I tossed my phone onto the passenger seat, some of my elation fading.
By the time I returned to the mansion, it was nearly noon. Ezra wouldn’t be back from his business trip until tomorrow, so I couldn’t inform him of the good news just yet. It was better to do that in person, to establish the personal connection of the success face-to-face.
I headed inside, fighting down the compulsion to check on Mercy again. I’d let myself peek in on her before I’d left, and she’d still been sound asleep.
Wylder had been pushing her hard, and the exhaustion must have caught up with her. Why couldn’t she have just left? When I thought of her expression as she’d cut apart the corpse yesterday, first so sickened and then with growing determination, my own stomach turned.
But Mercy had never been one to back down. I’d used to think that was one of her best qualities. Now I wasn’t so sure. Playing chicken with Wylder wasn’t a game that tended to end well for the other person.
It turned out I didn’t get much choice in finding out what state Mercy was in. As I stepped into the foyer, her voice rang out from above. My head jerked up.
Kaige had her slung over his shoulder, carrying her down the hall from her room as she thrashed in his arms. Wylder and Gideon followed close behind.
“I didn’t do it!” she protested. “It wasn’t me. I woke up, and it was justthere.”
What was she talking about? I hustled up the stairs and noticed the confused furrow forming on Kaige’s brow. He craned his neck around, stopping in his tracks. “What are you talking about? You didn’t do what?”
Mercy went still. “Isn’t this about Mittens? Her tail… There was a bloody cat tail stuck to the outside of my bedroom window. I assumed she…”
“Mittens?” Gideon repeated in a puzzled tone, but Kaige’s expression had shifted. He swung around without putting Mercy down and stormed back to her room. Halting in the doorway, he let out a breath of relief.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on there, but that’s not Mittens’ tail. She’s a tabby—hers is striped.”
“What the hell is going on?” Wylder demanded. “We didn’t come up here to talk about tabbies.”
“It’s a long story,” Kaige told him. “I’ll get back to the job.” He started marching to the stairs again.
Mercy squirmed against Kaige’s grasp. “What the hell are youdoingif you’re not pissed off about that?”
Wylder answered for him. “You’ve been asleep way too long. Lucky you, Anthea suggested the perfect way to wake you up nice and fresh.”
“What?” Mercy struggled harder, beating her fists against Kaige’s back, but he strode on down the stairs as if he felt nothing. Sometimes I wondered if any feeling really did penetrate that muscle-bound body.
I wanted to ask what they had planned for her now, but Wylder looked pissed about the earlier interruption and Gideon was flicking through a chart on his tablet. It seemed wiser to follow along and see for myself.
They headed down to the basement. “Remind me, Gideon,” Wylder said. “How many men have managed to pass the test?”
Gideon recited the data he must have already been looking at. “Just under fifty percent of prospective recruits make it out before they faint from lack of oxygen. Of course, making it out isn’t enough. The record for quickest release is three point five minutes. If they take more than ten, that’s a fail no matter how you slice it.”
A chill settled over me with the suspicion of where this was headed.
“Make it out ofwhat?” Mercy demanded, nearly managing to elbow Kaige in the back of the head.
“Don’t worry, Kitty Cat, you’ll survive it.” Wylder pushed open the door to the last room I’d ever have wanted to see Mercy dragged into. Oh, no.
“I’m tired of your games,” Mercy snapped at him.
“This isn’t a game, Princess,” Wylder said. “This is the real thing—one of the trials we put any man who wants to become one of the Nobles through. We’ve all done it. You want to run with the big boys, you have to walk the walk. Or faint the faint, if you’re going to take the route of our least impressive candidates. Kaige, get her ankles.”
He strode into the dimly lit room, pulling a rope from his back pocket. As he caught Mercy’s wrists and bound them together, Kaige tied her legs. Mercy cursed and jabbed at them, but she didn’t get in a strong enough blow to make a difference.
She hadn’t seen what was waiting for her yet. The room was bare except for a deep freezer the size of a coffin set against the opposite wall. It wasn’t plugged in, but that was a small comfort.
Even though I hadn’t been down here in three and a half years, I remembered it like yesterday. Being shoved into that cramped space with my wrists and ankles tied, the lid slamming shut over me, taking the light with it. The unnerving choked silence, the sense that every breath was draining away far too much of my remaining air.
The trick was kicking the lid hard enough despite your bindings to force it open again—and keeping your cool well enough to figure that out. I’d managed it in seven minutes, sweating and dizzy by the end. Mercy could have handled the physical side of it no problem—I was sure she was stronger than I’d been back then. It was her head that’d be the problem.
The guys had no idea what even a few seconds inside that thing would do to her. “Wait,” I said before I could think better of it, catching up with Wylder. “We’ve given her plenty of tests already. We don’t have to—”
Wylder gave me a shrewd look. “What’s the matter, Finlay? Have you developed a soft spot for our guest? Was her pussy really that good once upon a time?”
I flinched inwardly, but the sight of Kaige carrying Mercy the last few steps to the freezer seared away all my previous hesitation. All I could think of was the moment nearly a decade ago when I’d found her in that cabinet at the museum, shaking and babbling as if her very soul was being wrenched apart.
I couldn’t watch her go through that again.
“No, stop!” I shouted, lunging at Kaige, but Wylder caught my shoulder.
“Tick, tick, tick, Princess,” he called to Mercy. “Every second counts, so make sure you get out fast!”
I wrenched myself from his grasp, but in the same instant, Kaige dumped Mercy into the freezer and shoved down the lid with a resounding thud.