Page 113 of Sunny Undone

“What did you do, Evan?” I ask as I turn to face him, but there’s a white-hot pain at the back of my head, and then, the world goes black.

When it comes back online, there’s carpet against my cheek, and the floor vibrates and bounces beneath me. My wrists ache against my chest, where something has been wrapped around them, and the movement of the car jostles me.

Evan hit me and put me in his trunk, and it all clicks into place with sickening inevitability. The cancelled orders that were never his fault. The loss of missing data. The fact my findings were being reported.

The saboteur was him.

It was the man I thought was harmless. The man I thought was on my side. I think about the conversations in our lab, about the developers. He seemed as vehemently opposed to them as I was, perhaps even more so. Did I read the signs wrong?

A wave of panic, bordering on hysteria, washes over me. My heart beats like it’s furiously trying to escape my chest. There’s a raging headache blooming that makes me feel a little nauseated.

“Think, Della,” I whisper sharply. “Do what you do best.”

I look for the interior trunk-release mechanism. But where the handle should be, there’s nothing. I thought they were supposed to be visible, even in the dark, but…

“Oh my God.” He planned this. And he removed it or disabled it or destroyed it somehow.

I work through my options. It’s dark, but I use my feet that are unrestrained to track over the carpet. I don’t feel my bag. It’s unlikely my phone is still in my back pocket. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything I can do.

The first thing is to try to free my hands.

The rope is the nylon kind. I can’t see what I’m doing, but I use a combination of my teeth and strained fingers to unknot it. My teeth slip off the rope as we ride over a bump in the road, and I bite my tongue, instead, and have to wince as the taste of iron fills my mouth.

But I can’t stop. I gnaw and bite at the rope until I manage to get something to loosen.

Because as Sunny said this morning, I’m the soon-to-be old lady of Lucas “Sunny” Reed, tail gunner of the Iron Outlaws Motorcycle Club. And I need to act like it.

I don’t know where Evan is taking me. I don’t know what he’ll do when we get there. But I need to have my hands free and be in a position to get out as soon as he opens the trunk.

The car breaks harshly, and I hear him grind the gears to stop. “Cut in front of me, why don’t you, motherfucker,” he complains as I recover from being tossed about.

That might be the first time I’ve heard him swear.

But as the car eases forward again, something cool and plastic hits my cheek. I flinch, at first, but then, I grab it and it illuminates at my touch.

Not my phone, but Evan’s. Oh my God, it must have slipped out of his pocket when he bent over to put me in here.

It’s locked, but I try the one thing I can think of. The same number he wanted us to make the equipment cupboard, so he’d remember it. His day and month of birth.

Tears blur my vision when it works.

Quickly, I dial Sunny’s number, grateful he has such an easy number to remember. Who knew a palindrome might save my life. But, he hangs up on it.

I dial again. He hangs up. Again.

I’ll do it one more time, and then, I’ll call the police and⁠—

“Who the fuck are you clogging up a man’s phone?” Sunny says.

“Sunny, it’s me. I’m in trouble.”

34

SUNNY

At the sound of fear in Della’s voice, the world goes cold and sharp, all at once, the way it does when you see sudden brake lights on a dark night in the rain. I’m on my feet, knocking the bar stool down behind me, before my brain has even properly engaged.

“Where are you, Indy?” I ask, and there must be something in my tone because Ridge jumps to his feet too.