“The gun,” he growls.
Grimacing, I hand him the damn thing, which earns me a stomach-churning “Good choice, little one” from Neuville, who I force myself to look at. He then steps aside, placing me in profile, and grandly waves me forward, inviting me back to his world, and my personal hell.
I walk forward, cold air biting at my bare arms, but I feel nothing. No physical reaction. No emotion. This is about survival for me and death for him, and I’ll ride out whatever storm I have to in order to get there. One of his men opens the back door of a limousine for me and I slide inside. A moment later Neuville is across from me, the smell of him whiskey and cigars and bad memories. Almost instantly the vehicle is moving, and I know his urgency is all about escaping Kayden’s city.
“Where’s the necklace?” he asks.
“I don’t know.”
“You do know.”
“I don’t remember.”
His lips thin. “So I hear.” He studies me, his eyes heavy lidded, expression guarded. “Did you fuck my brother?”
“I never made it to your brother. Someone attacked me and I ended up in the hospital.”
“And then in Kayden Wilkens’s bed.” Without warning he is next to me, and a huge chunk of my hair is in his hands. “I hate the brown hair. Did he like it? Did Kayden like it?”
“No,” I say, my eyes meeting his. “I did this.”
“I see the rebellion in your eyes,” he says. “Good. That only makes me want to fuck you and punish you all the more. And I will punish you on the plane.” A needle jams into my neck—and everything goes dark.
I gasp for air and jolt to a sitting position to find myself on an airplane, engines humming, and Garner Neuville looming over me in his egotistical power-mongering way, a syringe in his hand. “They were right,” he approves. “Woke you right up.” He moves away, thank God, and sits in the leather seat across from me, the cold air chilling my bare arms, my fingers digging into the arms of the chair.
“Where’s the necklace, Ella?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s what I hear. I’m not sure I believe you.”
“Why would I lie?”
“Three hundred million dollars,” he reminds me.
“That I don’t need or care about.”
“I wonder if Kayden would trade the necklace for you?”
“He doesn’t have it either.”
“But would he?”
I know he would, but I won’t give Neuville the power over Kayden or me that he’s looking for. “You’re all greedy bastards. And if someone hadn’t tried to take the damn thing from me, I wouldn’t have lost my memory in the first place.”
“Convenient that you remember me, but not that necklace.”
“I’ll tell you what I told your brother. Nothing about having everyone hunt me down for that necklace is convenient.”
“When you were talking with my brother, or when you were betraying me with him?”
“He said he’d kill you,” I lie. “I saved you.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“And you believed him?”