I yanked the door open with what I was absolutely certain was my most seductive smile, ready to pounce on my husband like some kind of anniversary wildcat.

Instead, I found myself face-to-face with my mother's horrified expression and my father's jaw practically hitting the concrete steps of our apartment building.

"Oh my God." The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them, and I immediately slammed the door shut again, my heart hammering against my ribcage like it was trying to escape.

This could not be happening. Not tonight. Not when I was wearing barely-there lingerie and enough perfume to choke a horse. Not when there were rose petals scattered across every surface of our living room and candles burning like we were hosting some kind of romantic séance.

"Cynthia Grey Morrison, you open this door right this instant!"

My mother's voice could probably shatter glass when she got that tone going. I pressed my back against the door and squeezed my eyes shut, praying that maybe if I stayed perfectly still, they'd think no one was home and just go away.

"We know you're in there, sweetheart. We saw you open the door."

Dad's voice was gentler, but that somehow made everything worse. At least when Mom was yelling, I could pretend they were just angry. When Dad got all soft and understanding, it meant they were disappointed, which was about a thousand times more devastating.

I grabbed the first thing I could reach, Alex's oversized hoodie hanging on the coat rack, and pulled it over my head, trying to cover as much of the lingerie situation as possible.

The hoodie hung down to my thighs, which wasn't exactly modest, but it was better than answering the door looking like I'd just escaped from some billionaire's private fantasy.

I took a deep breath and opened the door again.

"Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. This is... unexpected."

Mom pushed past me into the apartment without waiting for an invitation, her sensible shoes clicking against our hardwood floors. She stopped dead in the middle of our living room, taking in the candles, the rose petals, the chocolate cake sitting on our tiny dining table.

"What in God's name is going on here?" she demanded, spinning around to face me with her hands planted firmly on her hips.

Dad followed behind her more slowly, his eyes scanning the romantic setup with what looked like genuine confusion. "Cynthia, are we interrupting something?"

"It's our wedding anniversary," I mumbled, suddenly feeling like I was sixteen again and getting caught sneaking back into the house after curfew. "I was just... you know. Trying to make it special."

"You call this nonsense special?" Mom's voice went up about three octaves. "Cynthia, you look like you're dressed for... for..."

"It's not nonsense," I crossed my arms over my chest, which was probably a mistake because it made the hoodie ride up even higher. "It's romantic. Normal married couples do romantic things for their anniversaries."

"Normal married couples," Dad repeated, like he was testing out the words to see how stupid they sounded. "Is that what you think you are?"

"You look like a common prostitute!" Mom yelled.

I flinched at the word, taking a step backward, my mouth falling open in shock.

"Margaret, that's enough," Dad said, but the damage was already done.

"Don't you 'Margaret' me, Robert," Mom snapped back at him. "Look at this place. Look at her. This is not how we raised our daughter to behave."

I felt tears starting to prick at the corners of my eyes, which was ridiculous. I was a grown woman. A married woman. I shouldn't care what my parents thought about how I chose to celebrate my anniversary.

But God help me, I did care. I cared so much it felt like there was a weight sitting on my chest, making it hard to breathe.

"We are married," I said weakly. "We have been for three years."

Mom turned around and gave me a look that could have killed houseplants. "Three years of what exactly? Playing house while you drain that poor boy's bank account?"

"I don't drain his bank account! I work! I have a job mom!"

"Oh yes," Mom said, her voice dripping with fake sweetness. "Your little waitress job at that greasy diner. How very accomplished of you."

The tears I'd been holding back finally spilled over, running down my cheeks and probably taking my carefully applied makeup with them. I wiped at my face with the sleeve of Alex's hoodie, trying to pull myself together.

"Why are you here?" I asked, my voice coming out smaller than I intended. "You didn't drive six hours just to tell me what a disappointment I am."

Mom and Dad exchanged a look that made my stomach drop straight down to my toes.

"Cynthia, honey," Dad started, his voice gentle in that way that meant he was about to deliver terrible news. "We need to talk to you about Alex."

"What about Alex?"

My voice came out sharper than I meant it to, but something about the way they were looking at me, like I was a wounded animal they were trying not to spook, made every nerve in my body go on high alert.

"Maybe you should sit down," Mom suggested, her earlier anger replaced by something that looked almost like pity.

"I don't want to sit down. I want you to tell me what's going on."

Dad cleared his throat. "We got a phone call about an hour ago. From someone claiming to have Alex."

The words didn't make sense at first. I stood there blinking at them like they were speaking a foreign language.

"What do you mean, claiming to have Alex?"

"Cynthia," Mom said gently, reaching out to touch my arm. "Alex has been kidnapped."

The room started spinning. I grabbed onto the back of our couch, my knees suddenly feeling like they were made of jelly.

"That's... that's impossible. Alex is on a business trip. He's supposed to be home tonight."

"The man who called said Alex was taken three days ago," Dad continued, his voice steady but strained. "He's demanding five million dollars for his safe return."

Five million dollars.

The number was so absurd, so completely outside the realm of anything I could even comprehend, that I almost started laughing. We couldn't scrape together five hundred dollars without planning for it. Five million might as well have been five billion.

"Did you call the police?" I asked, proud of myself for managing to form a coherent sentence.

"He said not to," Mom replied. "He said if we involved law enforcement, Alex would... he said Alex would die."

The room tilted sideways. I sank down onto the couch, my legs finally giving out completely.

"Why didn't he call me?" I whispered. "If Alex is really... if someone really has him, why wouldn't they call me directly?"

Dad sat down beside me, his weathered hand covering mine. "He did call you, sweetheart. Several times. When you didn't answer, he looked up Alex's emergency contacts and found our number."

My phone. Where was my phone?

I looked around frantically until I spotted it on the kitchen counter, right where I'd left it while I was getting ready. I'd been so focused on creating the perfect anniversary surprise that I hadn't even thought to check for messages.

I lunged for the phone, nearly tripping over the coffee table in my haste. The screen lit up showing seventeen missed calls from an unknown number, along with a handful of text messages that made my blood run cold.

Answer your fucking phone.

Your husband is running out of time.

5 million. 48 hours. No cops or he's dead.

The phone slipped from my numb fingers and clattered to the floor.

This wasn't real. This couldn't be real. Things like this didn't happen to people like us. We were boring. We were nobody. We lived in a tiny apartment and argued about grocery money and celebrated anniversaries with homemade cake.

But as I stared down at the phone lying on our hardwood floor, surrounded by rose petals that suddenly looked less romantic and more like drops of blood, I was transported back twelve years to another moment when my entire world had turned upside down.

I was twelve years old again, and everything was dark and cold and hard. I could feel the bruises on my arms, could smell that horrible musty basement smell, could hear the sound of footsteps above my head...

My chest started tightening up, and I couldn't breathe properly. The room was spinning, and I felt like I was going to throw up or pass out or both.

"Cynthia, breathe." Dad's voice sounded like it was coming from very far away. "In and out, honey. Just focus on breathing."

I pressed my palms against my knees and forced myself to take slow, deliberate breaths. In through my nose, out through my mouth, just like Alex had taught me during my first panic attack that night.

Alex.

The thought of him helped center me somehow. I could almost hear his voice in my head, calm and steady and reassuring.

You're stronger than you think you are, Cyn. You'll always be stronger than you think.

I straightened up, wiping the tears from my face with shaking hands.

It not for Alex, I wouldn't be here now. And now it was his turn to need saving, and I had absolutely no idea how to be brave.

"Five million dollars," I said, my voice sounding surprisingly steady. "We need five million dollars."

"Sweetheart," Mom said gently, "we don't have that kind of money. Nobody we know has that kind of money."

"Then I'll get it."

The words came out with more conviction than I actually felt, but saying them out loud made something click into place in my brain.

"Cynthia, be reasonable," Dad said. "Even if we sold everything we own, even if we took out loans against the house..."

"I'll find a way."

I stood up abruptly, suddenly filled with a restless energy that made it impossible to sit still.

"Where are you going?" Mom asked as I headed toward the door.

"To get the money."

"Cynthia, wait..."

But I was already out the door, my parents' voices fading behind me as I ran down the stairs and out into the night. I didn't have a plan. I didn't have a coat. I was wearing nothing but Alex's hoodie and my anniversary lingerie, and I probably looked completely insane, but I didn't care.

Alex needed me. For the first time in our marriage, he needed me to be the strong one, and I wasn't going to let him down.

I walked aimlessly through the city streets, my mind racing through possibilities. A bank loan? Absolutely not. We were already stretched thin financially. Our parents? They'd already made it clear that five million was impossible. Friends? The only person I could even remotely call a friend was Jessie, and she worked in marketing, not international finance.

I'd been walking for maybe twenty minutes when I turned a corner and found myself staring at a massive billboard featuring a familiar face.

Xander Romano's perfect smile beamed down at me from about fifty feet in the air, advertising some charity gala that had apparently taken place tonight at the Grandview Hotel.

The sight of his face sent a surge of rage through me so intense it actually made my vision blur around the edges.

Here I was, walking the streets like some kind of deranged homeless person, trying to figure out how to save my husband's life, and there he was, probably sipping champagne and schmoozing with other rich people who had more money than they knew what to do with.

This was his fault. All of it.

If Xander hadn't sent Alex on this stupid business trip, none of this would have happened. Alex would be home right now, safe in our apartment, eating chocolate cake and complimenting my sexy lingerie.

But no. Xander had to have his precious meetings and his urgent deadlines, and now Alex was going to die because of it.

Five million dollars was probably what Xander spent on shoes. It was pocket change to him. Less than pocket change.

The idea hit me like a lightning bolt.

Xander has morr money than he can count, and this is all his fault.

He should pay.