I should have locked her away. I should have made sure she was secure, and I should never have trusted the band of snakes I allowed into my sanctum. This is the biggest mistake I have made in a very long time, but I will set this right. I will get her back and when I have her, I will never let her go again.
My first call is to Roland Rich. He is the closest thing to a friend I have inside the Order. He is not a good man, but we have an understanding.
“Surprised to hear from you, Darko. Would have thought you’d be busy with your girl.”
“She’s fucking gone. Someone has taken her. One of the men tonight. Did you see anything suspicious?”
“Can’t say I did. I don’t see how anyone could have taken your girl without being seen. You sure she’s not hiding somewhere? They can fit into small spaces when they want to.”
He’s talking about Chloe as if she’s a mouse or a bug. Roland doesn’t see women the way I do. He barely recognizes them as being the same species. In many respects, he’s a monster. We all are. I’m just a different kind. Judging him won’t change anything, and it won’t get Chloe back any quicker.
“If she has escaped, she has to be tracked down,” Roland muses out loud. “She’s too dangerous to have loose. She knows too much.”
“She hasn’t escaped. There was no way for her to escape. She must have been taken.”
“Have you searched the waters around your island? She may have tried to swim…”
That thought had not occurred to me before, but now I see the image clear in my mind, her lifeless form floating in the depths, being torn apart by sea creatures. I push it away.
“She’s alive,” I say firmly, as if I believe it. I have to believe it. “And someone has her. It’s too much of a coincidence.”
“Be careful of making accusations,” Roland councils me. “As soon as the others find out, it won’t just be you looking for her. Everybody in the Order will want her. You put on quite a display with her.”
He’s right. I am in a terrible position. If one of the Order has her, he won’t tell. And if the others find out and they don’t have her, if she has actually somehow escaped, then by putting the word out, I risk her falling into their hands anyway. For all I know, they weren’t all convinced. For all I know, there are some who would still be more comfortable if she joined her father.
It’s been less than thirty minutes since I found she was missing. I have no way of finding her, and by morning she could be anywhere. China, Russia, the Middle East. She could be in Europe, or the Continental United States. I don’t have any idea where she has gone or who she is with. The feeling leaves me helpless.
“Should have put a tracking device in her,” Roland says. “I do it to all of mine.”
“I’m not like you.”
“No,” Roland laughs down the line. “I keep my women. You’ve lost yours.”
“I’ll talk to you later, asshole.”
He’s still chuckling to himself as I hang up.
Chapter Eight
Chloe
I don’t sleep so much as lie awake waiting for it to be light enough outside to go do what needs to be done.
The major difficulty in being on the run from a group of supremely powerful billionaires is getting cash without them knowing. I’m sure my accounts are being watched, if not frozen. But I’m not dependent on their digital ones and zeros that might as well be tracking chips. My father was good at hiding money. It was one of his greatest joys, much to the chagrin of his accountants.
Before Alice gets up, I go through her wardrobe. She won’t mind. Half of the things in here have never been worn and I’m not taking anything particularly nice. I need to blend in right now. Jeans. T-shirt. Sneakers.
To complete my disguise, I wrap my head in a classic paisley scarf and put on large sunglasses. They’re not in fashion anymore, but they cover enough of my face to stop face detection software from spotting me. It’s possible that they could tap into surveillance cameras worldwide and pick my face out of a crowd. Paranoid? Maybe. But now is a good time to be paranoid.
My father took great interest in conspiracy theories in the last years of his life. He used to enjoy talking about them over dinner. I never paid as much attention as I should. The idea that the world was run by powerful people who never show themselves to the public, who scheme and lie and enact their wishes on the world seemed ludicrous to me. Now I’m realizing that it was simple fact—and the reality is far worse than the theory.