Chapter 1 Use Your Head

Cressida Ashworth had spent three years groveling after Luther Strudwick. The first year, he forced strong liquor into her and left her kneeling outside a bar till dawn. She nearly died of a gastric hemorrhage. The second year, he pawned her off on a business partner who'd been harassing her, saying he was done with her and that the sight of her made him sick. The third year, he told her he wished she'd just drop dead on the spot. She knew he hated her and didn't take the remark to heart. She'd heard worse. Still, Cressida hadn't expected Luther's words to prove prophetic. The second she stepped out, she was abducted at knifepoint. The abductor flung a phone at her feet. "Call your husband now. Tell him to show up with 30 million dollars, or you're not walking out of here alive." Cressida shivered. She struggled to pick up the phone and dialed the number she knew by heart. It rang and rang before the call finally went through. "What is it?" Luther drawled, lazy as ever. She trembled with pain. "Luther, please. Help me. I've been abducted…" The background on his end was loud, filled with laughter and chatter. "Luther, what stunt is Cressida pulling this time to get you to go home?" "Nat flies back today. Imagine how upset she'll be if you bail now." Cressida's heart sank. A beat later, Luther let out a cold scoff. "She said she's been abducted. What a joke. When will she ever use her head? Cressida, stop wasting my time. I'm hosting a welcome dinner for Nat today, and I'm not about to humor your lousy lies." Cressida was shaking even harder now. "No! I'm not lying! I am really being held. The abductor wants 30 million dollars, or he'll kill me!" But Luther only sounded even more derisive. "Wouldn't that be just perfect? You should've been dead ages ago. I ought to thank him if he actually kills you. "You could drop dead at my feet this second, and I'd still feel nothing but disgust. Don't bother me again. Get lost and stay out." He ended the call. All she got was that cold, repetitive beep in her ear. Cressida looked up into the abductor's eyes. They held a vicious, mocking gleam. "I gave you a chance. You're the one who couldn't hack it. So don't blame me for being ruthless," the abductor said. He jammed the blade into her eye socket. The white-hot pain ripped a scream out of her. Then he tore out her tongue. Blood flooded her throat, choking her until even breathing was a fight. He slashed her face 32 times, then cut the tendons at her wrists and ankles. Her abdomen was left in ruin, and the assault didn't stop. It was the kind of pain that made death feel like mercy. Time smeared into nothing. Eventually, Cressida blacked out. In her last moments, she had only two thoughts. She never should have married Luther or gone back to the Ashworths. She should've stayed with her grandmother, Daphne Sheppard. Now that she was dead, who would look after Daphne? But just before her eyes closed, Cressida heard a sigh. "You're not meant to die yet. I'll give you three more months. Should Luther speak the words 'I love you,' you shall live again. If he doesn't, I'll have to send you to the afterlife." … "Cressida, what the hell are you up to now?" A savage kick at the door snapped Cressida awake. She could still feel the searing pain lingering in her body. Hadn't she died already? The abductor's last stab went into her chest and cut her heart clean out. She looked around and saw another "her" sprawled in a pool of blood. The warehouse floor was nearly covered in it. The body lay like a tossed-aside rag doll, her face ruined beyond recognition. The voice from the brink of death flashed back, and Cressida dug her nails into her palm. She'd been brought back from the dead, but only for three months. She'd still die unless Luther said "I love you" to her. There was no time to think. She hauled her own corpse and shoved it into that abandoned freezer in the warehouse corner. If anyone caught her with her own body, there'd be no explaining it. There was no time to clean up the blood. She was still scrambling for a fix when the heavy metal door crashed open under a kick.