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wince, which made all her other pains speak up and holler for attention, including the agony in her right ankle. She laid back down again, her eyes squeezed closed, as she prayed for the pain to abate.
    Shit.
    Breathing hurt. Hell, thinking hurt.
    After a couple of minutes, she realized she would have to move eventually. She slowly reached out with her left hand and couldn’t feel the edge of the bed.
    Okay, that means I’m on the right side.
    Sure enough, slow and careful exploration with that hand allowed her to discover the edge and showed her how much room she had to work with so she didn’t roll her stupid ass right off onto the floor.
    Taking a couple of long, slow, deep breaths, she gingerly tried rolling onto her right side. It took every ounce of strength she had not to scream in agony.
    Dammit.
    Okay, getting up on her own wasn’t an option at that time.
    Moving slowly, she turned her head toward the left. Outside, light leaked around the edges of the horizontal blinds covering the windows. As she tried slowly moving her head back to the right, she spotted the time on a cable box.
    7:27
    Okay. I have to get up.
    She gave up when a dizzying wave of vertigo accompanying the spike of pain swept over her on her second attempt to lift her head.
    Somewhere out in the house, she heard someone moving around and smelled coffee brewing. It made her stomach growl.
    Yeah, come to think of it, she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast Saturday morning. She wasn’t allowed to eat unless Jack gave her permission. If he came home and found stuff missing from the fridge or cabinets without him okaying it, he would beat her for it. He’d said she needed to lose weight, even though she hadn’t thought she was fat.
    I hope he’s in jail.
    Screw that, she hoped he was under the fucking jail.
    In the cold light of day, as her new reality slowly began to sink in, she realized survival mode was no longer necessary. She had survived, despite what she’d stupidly let him do to her.
    There had been plenty of hours, alone in the apartment with nothing but basic cable and a few books, where she’d thought about her predicament and how to get out of it. Sure, before the chain, she could have simply packed all her stuff and walked away.
    Except she hadn’t known who to call for help.
    Despite that, she’d just about talked herself into getting away. Maybe there’d been a determination in her demeanor. Maybe the way she’d thrown herself into obeying his every order as quickly and perfectly as possible as a way to pull him off-guard and lull him into a false sense of complacency had backfired on her.
    That was when he’d brought home the chain.
    And then she was really stuck. She no longer had a cell phone. Jack had confiscated her laptop, changing the password and using it as his own. She remembered seeing it gone last night when they returned to the apartment with the detectives, so she guessed it’d been grabbed when everyone got her stuff.
    Well, it was pink, so it was an easy thing to think. It was probably there in the room, somewhere, with her other things.
    She’d have to ask Tony if he could hack the password for her.
    Another noise from out in the kitchen, and she kicked her pride in the ovaries and took a deep breath.
    “Hello?” She didn’t want to yell help and scare the poor guys to death.
    At first, she wasn’t sure she’d called out loudly enough, but then she heard a soft knock on her door.
    “Betsy?” It sounded like Nolan.
    “Yes,” she said, trying not to break down and cry. “I need help, please.”
    Nolan opened the door and poked his head through, a look of concern on his face. “What’s wrong?” He wore a dark green bathrobe.
    Her tears finally broke free. “I can’t get up by myself. I’m sorry. I need help. It hurts too much.”
    He swooped in, her knight in shining terry cloth, and helped her sit up as she bit down on the scream of pain that wanted explode from her.
    “Pain?” he