Taming My Sugar Mommy-Chapter 26: Beautiful shadow games

The street was quiet, too quiet. A far cry from the usual Miami nightlife, where music and laughter spilled out of bars and restaurants. Here, the air felt different—heavy, charged with something Liam couldn't name. His breathing was slow, controlled, but the weight pressing on his body told a different story. Every muscle ached, exhaustion creeping in like a slow tide, threatening to pull him under.

He had walked for what felt like hours. In reality, it had only been minutes, but each step dragged like lead. His clothes were damp with sweat, clinging to his skin, and the faint sting of bruises reminded him of what he'd been through.

His mind replayed the last few hours in fragments—being taken, the cold floor beneath him, the masked man's voice. You're just a toy to her. The words clawed at the back of his mind, but he shoved them away. Thinking about that now wouldn't help.

His fingers trembled slightly as he pulled out his phone, forcing himself to focus. He needed to call Isabella. Needed to let them know he was out.

The screen blurred for a second before he found her number. He pressed the call button.

Isabella answered before the first ring finished. "Liam."

"I'm..." His vision swam. The street signs blurred together. "Near the venue. I think... I think I need..."

The phone clattered against pavement as his knees gave out.

Marcus got there first, Christina right behind him. They hauled him into the Range Rover, his body dead weight against the leather seats.

'Something's not right,' Isabella thought, watching Liam's head loll against the window. 'They'd taken him, held him for hours, then just... let him go? With his phone, his wallet, everything intact? People in their world didn't do clean kidnappings with neat releases. Not unless they wanted something specific.'

Christina kept her hand on Liam's pulse while Marcus navigated Miami's neon-lit streets. "Breathing's steady. Whatever they gave him, it wasn't meant to kill."

"No," Isabella said quietly. "Just meant to deliver him back like a message in a bottle." Her mind raced through possibilities, each worse than the last. "Why take him just to return him?"

Marcus caught her eye in the rearview mirror. "Could be a warning."

"But for who?" Isabella watched Liam's face, slack with whatever they'd drugged him with. His lips moved, trying to form words, but nothing came out.

The question hung in the air, heavy with implications. A warning for her? For him? Both? Neither?

"We need to know what they said to him," Christina said, voicing what they were all thinking.

Isabella's fingers brushed against her temple where the gun had pressed earlier. "First we need him conscious." But even as she said it, doubt crept in. What had they told him during those missing hours? What seeds had they planted?

Liam stirred slightly, mumbling something incoherent. For a moment, his eyes focused on her face. There was something there she couldn't read - fear? Doubt? - before they rolled back and he slumped against the seat again.

'What did they tell you?' she wondered, studying his unconscious face. 'And more importantly, what did you believe?'

The Miami traffic crawled by outside, each passing streetlight casting shadows across their faces. None of them spoke. They all knew this wasn't over. This was just the opening move in a game Isabella wasn't sure she understood yet.

But she intended to find out. Just as soon as Liam woke up and told her exactly what kind of game they were playing.

Consciousness returned like a slow tide. Liam's eyes adjusted to the familiar penthouse darkness, the Miami skyline a constellation of lights beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. His body ached, but his mind was clearing. The first thing he noticed was Isabella, curled in one of the plush chairs beside him, her usual perfect posture abandoned to exhaustion.

'Never thought I'd see her sleep in a chair,' he thought. 'Then again, never thought I'd see her worried either.'

The same chair where he'd massaged her shoulders just days ago. The memory felt like it belonged to someone else's life now.

She stirred, as if sensing his gaze. Her eyes opened, instantly alert despite her awkward position. That mask of control sliding back into place, but not quite fast enough to hide the relief in her eyes.

"You're awake." Her voice was softer than usual.

"Yeah." His throat felt raw. "How long was I out?"

"Few hours." She straightened, rolling her shoulders – the same spot he'd worked on before. "You had us worried there for a minute."

'Us,' he thought. 'Not me. Never me.'

He tried sitting up, his muscles protesting every movement. Isabella reached for a water bottle on the side table, handed it to him. Their fingers brushed, and for a moment, neither pulled away.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, that careful neutrality back in her voice. But he caught the undertone of something else. Something that reminded him of how she'd looked at him that night by the windows.

"Nothing permanent." He took a long drink. "They just wanted to chat."

'And plant doubts,' he added silently. 'Make me question everything about you.'

"Chat." The word hung between them like smoke. "About what exactly?"

Liam studied her face in the half-light. The masked man's words echoed in his head: 'You're just a toy to her.' But he remembered her fingers lingering on that dress strap, that ghost of a real smile.

"Security protocols mostly. Layout of the venue. The usual stuff." The lie tasted bitter. "I didn't tell them anything useful."

Isabella's eyes narrowed slightly. 'He's hiding something,' she thought, watching him avoid her gaze. The same way he'd avoided it after that night with the massage, when he'd shown her too much of himself.

"And they just let you go?" Her fingers drummed against the chair arm. "After all that trouble?"

"Said I wasn't worth the hassle." Another lie. He forced a weak smile. "Guess I disappointed them."

The silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken words. The city lights painted shadows across her face, making her expression unreadable.

"Get some rest," she said finally, but she didn't move right away. Her fingers curled slightly against the chair arm, a hesitation so brief it was almost imperceptible. Then, with a breath too quiet to be called a sigh, she stood. "We'll talk more in the morning."

"Isabella." He caught her wrist, just like he had that night by the windows. The contact sparked something neither of them wanted to name. "Thank you. For coming to get me."

Something flickered in her eyes – worry? Guilt? Want? – before her usual mask slipped back into place. But she didn't pull away immediately.

"Just..." She paused, her voice softer than he'd ever heard it. "Just don't do that again. Getting kidnapped isn't in your job description."

'Neither is making me care,' her expression seemed to say.

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She pulled away gently, moving toward her side of the bed. In the darkness, they both pretended not to notice how the space between them felt both too small and too vast.

'She knows I'm lying,' Liam thought, staring at the ceiling. 'But she won't push. Not yet.'

'He's protecting something,' Isabella thought, her back to him. 'Or someone. Or himself from something.'

Neither of them slept much that night. Too many secrets, too many lies, and not nearly enough darkness to hide what was growing between them.

And somewhere in Miami, a masked man waited to see what seeds of doubt would bloom in the shadows of that shared silence.