It was the first day of the rest of Belle's life. She had on a new outfit, new shoes, and a new curly blow-out, and was ready to face her job at the library as a newly-single woman. The past few days had been a tornado of crying and avoiding the fiancé she'd left, but yesterday's Belle Beauty Day had cleared that up, and now she was all set to take on the world alone for the first time.
Except that first, she had to deliver some flowers for her father—but then she was all set to take on the world alone.
The Midas estate was a grand affair, and far too gaudy for Belle's tastes, but that didn't stop her from wanting to cry in awe of the sweeping grounds, valet parking, and gold-plated everything. All of the flowers in her packed delivery truck were for an event that Mr. Midas was throwing in honor of his daughter—a engagement party, perhaps?—so Belle had her work cut out for her, delivering and setting up without the help of her father or any of his hired hands.
It was going to do a number on the dress she'd bought to honor her newfound independence, but she'd promised her father that she'd get everything done, and independent women did not renege on promises just because of their clothing.
The estate was crawling with staff, people carrying boxes and vases to and fro, with the occasional sculpture thrown in. Belle parked the van in the circular guest drive, and was pounced on by a woman with an earpiece as soon as she opened the door.
"Moe French?" the woman said, frowning like Belle had just slapped her.
"No, his daughter, Belle." She offered her hand, but the woman had let out a breath and was now checking things off a list on her clipboard.
"Great. How are you with decorating?" The woman looked up, stared at Belle's hand for a moment, and then reached forward to shake it.
"Excuse me?"
"Hi, yes, I need at least ten men out in front for the flowers," the woman said, looking down at her clipboard. "No, I have it under control. Moe sent his daughter."
"So someone will come get the flowers?" Belle asked.
"Yes, and then you'll need to tell them where to put them because our flower arranger decided it was a great day to get into an accident." The woman scoffed, and Belle tried not to hold her ire against her—she was clearly in charge, and even Belle would be frantic in the same situation.
"All right, but I have to—"
"Great, come with me."
There seemed to be no choice other than to listen to the woman and trail along after her. They stalked through the mansion fast enough that Belle had no chance to look around, and wound up in a room that could have held Belle's new apartment as well as the rest of the library.
"Oh, wow," Belle said, looking around with wide eyes.
"Yeah, you get used to it. Okay, so when the boys come in with your flowers, you tell them where to go. There are going to be ice sculptures on those tables, and those smaller tables are for guests, but anywhere other than that. We've got the hallway flowers covered, so it's just this room we'll need you for."
Belle nodded, trying to keep up while not feeling overwhelmed. She could have furnished her entire apartment with the money it would have taken to buy one of the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
"All right, listen up everybody!" The woman clapped her hands, and all of the men trooping in with flowers paused. "Ms. Midas is going to tell you where to put everything, so you listen to her or it'll be your ass on the line for ruining her special day. Got it?"
"Excuse me?" Belle said, watching all of the men nod and look at her in awe.
"Just go with it. We'll never get anything done if they think you're a nobody flower girl." She clapped her hands again. "All right, get to work!"
Belle found herself alone with at least a dozen men, most of them carrying flowers, and a hall big enough to need its own government to decorate all by herself.
"Um." She cleared her throat. She was independent now. Independent people did not say 'um.' "Yes. Okay. We'll need to put some of the roses in that corner over there, by the portrait of, um—" The young woman in the picture was obviously, to Belle's eyes, the actual Kathryn Midas. "—my sister."
Everyone started moving again, and Belle was left trying to shout over the clattering noise of footsteps and heavy lifting.
"And then maybe one of the tinier arrangements to accent the ice sculptures!" she called, but no one heard her. She was a little afraid that the woman would beat her with the clipboard if this wasn't done perfectly, so she needed to think of a new method, fast. There was an ornate satin chair to her left, so she took her shoes off and climbed up.
"All right, listen up!" she yelled, and that got everyone's attention.
Once they could all see her, it was smooth sailing. This would never have happened were her father or Clive there, because either they would be doing it, or no one would have asked because neither looked artistic. Perhaps being a professional decorator wouldn't be so bad—it wasn't a librarian, but no one said that decorators couldn't read, and perhaps she'd even get hired to design a library.
"Excuse me, Miss Midas?"
She looked down at the man at her elbow. He had a mop of blonde hair and baby blue eyes that made him look like a guileless prince charming. The muscles bulging out of his t-shirt indicated that this wasn't his first time doing heavy labor. Belle almost averted her eyes out of habit, until she remembered that she was single now, and she didn't have to.
"Yes, can I help you?" she asked, smiling in a way that she hoped conveyed her command of the situation.
"We need you in the atrium." He pointed to a doorway.
Belle chewed her lip. "Are you sure? I think my main job was in here."
"It will only take a minute," he said, Russian accent thick. He offered his hand to help her down, and if it was only going to take a minute, then it wouldn't hurt, so she braced herself on his arm and stepped off the chair, into her shoes.
He let go of her once she was down and led the way to the atrium, so Belle had the chance to study his muscular back. Did he have a family, back in Russia? Maybe he sent them money every month, money that he made lifting things for rich people. Or maybe he was paying his way through medical school. She liked the sound of that.
Clive had never liked people with accents. He said that people should stay in their own areas—for their honeymoon, he was going to take her on a tour of the part of England that wasn't their home in Surrey. He wouldn't even hear of going to Scotland or Ireland.
"What's the problem?" Belle asked, trying to keep up in her heels.
"There are decorations in the closet, and we were told that you were very picky," he said, beckoning her to a large set of doors.
Oh god—what if Kathryn Midas really was picky, and she told them the wrong thing? It wasn't like her father would fire her, but Mr. Midas could easily ensure that the only job she ever had again was working for her own dad. He might even stop buying from Game of Thorns.
"Oh, well, I think I'd rather have a second opinion," she said, but then he turned around to give her the full effect of his blue, blue eyes, hand on the closet door.
"Please. Just take a look."
He swung the door open and Belle stepped forward to peek in. Then, strong hands were shoving her forward into the closet, where equally strong hands caught her, and she was just about to protest when a wet rag was slapped over her mouth and nose, and then she was unable to do anything at all.
She woke up lying on a couch, blanketed in a leather trench coat that someone had taken the time to tuck around her. There was a quiet, humming noise like an airplane cockpit, but she took that as a symptom of her unconsciousness.
She blinked the last fuzz of sleep from her eyes, and determined that all of the shapes around her were men. Only one of them was paying her any mind, and he gave the impression that he'd been watching her for quite some time. He was bald and bright-eyed, with a bloody looking cut on his forehead.
"Is your head okay?" she asked, voice thick with sleep. Her whole face hurt.
"Go back to sleep, Miss Midas," he said, his accent sounding like a stilted parody of itself. "We are almost there."
"Almost where?" She tried to lift her head, but it was pounding like she'd been hit—what had happened?—so she kept it on the pillow and just turned it.
Out the window, she could see clouds.
"Why am I on a plane?" She tried to sit up, forcing herself to keep moving despite the pounding in her head and the way her stomach rolled. When she tried to balance herself, her hands met a plastic resistance. "What—" She wiggled until the coat fell to reveal wrists zip-tied together. Something was not right.
"Please, Miss Midas. Don't make this more difficult. Go back to sleep."
"Are you kidnapping me?"
"No."
She and the man stared at each other, and she narrowed her eyes—maybe he didn't understand the word in English, though his English was good.
"I have already kidnapped you."
She pressed her lips into a line. "Semantics."
"What?"
"Nothing." Somewhere in the back of her head, it occurred to her that she should be frightened, but she didn't have the energy. The fact that she'd been kidnapped from the mansion of an oil tycoon was still too surreal for her to process.
"Miss Midas—"
"I'm not Miss Midas," she said, trying to sit up.
He laughed, a chilling sound in the muffled cabin. It was even more chilling that none of the other men paid any attention to it. If this was a crime ring, it was well-organized, and Belle was impressed.
"Do not try to get out of this. We know who you are."
"No, really. I'm not Miss Midas. My name is—" Was it safe to give her real name? She'd already been kidnapped, so she might as well. "—Belle."
"A thing to keep in mind when lying is to come prepared," he said. "That way, you are not stalling for time to think of things."
"No, I'm really not Kathryn Midas," she said, glaring at him. "She's blonde. The entire Midas family is blonde."
"We know you are not Kathryn Midas," he said, shaking his head as if she were a small, stupid child. "You are her sister."
Whenever Belle made it back to her father's van, she was going to find the organizer who had decided it was a good idea to pretend that she was a Midas and punch her in the face.
"She doesn't have a sister, and if she does, I'm not her. My name is Belle French. I'll prove it, give me my wallet." She held both hands out, since they were fastened together.
"I do not have it, Miss Midas."
"What? Why? Aren't you kidnapping me for money?"
"Ransom money. Much more than you keep in your wallet."
"But I'm not Miss Midas! Mr. Midas isn't going to ransom me!"
"Well." He leaned back in his chair, spreading his legs and folding his hands in his lap. "Then you should be prepared for what happens to girls who don't get ransomed."
It sounded like something her father might have said to her as a child—'you know what happens to girls who stay up too late reading,' or 'do you know what happens to girls who don't eat their vegetables?'—except this was making Belle shiver.
"What happens?"
He looked at her, and his expression didn't change. "They die."
