Jilted By Nephew, Claimed By King

The concrete floor was cold enough to seep through the denim of her jeans, biting into her kneecaps. Annelise Phelps kept her head down, her chin tucked against her chest, letting her shoulders shake in a rhythm that mimicked terror. It was a performance she had perfected in places far worse than a dusty, abandoned shipyard warehouse in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Dust motes danced in the single shaft of light cutting through the gloom. She counted them. She counted the seconds between the drips of water falling from a rusted pipe somewhere in the darkness. But mostly, she calculated the distance between Benji, who was currently wearing a ski mask and brandishing a serrated tactical knife, and the heavy iron door to her left.

Twelve feet.

If this were real, Benji would be dead in three seconds. But this wasn't an extraction. This was theater.

The heavy iron door groaned, the sound of metal grinding against metal echoing through the cavernous space. Light flooded in, harsh and blinding. Annelise squeezed her eyes shut and let out a whimper that sounded pathetic even to her own ears.

"Annelise!"

Preston Carson's voice cracked. He sounded out of breath. He sounded like a man who had run a marathon, or perhaps just a man who wanted to appear as though he had.

Annelise looked up, widening her eyes until they watered. Preston stood in the doorway, his Italian suit looking out of place against the industrial decay. Behind him, clutching the back of his jacket, was Felicia. Her stepsister. Felicia's makeup was flawless, her terror perfectly curated, though Annelise caught the glint of excitement in her eyes as she took in the scene.

"Please," Annelise begged, her voice trembling. "Preston, please help me."

Benji stepped forward. He had a voice modulator tucked against his throat, turning his youthful tenor into a gravelly, demonic growl.

"Two minutes," Benji barked, pointing the knife at a device strapped to a pillar. Red numbers ticked down. 1:59. 1:58. "The bomb is rigged to the door mechanism. I take one hostage with me. The other stays here and burns. You choose, rich boy."

The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating. The ticking of the timer seemed to amplify, bouncing off the corrugated metal walls. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Annelise shuffled forward on her knees. The rope binding her wrists behind her back was loose-she had tied the knots herself-but she kept her arms rigid. She looked at Preston. She looked at the man who saw her as a rival for his family's power, a piece on a chessboard he desperately wanted off the board. This was the man whose uncle, Francesco Lancaster, she was contractually obligated to marry-a man Preston believed was an invalid, making this entire merger a threat to his own inheritance.

"Preston," she whispered. She stretched her neck out, reaching for him with her gaze. "I'm scared."

Preston looked at her. He really looked at her. He saw the oversized, pilling gray sweater she wore