My gaze flicks to his just in time to see him pushing the air out of a syringe. They’ll knock me out and abort the baby. And I won’t be able to do a thing about it.

“Just something to relax you. Can't give you what I would have since you’ve eaten,” he says, eyes on the syringe. “You shouldn't feel a thing.”

“Please!” I scream and kick as the giant keeps my shoulders pinned and traps my wrists under one knee. “Please! I don’t want this. Help me. Help!” I scream and scream, flailing, kicking all to no avail as I smell the alcohol of the swab then feel the coolness of it as he cleans the area before plunging the needle into my arm, emptying the contents, my body beginning to go limp before he even pulls the needle out.

5

Santiago

Marco hands over the yellow envelope with a strained expression on his face and watches me open it. Inside, there is a handwritten note.

Want your wife back? Come and get her.

Beneath that is the address. Whoever dropped this at the front gate either wants me to know where Ivy is, or they want to lure me out. I’m erring on the second option. An obvious power play. Marco seems to confirm those thoughts when he trails me as I head for the car.

"Boss, I have men on the way there now. They can get her out if she's really there—"

"I'm going, Marco."

"That might be exactly what they want," he mutters. "We still don't know who tried to kill you the first time. And then the poisoning. I just think—"

"Are you driving, or am I?"

I yank open the driver's side door, and he sighs.

"Get in. I'll drive."

I walk around the car and slip into the passenger seat as he fires up the engine. While Marco drives, I study the paper, looking for any clues. I don't recognize the handwriting, not that I would. That is perhaps the one thing about Abel I haven't examined closely.

“Abel could be trying to lure you straight into his trap,” Marco says, eyes focused on the road.

“Possibly,” I admit. But it doesn’t feel like that. “Or it’s someone else.”

He glances at me briefly. “You’re thinking one of his men?”

“I don’t see Abel coming anywhere near The Manor. He knows he’d be caught. So either they delivered the message for him, or they have their own motives.”

“He must be getting desperate to go to these lengths,” Marco says. “These men wouldn’t be working for him if there wasn’t something in it for them.”