Emilia came through a few hours later. She had a pounding headache and her body hurt almost everywhere. She opened her eyes but the room was completely dark. There was no window or any light at all that could even show the silhouettes or a shadow.
She moved, the rattling of the metal against metal quickly made her realise that she was handcuffed to a pipe of sorts. Her body hung off the handcuffs as her legs laid across the floor. With extreme difficulty, she stood up, relieving the pressure and pain off her wrists.
Even without seeing anything she knew that her wrists were injured from the weight that rested on them for hours against the metal of the handcuffs. She also felt something crusty on her face - a dried up blood from an earlier fall. She had a strong taste of iron and salt in her mouth. She must've but through her lip when she fell.
Her lips and mouth were dry and she was thirsty.
Emilia blinked a few times in hope to see anything at all but it was as dark as it ever gets on the moonless night.
She winced and hissed at all the pains and aches in her body. She was certain that she got some bruises forming.
Her memory was hazy and she could barely recall what happened, but it slowly came back to her.
A deep steadying breath to collect her thoughts. A deep breath to stop the pounding of her heart.
That was a futile attempt at trying to regain some of her level-headedness.
Someone clearly wanted to harm her.
Her imagination straight away went to Christopher Hayden. She rejected him and he had the power to destroy her. It was a very viable possibility in her mind.
It was a deep night and she had at least a few more hours until dawn. Then she should be able to assess her situation a little bit better.
Patience was what she has in abundance. Years of academia and being a cater to her mother taught her perseverance. She moved from foot to foot to relieve the pressure from her feet. Her heels were long gone and her toes rested against the cold concrete.
More so than tiredness from standing and keeping her arms up, it was the cold of the night and a draft that caressed her bare skin revealed by the dress with a thin straps that bothered her more. Her teeth started chattering and the goosebumps run down her arms.
Hours have passed and the sky started turning a lighter shade of navy blue. It was enough to see that she was in a large warehouse. Mostly empty, with just a few random chairs and a single plastic folding table.
She was handcuffed to the pipes going near the wall that once upon a time provided some heating. The layer of dust suggested that no one was there in a long time. She could see footprints that led to where she was and back to the door. Someone brought her there.
The windows were high up, near the roof, too high for her to see through them. She managed to spot some high tree branches. There were trees outside.
There was also a fragment of letters on the windows. Once upon a time it must've been used for either storage or manufacturing. Now, it was an empty warehouse with Emilia in it.
Emilia shivered which only depleted her energy levels.
When the sun was high, a tall man wearing black cargo pants, black T-shirt, and heavy black boots, walked in. His steps echoed in the empty space.
Emilia looked up, her fear grew again. Her stomach twisted making her nauseous. He was the man that wore a high visibility vest a night before. She recognised his square jaw.
The man carried a few bits of paper in his hand before he sat down in a chair beside the plastic table.
He seemed very relaxed in that chair. Emilia told herself that it was a power play.
Her eyes fixated on him stubbornly but he didn't budge under her hard gaze, but neither did she. It evoked his curiosity. He tilted his head in thought as he analysed her calm demeanour- at least externally.
The man checked the time, as if he anticipated something.
"What do you want from me?" Emilia asked with faked calmness.
"A decent payout." The man smiled.
"I am afraid that I have no money."
"That's hardly true. Your husband has plenty. He has another fifteen minutes to make the payout or you'll be hurt. Let's hope he cares enough for you. The last guy didn't."
"I do not have a husband." Emilia furrowed her brows. "You must have mistaken me for someone else."
"We're not stupid." The man smirked as he took out the knife from his cargo pants, placing it on the table.
"Seriously, you have the wrong person. I am not married. I have never been married."
The man picked up the documents off the table that he brought with him. "Hmm… so, you are not Emilia?"
"Well, yes. But I am very single. I haven't even dated in six, almost seven, years."
"That's funny." The man scoffed.
"Who do you think I'm married to?" Emilia asked with curiosity that the man definitely didn't expect. She didn't buckle under the pressure, not yet.
"Christopher Hayden, of course."
"What?" Emilia opened her eyes and mouth widely. "I AM NOT MARRIED TO CHRISTOPHER HAYDEN." As Emilia said it with confidence that couldn't be disputed, the man tilted his head the other way. "Mr Hayden doesn't care about me. You're wasting your time. I have seen him maybe ten times in my life."
The man stood up and grabbed a printed papers from the table, walking towards Emilia.
"So, you didn't sign it back in April?" He showed her the document.
"What?" Emilia looked at him as if he was insane. He pulled her head back by her hair at which she winced, and then pleaded the papers barely inches away from her face. "If it isn't you, why does your signature match the one on your ID? Who do you think you can fool?"
Emilia realised that he held a very contract that she indeed signed in April but none of it made sense.
"It's an employment contract."
The man pulled her hair further, bending her head further backwards.
"Ah yes, employment contracts often state that 'under authority of Marriage Act 1961, I certify that Emilia Anna Vincent and Christopher Alexander Hayden duly solemnised marriage in accordance with the provision of that act'." He read out a part of the contract near the very back. Emilia's signature was neatly on the dotted line.
She didn't recall seeing those words but she didn't doubt that it was her signature. But the contract was all wrong.
Her head was pounding and the man's words were echoing along with an increasingly louder ringing in her ears. It was as if the fog fell onto her brain.
"I signed an employment contract on 28th of April. I have interviewed for the role of the public event assistant with Patrick Cosby who lived in the same apartment block as I did. I have lost a job just over a week prior and then I've learnt he was looking for someone to fill the role. I was extremely lucky to have come across him at that time. I am an employee of Mr Christopher Hayden. I am not and never was his wife."
"Patrick Cosby? You mean your witness?" The man sneered as he let go off her hair.
"He was the witness of me singing the contract, but it wasn't that one. I am only an employee…" Emilia repeated.
"And how many employees live with Christopher Hayden? How many employees get to sit with him in VIP sections during dinners?" The man laughed throwing the contract by her feet, and then he turned around and walked off, sitting back in the chair. "How many employees get over £35 million of spending income?"
"I have never seen that kind of money." Emilia did not know the answer to his other two points. Or maybe she did. But she didn't want to admit to it. It couldn't be…
"Your bank balance increases by £200'000 a day and it is currently sitting at exactly £37 million."
"There must've been a mistake." Emilia said with less power in her voice. "Yes, Mr Hayden married on the same day as I have signed the contract. But this wasn't it."
The man's phone ringed.
"Well, he just paid £5 billion to keep you safe." The man smirked as he stood up. "Now, let's hope that he finds you before you starve or die from dehydration."
"What?" She asked behind him but he left.
Emilia looked at the floor, at the contract that was still there.
And yes, Christopher treated her differently than anyone else in the manor. He spend his days with Patrick and he still called him Mr Cosby, and yet, he called her 'Emilia' from the very beginning.
Emilia lowered herself carefully, trying not to pull any harder on the handcuffs which already made her wrists bleed.
She used her foot to try to manoeuvre the document and turn the pages. It took forever before she was able to read excerpts from it.
She recognised the parts within the first few pages that she scanned through but then the other half of the document was unfamiliar and that was the part which very obviously referred to the marriage.
If it were true, she was tricked into a marriage that she knew nothing about. If it were true, she was lied to and deceived. If it were true, she was married to a person that was so emotionally distant and uncaring that she wouldn't ever notice that he was her husband, aside of the single time when he was intoxicated so it didn't count. If it were true, she was married for just over half of a year and she didn't even know.
"Let me out!!! You're wrong!!!" She screamed but there was no answer. There was just silence. The man have left the warehouse and her alone in there. "Help!" Her screams didn't seem to reach anyone.