ropes with a knife that appears from nowhere.
“Just my pride and my shoulder.” I try to sit up, immediately regret it. “And possibly my faith in humanity.”
“Can you walk?”
“Can you carry me?”
He doesn’t answer, just scoops me up like I weigh nothing. Which, considering I haven’t eaten since this morning and have been stress-sweating for hours, might actually be accurate.
The ride home is a blur of sirens, concerned paramedics, and Owen’s steady presence beside me in the ambulance. He doesn’t say much—just holds my hand while the EMT checks my vitals and asks if I know what year it is.
“2024, and I still make terrible life choices,” I tell her.
She doesn’t find it as funny as I do.
By the time we reach the estate, I’m cleaned up, bandaged, and running on pure adrenaline and whatever painkillers they gave me. Dad’s pacing in the foyer like a caged animal, and the relief on his face when he sees me could power a small city.
“Sugar plum.” He pulls me into a hug that’s probably cracking ribs, but I don’t care. “I thought I lost you.”
“Takes more than one psychotic nurse to get rid of me.”
“Don’t joke about this.”
“If I don’t joke about it, I’ll start crying, and we both know how you handle tears.”
He laughs despite himself, then his eyes land on Owen standing awkwardly in the doorway.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Dad’s voice drops to that deadly quiet tone that usually precedes people disappearing permanently. Owen doesn’t flinch, just stands there taking whatever’s coming like he deserves it.
Which he absolutely doesn’t.
“He saved me, Daddy.”
The words come out stronger than I feel, but they’re true. Owen saved me from my own stupidity, from Lucille’s crazy, from a situation that could’ve ended very differently.
“He’s the reason you were in danger in the first place.”
“No, I’m the reason I was in danger. I’m the one who threw a tantrum and got him fired. I’m the one who went to the mall alone like some kind of amateur.”
Dad looks between Owen and me, and I can see him processing the implications.
“He was protecting me, Dad. The whole time, he was protecting me, and I was too stupid to see it.”