CHAPTER 67
Adriana repeated what the man had just said. She said it out loud twice, "How can you help me?" she asked. "I don't even know you. How can I want something from you when I have no idea who you are or what you can give me?" Adriana replied to the man, hoping by some divine intervention that he would introduce himself. It wasn't like that could ever happen. Still, one can only hope. She listened to know what he was doing. He didn't move. She sighed, tired of his games. She would just have to wait till he states his mission.
She had handled criminals far worse than this. Getting them to talk was her job. There are so many ways to make them talk. You can act like they don't affect you. It kills some of them and they start blabbing out of anger. There are those who talk loosen them up. For those ones, you just need to hit their conscience and you've nailed them. And there are the really stubborn one who you can't really get to. For them, you simply wait till they are ready to talk. Adriana had a feeling this man belonged to that class. So, wait, she must, until he was ready to talk.
While waiting, she found a way to keep herself busy and started humming. The man became restless. She could tell the song she hummed affected him, but he was stubbornly refusing to talk. She started humming louder. And just when he was having it no more, the door was shaken. Adriana felt like slapping the intruder.
There was another rough knock on the door. The man opened the door and said "Look who comes to check on his mate."
Mate? Whose mate? The men stepped out and engaged in a heated argument. Adriana strained her ears to catch what they were saying, but they were awfully low about it.
One of the men stepped in again. She could sense it was the same hostile one. She cringed back and waited for him to do whatever. While waiting, she engaged herself in a mind game and lost interest right after. She had been humming when he got upset before the interruption. But she wasn't in mood to get him upset anymore. Something about what the men had said bothered her. Mate? What was that! She figured she should focus on something else. Or someone else. Noah Monterey for instance. Why wouldn't he try to reach out?
"It seems your family made more enemies than you can count." The man said.
Finally, he speaks... He was ready to talk now. Perhaps she could gather some information about her kidnappers that could help her escape and deal with them too. "I don't know what you mean." she replied coolly.
"Gaby!" A familiar voice called, warning the other man. Adriana knew immediately that it was the driver. Why did his voice sound so familiar? His name is Gaby. Like Gabriel, Gab, Gad?
"Look, we need answers." The man who had been called Gaby responded but continued to face her. She couldn't see him. They didn't lose her hood yet, but the mouth tape had been removed.
"What answers?" She asked.
"Like who is after your family so we can know what we're up against?"
Before she could answer, there was a tussle. One man was able to pull the other out and locked the door. She tensed as he walked closer to her but relaxed. It was the driver. Somehow, she felt she could trust this one. The man removed her hood and it took a while to adjust to the brightness. Noah? It was Noah all along.
"What's the meaning of all this, Noah?" She asked angrily.
Noah sat down beside her. "I'm sorry I went through all these to get you to talk. I just want to talk." he said and she looked at him like he was insane.
"You want to talk? Fine, talk." She said to him. She thought about her parents who would be organizing the security team to come find her now. She thought of telling him to call the so they could stand down. But maybe not yet. He couldn't be trusted. It would be okay if the men got here and drag his betraying ass somewhere.
"I couldn't get you to reason with me." He pleaded that she tried to get a hold of herself.
Adriana couldn't believe her eyes. Was this really the man she had married? She couldn't still make herself believe that she had fallen for his crap. "So you kidnapped me?" She stared at him. "Are you insane?"
"Adriana, it was the only way to get you to listen. I needed you alone and cooperative." He said looking stressed. "Please."
She wasn't about to fall for this again, was she? "There are better ways to do this." She eyed him warily, "Let me go." She said.
"I tried to get you to. When I called, you passed the phone to the kids. You wouldn't even say hello."
Was he intentionally trying to get her worked up? If so, he was doing a good job of it. How could he expect her to say hello when he hadn't call for two weeks after she asked him to leave. If not for her, couldn't he have checked on the twins? Angrily, she asked, "You somehow found a way to reach out to my dad, but not me, not us. Noah, not even the kids."
"I didn't know if you'd want to speak with me." He said, "I did as you said, I stayed away."
"Really, Noah?" She stood up. "You stay there to give me this crap."
"Calm down" he coaxed.
"Don't you patronize me here" she warned, "Look, you need to let me go"
"See what I mean?" he said referring to her obvious emotions. "You'd barely give me any audience."
Probably because you don't deserve it. "Did you consider what this would do to our kids? And my parents?" Speaking of which, she needed to call them and let them know she was okay. "I need to call them." She told him.
"Why?"
"Is this a kidnapping?"
"No." He was vehement.
"Then they need to know I'm okay." He looked at her strangely. "Because I'm being tracked, dummy." She showed him the spot where the chip had been surgically inserted. "And I need to speak with my kids." She told him.
