Before {COMPLETE}

CHAPTER 16

Tessa's POV:

He closes the door behind as we walk into the basement. It smells disgusting; it smells like it hasn't been cleaned in 50 years. Bradley is searching for something inside of a steel case that is standing against the wall. There is one light dangling from the roof so that is basically the only thing that lights up the room and it is not doing a very good job.

There are two chairs in the middle of the room and other random stuff like ropes and empty water bottles. "Please take a seat." Bradley kindly asks as he points at the two metal black chairs in the middle of the room. Poor Bradley he doesn't even want to do this job and I can see the sadness in his eyes. "Here we go." Bradley starts to tie up Hunter. He wraps the rope around his torso, then around his wrists and then around the chair.

Then he does the same with me. First around my waist then around my wrist and then around the chair. "Watch those hands of yours." Hunter spits. Bradley puts up his hands up in the air. "Sorry." He says. All I do is roll my eyes. Bradley then ties our feet to the chairs.

"Ok, I have to go now please don't do something stupid. Chris won't think twice when his finger is on the trigger." Bradley warns us. Shit. Would Chris really go that far? Bradley walks out of the room and close the door behind him. I look over to Hunter and see that he's trying to avoid eye contact.

"So you're not talking to me?" I ask him. I keep my eyes focus on a dark corner in the room while talking to Hunter. There were a few seconds of complete silence before he said something. "Why didn't you just run." he ask angrily. He is trying his best not to shout at me.

"I was not going to just leave you there. I know we barley know each other but I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing that I just left you there. I'm not that type of person." I say truthfully. "This is not about me Tessa!" he says loudly. "Yeah it is Chris is definitely not my friend." I say emphasizing the 'my' in that sentence.

"Well if you just ran when I told you to run I would have had one less thing to worry about right now." he snaps. We both stay quiet for a few seconds. I turn my head to face Hunter but he is still not looking at me. "You know why I didn't run?" I asked with a few tears running down my cheeks. He says nothing. "Hunter look at me." I demand. After a few seconds he turns his head and looks me in the eyes. His eyes. They got me speechless every time. I look down and try and get my courage and confidence back that I had a few seconds ago.

"Hunter... I... I didn't run because I like you." I say looking down again. When the words leave my mouth I already regret it. What if he doesn't feel the same way? Oh my god of course he doesn't feel the same way about me. I'm so stupid.

Hunter's POV:

"...because I like you." Tessa's words keep replaying in my head seeing her cry because of me hurts my heart and I feel like an asshole. I am an asshole. I can't believe she said that. Does she really like me? I want to hug her so bad. I want to hug her and tell her everything is going to be fine but I can't because I'm tied to this stupid fucking chair.

"Tessa I like you too." I say honestly. I do, I really do like her. I might even say I love her. I've never felt this way about someone else and I it scared the living shit out of me. "You do?" she asks shocked. "Yeah, I like you... a lot." I say to her.

Bradley's POV:

"I tied them up just like you asked me to." I say to Chris. "I don't know if I should trust them here." He says walking over to his safe. He keeps his guns in there. I know the safe's combination but Chris doesn't know that and I would like to keep it that way. After opening the safe he pulls out a pair of handcuffs and hands it over to me.

"Connect them to that old water pipe that runs across the basement and make sure to tell them that if they try something it's over." Chris says looking me in the eyes.

Seriously.

He needs to stop watching so many action movies. Sometimes I seriously start to think that he is the devil because of the things he does to people.

"Yes boss." I say irritated. I hate being his puppet but I don't want to end up like Michael. Michael was Chris's bodyguard before I was and let me tell you it wasn't pretty.

I walk away but I can still feel his eyes on me. I roll my eyes and continue walking to the basement.

I get to the basement and open the door and I clearly scared the shit out of Hunter and Ava. I hate that I have to do this to them, especially Ava. She has been through so much with her ex-boyfriend and now this. She doesn't even have anything to do with this.

"Hey guys." I say as I walk into the basement. "Hey Bradley, is everything ok?" Ava asks kindly. No nothing is ok I hate this job, I hate Chris and I hate my life. "Yeah Chris send me back here to cuff you to that water pipe over there." I say pointing at a pipe that is in a darker part of the room. It's not completely dark you can still see around but not as much as you can see in the middle of the room where the light is dangling from the ceiling.

"What is the point of this whole kidnap mission anyway? It's not like Chris is going to get the money any sooner if he keeps us locked in here." Ava says. She has a point but I can't do anything about it.

"I don't know. He doesn't want to tell me anything. All I know is that he is planning something and... I don't know. I have a feeling that this is going to end badly." I admit. Every time Chris kidnaps someone they end up dead. He says he needs to kill them because they will go to the police and he isn't someone who would survive in jail.

They look at each other with a worried look spread across their faces. I didn't even notice but Ava has been crying. Her eyes are red and puffy and her cheeks are stained with tears. I decide not to say anything about it because I know I'm the reason for some of those tears.

"You must hate it to be ordered around like that all the time." Ava says shaking her head. "Well a guy has to listen to his father don't he." the words slip out of my mouth before I can stop them.