The bartender is already running low on Beluga vodka. A couple of people shake my hand, but mostly people keep their distance, as if the low bids might mark some deadly disease.
It’s only as the crowd begins to clear that I realize I have no idea where Kate is.
29
KATE
There’s a gentle tap on the door. I sit up on the narrow bed as Alix Key pokes her head into the small, quiet room. I hope none of the freeport employees has needed this space for its intended purpose—pumping breast milk or easing a migraine headache.
Alix closes the door and sits on the edge of the large leather recliner. “Feeling better?” she asks.
I squeeze my eyes shut and open them again. I’ve lost track of time since Alix found me braced against the hood of the Mercedes. At first, I thought the look on her face was anger, but then I realize she was horrified by the sight of the car. I didn’t ask questions as she invited me back inside the office building. She brought me to this room, leaving me with a bottle of water, a packet of soda crackers and endless regret that I subjected myself to Pyotr Tarasov yet again.
“What time is it?” I ask. Completely disoriented, I shove the tails of my shirt back into my rucked-up trousers.
“Almost seven.”
“Jaysus!” The Irish comes thick in my voice as I scramble to my feet. “Cole will have my skin!”
“Sit,” Alix says. “He’s finishing up paperwork with one of my assistants.”
“The auction’s over? How did it go?”
“It went.” Her lips purse in a tiny frown. “Kate,” she says. “Can I call you that?”
I nod.
“Kate,” she starts again. “Forgive me if I’m being too forward here, but I have to ask… Are you safe, going home with Cole Wolf?”
“With Cole?” My surprise comes out in a gasp. “He’s my husband.”
Alix leans forward and rests a hand on my linen-clad knee. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
I open my mouth. Close it. I start to answer again, but I can’t begin to explain everything that’s happened the last three months. Mam and Da selling me off so they could begin their true clan match-making with Breagha. Rescuing Granny from the nursing home where Da left her to die. Leading the Red Cap Raiders and fighting to be an Ice Knight in Winter Reckoning. Losing the Raiders and letting Tarasov through the gate and watching the feckin’ shitehawk make a bid for my sister.
Cole has been the one good thing to come out of all that. He’s the one person who has stood by me. His demands and his rules have shown me how strong I can be. He’s shattered me a million different ways and built me back into something better.
“Cole would never hurt me.”
That’s not true, of course. Cole hurts me every time he takes me to the dungeon. He measures out pain like he’s administering medicine.
Something must change in my face, because Alix sits back in her chair. “So it’s like that, is it?”
A hot blush roasts my cheeks.
Alix sighs. “I’m sorry. I had to ask. I’ve known Cole for years. I trust him as a client and also as a friend. But something’s been off since he called last Friday, pushing those auctions through in record time.”
I press my lips closed.
“I’m not asking you to tell his secrets,” Alix says. “It’s just that the man who sold those paintings today is different from the Cole I’ve seen before. He’s always been…controlled. But today, he’s been cruel.”
“How so?”
It’s Alix’s turn to fall silent. From the set of her jaw, she’s looking at her past and wrestling with old pain, the type of memories that refuse to fade. “Let’s just say, Cole has seen me at my worst. And that Mercedes he drove here… It once belonged to a man who hurt me. I have to believe Cole brought it today to remind me that I owe him.”
Cole wouldn’t do that.
The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I choke them back. Because Colewoulddo that. If he were pushed into a corner. If he had to fight back. His mother taught him to protect himself, and he’ll do whatever he has to do to win.
