I shoveled the remainder of my cereal into my mouth and set the bowl on the table. I scooped up the laptop and opened it. A smile curved my lips when I saw her screensaver. It was a picture of me asleep on her couch on Thanksgiving. I was wearing pants, but the photograph focused on my face and naked chest. What a little pervert, taking pictures of me while I’m helpless.

I was prompted for a password. Why did she need a password? Didn’t she trust me? I hope you’re smiling, because I know I am.

Anyway, it took me the better part of the morning, but I finally gained access to Livvie’s laptop. Her password gave me mixed emotions: Survival. If you’re horrified, please consider that I was fully aware Livvie would discover what I’d done. I wasn’t trying to hide my actions. I just wanted to know what the hell was on her laptop and why she chose to keep it from me.

There was a fleeting moment when I considered I might be opening Pandora’s box, but it really was fleeting. I make it my business to know what’s going on around me, and it has saved my ass more than once.

Livvie is very systematic. Her desktop was organized into a series of folders: FLM101, ENG202, HIS152, ART102, School Plan, and most alluring, Captive. One guess as to which folder I opened first? No! Not film.

There were several different documents inside the folder: Caleb, Reed, Sloan, FBI procedures, Mexico, East, Stockholm Syn, Human Traffick, Captive_D1_R2. My fingers began to shake as I hovered over each file. I wondered what I would discover. I wondered if I could process what I’d find. I wondered if I would feel different toward Livvie once I read them. If she was betraying me in some way, did I want to know? I knew already there would be no going back. Ignorance had never served me well.

I tested the waters by opening the document labeled “Sloan”. It contained a description of her appearance and a list of her mannerisms. I found Sloan interesting in a strange sort of way (free-form knitting and interpretive taxidermy? What?). I immediately moved on to the file on Reed.

Height: 6’2’’ Weight: 195? Desc: Pitch black hair that’s a little too long (surprising because of his job and his obvious anal retentiveness). It curls a little around his ears and the nape of his neck. His eyes are dark and expressive due to his dark brows. Clean shaven (very meticulously groomed aside from the hair). His lips (mmmmm). His mouth is warm and he tastes like coffee and mints. Bit of an angry shit when you kiss him unexpectedly (ha!).

Rage hit me fast and hard. Why had she kissed him? What had she really been up to when Reed had come to “check on her”?

I had to stop reading and take a few deep breaths. Livvie wouldn’t betray me. Would she? She obviously hadn’t turned me in. I forced myself to keep reading.

Livvie went on to describe Reed as good looking and sharp witted. I’m f**king good looking and sharp witted! I bet Reed only speaks one language. I’m sharp witted in five!

I moved on to my file. Surely, it had to read better than the one she had on Reed. I recalled Livvie telling me in Mexico that she hoped to write a book one day. She’d also told me the first rule of writing was to write what you know. The thought filled me with foreboding.

The document was longer than the previous two—about three pages. She’d managed a great deal of detail. The description calmed me somewhat. Livvie was very flattering, except I felt she had transformed me from a person into a character, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about being picked apart.

Height: 6’4’’ Weight: 210? Desc: blond hair, Caribbean blue eyes. A full mouth made for kissing. He has a canine tooth that is a bit sharp and slightly out of line with all of this other perfect teeth (the first time I saw him smile). Muscular, but lean—not bulky or overly muscled. His skin is tan from the sun, not a machine. He has almost invisible blond hair everywhere (kissing his back, they stood on end—super soft).

Mannerisms: Caleb always seems to think something is funny or amusing (that ridiculous smirk). His eyes can be beautiful or f**king terrifying (peaceful waters v. dark murky water). His mouth gets tense when he’s pissed and trying not to show it. He scowls a lot and sometimes he does it while he’s smiling, which usually means he’s about to do something especially cruel (that first whipping).

Livvie’s character profile went on and on about me. She wrote down pieces of things she remembered about me. She even went on to describe my dick, what I looked like when I came, and the way I laughed. Had Claudia read these notes? I knew she’d read at least part of Livvie’s story. What the f**k could she possibly have been thinking? I resented taking instant notice of how tight my lips were as I bit down on the tip of my tongue to help calm me down. I laughed bitterly.

I finally opened Captive.

Prologue:

This is not a romance. Romances are filled with valiant men and simpering damsels in distress. Romances have heroes worthy of the title. They slay dragons and climb towers to rescue beautiful princesses they immediately marry and impregnate. Romances end with a happily ever after. This is not a romance.

This is a love story. The characters are flawed to the point of being broken. The hero is beautiful, but ugly in ways that defy the ordinary imagination. The heroine isn’t trapped in a tower, but a dark and lonely room. There is no prince coming to save her. While love blooms and thrives, there is no happily ever after. Love does not always begin or end the way we wish it would.

A love story can happen to anyone. This one happened to me.

The words stirred something inside me. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind. Livvie was writing a book about us. Our story was not romance. I was not worthy of being called a hero. I was beautiful on the outside and hideous on the inside. We… didn’t have a happily ever after.

I swallowed hard. I swallowed a few times.

I’d come too far to stop. I kept reading:

I’m hurrying down the sidewalk, trying to get away from the sinister man in the car behind me, when I look up and see him. Perhaps it’s his easy stride, or the way his gaze sweeps past me instead of over me, but for whatever reason, he seems safe. I throw my arms about his waist and whisper, “Just play along, okay?”

He does, and I’m surprised when his arms wrap around me. The moment of danger seems to pass very quickly, but for some reason I don’t want to let go. I feel safe in these arms, and I’ve never really felt safe before. And he smells good, he smells the way I imagine a man should smell—like crisp, clean soap, and warm skin, and a light sweat. I think I’m taking too long to let go, so I release him as though he’s burned me. Then I stare up and acknowledge the angel in front of me. My knees almost buckle.

He is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. That includes puppies, babies, rainbows, sunsets, and sunrises. I can’t even call him a man—men don’t look this good. His skin is beautifully tanned, as if the sun itself took the time to kiss his skin to perfection. His muscled forearms are dusted with the same golden hair of his head. And his eyes mimic the blue-green of the Caribbean Sea I’ve only seen on movie posters.

He smiles, and I can’t help but smile, too. I’m a puppet. He pulls my strings. His smile reveals his beautiful white teeth, but also his sharp canine on the left side. His teeth aren’t perfect, and the small imperfection seems to make him more beautiful.

He’s saying something to me, something about another girl, but I refuse to listen.

It was the first time we’d met. She’d felt safe in my arms, never guessing, never knowing what I was about to do to her. Even knowing all the things that happened afterward, the fact we were having a relationship, I felt sick to my stomach over her words. Her choice of phrases made her youth obvious. She’d compared me to puppies, babies, and rainbows. So young and naïve—I’d ruined that.

Livvie’s first draft looked nothing like what you’ve read. She didn’t have my perspective. She didn’t have the knowledge of my thoughts or the things that were in play during those first encounters. The picture she painted was of a sad, lonely girl trapped in a room at the hands of a sadistic monster who cared nothing for her well-being. This was Livvie’s recollection of me.

I read about her kidnapping, living every moment of her fear with her and feeling rage when she talked about Jair slapping her unconscious. It was beyond surreal to read about Livvie’s first impressions of my cold and detached voice as she lay bound and blind in Felipe’s house. She’d thought I was going to rape and kill her. I suppose I knew those things then, but I didn’t care and that was the worst part. I remembered I hadn’t cared. That was the truth about the man I was.

I was a glutton for punishment and I kept reading. To my surprise, I found erotic undertones. While I remembered the moments vividly and with a certain sick fondness, reading them from her point of view was like a knife twisting in my gut. I wasn’t sure if the Livvie I had come to know was honestly the Livvie she had been. Perhaps I had simply altered her to suit me.

I wondered if Livvie had been someone else, a different girl as I had once suggested, if I would have gone through with it and sold her to Vladek. I wondered if Livvie had never gotten away from me, never suffered the encounter with the bikers, if I might have taken this beautiful woman and ruined her. In those moments, I would have done anything to unmake the words in front of me. I didn’t want them to exist. I didn’t want them to be true. With all that I was, I longed to go back to that first day I had met Livvie and make different choices. Yet there was the nagging voice in my head reminding me how far back I’d have to go to undo my mistakes. I would have to go back to the night Narweh beat me and give up my fight to live.