I awake feeling like a thousand needles are poking at my brain.
For a moment, I don’t move. I just breathe, trying to remember what the hell happened.
The scent of expensive perfume mixed with something bitter lingers in the air. Leather and vanilla. The room is dim, curtains drawn, letting in only a sliver of evening light. Shantelle’s living room. I recognize the furniture.
I shift, and that’s when I feel it—tightness around my wrists, a sharp bite against my skin. Rope. My hands are bound behind my back.
What the hell?
My gaze moves downward. A shattered vase lies in a mess of jagged porcelain shards and water. A few wilted petals cling to the wreckage like corpses. Right. That explains the throbbing in my skull.
My eyes travel further until I find Shantelle by a window, silhouet
