Isabella Fisher hummed a tune, the whir of the blender harmonizing with her song. She was poised for a great day—a fantastic day of relaxation and simple pleasures. With just two meetings standing between her and a delightful excursion to Paris with her friends, she couldn't help but be in a good mood and hum a little tune as she started her day. As the blender came to a halt, she poured the vibrant green smoothie into her favorite travel cup.
She took a moment to admire herself in the hallway mirror. The new outfit she had picked out last week hugged her frame perfectly, its chic lines and understated elegance highlighting all her best features. She had something of a reputation to uphold, and she didn’t mind spending a bit extra on her outfits in order to keep it strong. Isabella Fisher, the hedge fund manager with an edge as sharp as her taste in art.
She smiled at her reflection, spying a few boxes behind her, scattered around the large living room. The boxes were among the few remaining remnants of her belongings—most of which had already been moved or packaged up for her upcoming move to a larger house. A larger house, which would further bolster her reputation.
With her purse and the smoothie secure in her grip, she quickly made her way to the front door. Her heels clicked against the hardwood floor, the sound louder and more pronounced now that the place had essentially been emptied out.
She opened the front door, truly wishing she could just skip her meetings and get to the good part of the day. But as the door swung open, the rhythm of her world skipped a beat.
A stranger stood on her stoop, his presence an unwelcome smudge on her pristine morning. The man was smiling, but it looked fake, like it had been sewn on. She opened her mouth to ask who the hell he was and why he was standing on her porch, but there was no time. Before Isabella could process the intrusion, the stranger’s fist collided with her stomach. A painful gasp escaped her lips as the impact folded her body forward. The smoothie tumbled from her grasp, splattering its contents in an abstract pattern that would have fascinated her under different circumstances.
The stranger pushed her back through the doorway, her balance lost to the assault. Isabella's arms flailed, seeking something, anything, to keep her from falling. But she found nothing. The cold floor met her back with unforgiving force—another sound that seemed impossible loud in the nearly empty home.
The man entered her house and closed the door behind him as if he’d been invited over for a visit. Isabella's gaze, blurred by pain, fixated on the large, square shape the man carried. It was obscured beneath a nondescript cloth, its edges sharp against the fabric. Her mind raced, connecting this anomaly to the myriad of possibilities that her professional life had exposed her to. But before she could hazard a guess, survival instinct took over. Her hand darted into her purse, fingers brushing against the familiar metallic cylinder of her pepper spray.
However, as her grip tightened around the canister, a crushing weight bore down on her wrist. The stranger’s boot pinned her arm to the ground, grinding bone against wood with a sickening crunch. Agony shot up her arm, and the pepper spray rolled away.
"Where are they?" he demanded. His voice held an eerie calm that contrasted with the violence of his actions.
Confusion clouded Isabella's thoughts. She tried to speak, but her words were mere whispers lost in the pounding of her heart. Besides that, she was still struggling to draw in breath from the punch she’d taken to the stomach.
The stranger loomed over her, and as she hesitated, the backhand came swift and brutal. Her head snapped to the side, stars exploding behind her closed eyelids. The sound of the slap echoed through the house like a firework.
"The paintings, Ms. Fisher," the man said, punctuating each syllable with menace. "Where are they?"
Isabella's mind reeled. Paintings? Was that why he was here? Panic rolled through her, sharp and deadly. Her collection was not just an investment; it was a private gallery of her triumphs and passions. She couldn't let him—this intruder, this threat—anywhere near them. She swallowed hard, tasting blood and bile, and realized the gravity of the situation. This was no common thief; this was someone who knew her, who knew about the art that adorned the walls of her carefully curated life.
"Please," she managed, her voice hoarse with terror. "I don't know what you mean."
She saw something shift behind his eyes, a dark satisfaction in response to her fear. With a predatory grace, he crouched down beside her, his face disturbingly close to hers. For a sickening moment, she was sure he was going to kiss her.
"Then we have a problem, don't we?"
Isabella's breath hitched as she forced her gaze to meet his. With every fiber of willpower, she suppressed the scream clawing its way up from her aching lungs, focusing instead on survival.
“I need to know where the paintings are, or you and I are going to…well, we’re going to have some problems. I suppose being as beautiful as you are, you think I might rape you. But if you don't tell me where those paintings are, that's going to be the least of your worries. I know how to make you hurt, Ms. Fisher. And I can make you hurt for a very long time, so long you’ll beg me to finish you off.”
As if to prove he meant what he said, he stood back up. This time, instead of placing his boot on her wrist, he placed it on her chest, directly between her breasts. He applied weight and pressure, bringing it on so quickly that she was sure he'd cracked her sternum. She cried out, not sure how much more she could take before it was too late.
She muttered the answer, trying to draw in the breath to get it out and finding it incredibly hard. “Storage shed," she croaked, her voice barely more than a whisper. "They're... in a storage shed."
He removed his foot instantly, and she was able to draw in a strangled, tight breath. "Ah, good. That was easy, eh? Where’s the key?" He spoke in a demanding voice but there was something almost conversational about it as well.
"Combination lock," Isabella responded quickly, almost mechanically, as if reciting a memorized script. She prayed for this nightmare to end, for the walls of her comfortable existence not to crumble around her. There was no key, nothing tangible he could rip from her grasp—only numbers, swirling in the vortex of her panicked mind. And with that knowledge, she knew she wouldn’t get out of this anytime soon.
"Looks like you're coming with me, then," he snarled. When he reached down, his fingers entwined cruelly in her hair, jerking her head up. Pain lanced through her scalp, a sharp counterpoint to the throbbing in her wrist and chest. He hauled her to her feet, her legs wobbly and unreliable beneath her.
“No…please…”
She felt herself breaking, about to weep like a little girl. But she also knew she had to stay strong, had to focus. If they were going to her storage shed, maybe she’d have a chance to escape.
"Now… where's that storage shed?"
The stranger’s demand was clear. There would be no discussion or argument. Isabella's heart pounded a frenetic rhythm against her ribs as she stumbled forward, compelled by his unyielding grip on her long, blonde hair.
"Please..." she said again, but the word died on her lips as he leaned in, his breath hot against her ear.
"Any screams, any signals for help, and I'll kill you," he warned, his tone devoid of emotion, as if he were discussing something as mundane as the weather. His threat hung heavy in the air, a guillotine blade poised above her neck. “And I’ll do it slowly.”
He was leading her out of her house, onto the porch and down the stairs. With each step they took away from the safety of her home, the world outside seemed oddly normal—the chirping of birds, the soft rustle of leaves in the gentle morning breeze. None of it mattered. Isabella's entire universe had narrowed down to the man leading her away from her home.
She stumbled forward, each step an echo of pain shooting up from her possibly broken wrist. The man's grip on her hair was a vice, his presence a looming darkness at her back. She could taste the fear in her throat, acrid and metallic, like blood.
The world outside her plush suburban home felt alien now, her once-familiar street a labyrinth leading to unknown dangers. She tried to memorize the pattern of his steps, the cadence of his breathing—anything that might give her an edge.
"Walk," he commanded, a simple word laced with lethal intent. They moved past manicured lawns, the dew still clinging to blades of grass, mocking her with its normalcy. The early morning sun cast long shadows on the pavement, as if pointing toward the storage shed where her treasured paintings lay hidden.
Her analytical mind wrestled with her options. Compliance seemed the only viable option, yet every fiber of her being rebelled against the notion of yielding to this thug. She began looking around for neighbors that might be out and about, but there was no one. The street was eerily quiet. It seemed to her that the stranger had known it would be this way—that he had researched it and timed it perfectly.
"My car is at the end of this street," he said from beside her. His hand clenched her injured wrist now, and she moaned in pain. "We're going to get into it, and you're going to tell me where to go. Understood?"
He squeezed her wrist, and she nearly fell to the ground in pain. "Yes," she hissed. "Yes, okay…"
Somehow, they made it to his car without her passing out from the pain. And when he opened the passenger side door for her, she again looked for neighbors—for anyone at all—to help. But for now, it was just her and this maniac…and the daunting question of what he planned to do with her when they made it to the shed where her paintings were being stored for her move.