I did know my options. It was this or death. He was offering me as close to a pardon as I could get.
Why wasn’t I happy about that?
My eye’s locked with emerald irises once more.
Oh yeah, that was why.
Hansen stood, put his palms flat on the table. “I’ll leave you to consider, but your next shift at the bar is tomorrow. It’s the play you wanna make, Caroline.”
I nodded once and stood myself. “And where am I supposed to stay?”
“We’ve got an empty room at the end of the hall,” he said, something in his eyes.
I wondered who that empty room belonged to, a ghost who now resided in Hansen’s eyes.
“One that locks from the outside, I presume?” I asked dryly, forcing myself not to feel sympathy for my jailer.
Hansen didn’t acknowledge this. His silence was answer enough. It was clear I didn’t have a say in this. Fighting it would be wasting air. And I needed it, even though the oxygen was jagged, tainted with Liam.
“Fine,” I sighed. “I want my cellphone back. My computer.”
Hansen regarded me.
“I’m not stupid enough to call for a rescue,” I snapped.
“Didn’t think you were,” he replied. “You’ll get your shit.”
It was incredibly arrogant of them to give a prisoner—because that’s exactly what I was—access to communication to the outside world.
But they were smart.
Because there was no chance of rescue. Local cops were likely paid off. I could call in State Police, who couldn’t be as easily bought off, but that would mean forfeiting the story.
And I guessed that would mean forfeiting my life, because no doubt they had a way of monitoring my calls, I’d be dead before anyone even picked up at the other end.
I sighed. “Show me to my chambers then.”
Hansen moved to jerk his head at the prospect at the end of the room, standing. Prospects didn’t get seats, interesting.
“You’ll be in my room,” a rough voice growled.
I looked to Liam, to his hard eyes, scarred face. He had stood too, his hands fisted at his sides, his entire body taut. “Like fuck I will.”
His eyes were solid. “I say you got a choice in the matter?”
“Hansen did,” I shot back, jerking my head toward the president violently. “That choice being I stay here, or I accept my punishment for being a rat, that being an unmarked grave and a violent death. I’d prefer that than sharing a room with you.”
I turned on my heel and walked out. I swear I heard Claw’s chuckle as I slammed the door.
To my utter dismay and panic, I was not showed to an empty room. I was shown to the same room that had been my cell and my solace for the past week.
Liam’s room.
And when I tried to get my things and move them, John appeared from nowhere, blocking my way, obviously under instruction from Liam.
“Move,” I said through gritted teeth.
He didn’t.
I was tempted to run at him, fight him, tear my way out of this room. But it would do little good. He was so big and muscled he took up the whole door. I wouldn’t win a physical fight with this man.
I knew I wasn’t going to win the metaphorical one I was currently engaged in with Liam.
So I surrendered.
On the outside, at least.
Though I knew the battle I was engaged in with Liam was one I’d eventually lose, it didn’t mean I was going to stop fighting. No, I had to keep fighting, battling. There was no other choice.
John sensed that he had won the standoff, turning on his motorcycle boot and walking away, and the door was left open. So I was no longer confined to Liam’s room. I was obviously free to walk around the clubhouse. But no matter how desperate I had been for the past week, how intent I was to get out of the room that housed too many memories and one single white feather, I couldn’t bring myself to cross the threshold and explore.
Never in my career as a journalist had I let fear stop me from going to cover my story. Not when covering prison conditions in Lagos with a shitty security team, nor when I snuck into Syria to cover the refugee crisis, or in any other deadly situation that was necessary to navigate in order to get my story.
But that door frame was harder to cross than a border to a war-torn and dangerous country.
It was impossible to go, but it was unbearable to stay.
But I stayed. Like a coward, the minutes in Liam’s room cutting through me like blades.
John returned with my phone.
I raised my brow when he handed it to me. “Not worried I’m going to call the police?” I had obviously already had this conversation with Hansen, but I was interested in how much the prospects knew. How much they were entitled to know.