“You’re not our captive. You were a captive. Not anymore.”
“Wrong. I was in love, and some asshole didn’t listen to me.”
Her momentum stalled. “Excuse me?”
“You’re not excused.” Pushing her again, I never took my attention off the midnight blue carpeted staircase. I wanted to leave. My skin crawled with the need. My heart panted for freedom. She was my shield and weapon all in one.
“I think there’s been some kind of mistake,” my prisoner murmured. “What’s your name?”
We reached the landing and I shoved her down the first steps. “My name isn’t important.”
“Mine’s Suzette.”
I didn’t want to think about her as a girl with a name. I didn’t want to know anything about her other than she was keeping me from finding Elder.
What if he’d drowned when he fell overboard? What if the Phantom staff had been murdered by the Chinmoku? What if everything I knew was gone all because some asshole decided to claim me for himself?
The penny-diamond bracelet Elder had given me tinkled on my wrist, fissuring my heart with worry.
I refused to imagine him dead. I kept the picture of him alive and happy in my mind. But as my dress whispered behind me, slithering down steps to a foyer I didn’t recognise, I struggled to swallow back heavy washing grief.
“Did you hear me? My name is Suzette and I’m—”
“Good for you. I don’t care what your name is.” I injected venom into my tone. “If you’re trying to make me see you as a person and not a tool to get out of here, it’s not going to work.”
“No.” She shook her head, forcing my hand to move with her. “I’m just trying to figure this out.”
“Well, figure it out silently.”
God, how long are these stairs?
They meandered around in a circle, imposing and romantic, the perfect backdrop for some epic love scene.
My mind taunted me with images of Elder before he was bloody and shot. He’d been so dashing and handsome in his tux. I wanted to hold that image forever and delete the god-awful splash as he flew overboard with a bullet wedged in his body.
My anger cauldroned into sick rage. I twisted my victim’s hair.
This is your fault.
“Ow.” She squirmed, trotting down the stairs faster, her hand coming to land over mine in rebuttal. “I’ll help you. You don’t have to hurt me.”
“Give me my freedom and I’ll give you yours. I’ll even apologise.”
I’ll apologise every night for years.
Not taking her hand off mine, she said under her breath, “You’ll owe me more than that when we get downstairs.”
My heart froze. “Why? What’s downstairs?”
“My husband.”
That word.
God, that word.
Elder…Miki…whatever his name was—I’d given him my heart in every way. If I couldn’t have him, then this woman couldn’t have her husband. “I don’t care.”
“You’ll care when he shoots you.”
“If he’s the man who shot the one I love, then good luck to him. I’ll haunt him for the rest of his days for killing any hope I had at happiness.”
Her shoulders slouched as if affected by the raw pain I couldn’t hide. “I don’t understand—”
“There’s nothing to understand.” I wished I’d gagged her. Conversation had the unnerving ability to switch enemy into friend. “I don’t want to talk anymore.”
Reaching the foyer, I hissed into her ear. “Scream and I’ll hurt you a lot worse. All I want to do is leave.”
My threat wasn’t empty—I would hurt her. How, I had no idea. But really, she could call my bluff because what leverage did I have to stop her?
“He was there last night, you know. Franco is his name. My husband. He said there was a fight.”
So her husband was the henchman of the man who’d grabbed me. The man who’d stood by as I faded from consciousness in the arms of my kidnapper. Her husband had helped Elder by shooting the Chinmoku and then destroyed him by letting his accomplice drug and take me.
My thoughts darkened, no longer regretting hurting her after all the pain I’d endured.
My captive didn’t honour my command to stop talking, her voice gentle but cool. “Franco said Q told you who they were. He told me you were under attack, and they saved you. Why are you doing this if you know who Q is and why he took you?”
“Stop it.” I shook her again, revelling in her small pained gasp.
“But I need to understand. This doesn’t make sense. You should be grateful—”
A strangled laugh fell from my lips. “Grateful? I should be grateful that they shot the man I love and took me, despite both Elder and I begging them to listen. They had it wrong. I didn’t need saving. They were too late for that. Elder was the one who saved me months ago. He found me. Fixed me. Loved me. And then your asshole husband stood by while his friend shot him.”