The screaming tapers off, barely audible now. He wipes a cloth napkin beneath my lips. “So you prefer something moremundane, like dinner and a movie. Where I bore you with my career achievements, and you force yourself to stroke my ego, all the while I’m hoping you’ll get drunk enough for a quick, sloppy fuck.”
I glare at him.
His lips curve into a self-satisfied smile. “Damn, you really do like your torture, don’t you.”
“You know what I actually like, Grayson? People who keep their word. You said once I confessed to the mistreatment of my patients, you’d release me.” I lift my chin. “I’m sure you have a recording of me in the cage stashed somewhere. I mean, the damage is done. My career will be ruined. My files confiscated. Experts called in to reevaluate my patients. You’ve won, Grayson. Another successful punishment dealt.”
His jaw tenses as he draws the plate away, and I mourn the loss of food. “Your recorded confession won’t accomplish anything. You were half delirious, clearly under duress due to your abduction at the hands of a madman.” He stands and glares down at me. “That’s not why you had to endure and pass the test.”
Anxiety coils around my chest as he shoves the table back, creating a space for him to kneel before me. My gaze slips over the blood staining his shirt from where I stabbed him, then snags on the discarded knife on the table.
He places his hands on my thighs, eliciting a visceral response. The contrast between the cool satin of my dress and the heat from his palms simultaneously makes me want to flee and draw closer.
I try to move away, but my legs are restrained as tightly as my arms. My bare toes scrape uselessly against the concrete.
“Do you know who the girl was?” Grayson asks, his voice low, accent thickening as the pressure of his touch intensifies. His hands inch upward, drawing the silky material along my thighs. “The girl in the cage with you—who was she?”
I force myself to breathe through the mounting pressure. “I can’t be sure,” I say honestly. Her dirt-streaked face flashes through my mind. “But I think... I think I loved her.”
Honesty is all we have left. Whatever Grayson has planned for me, my only recourse is the truth. He sees past my defenses, the façade I present to the world, and yet he doesn’t judge me. If anything, revealing the darkest, most disturbing facets of my psyche might buy me time.
And if I’m completely honest with myself, I want to tell him. Grayson was stolen. His childhood molded by the psychological trauma of abduction. From a clinical perspective, it’s fascinating. But beyond that, it’s sacred, his foundation, an experience intricately woven into his identity—holding answers only he can unlock.
He glides his palms along my legs, and I sense the abrasive threat of his touch beneath the thin fabric. I want it—and I loathe myself for wanting it.
“Love,” he repeats slowly, as if tasting it.
“She felt familiar,” I tell him. “Like family. Like a…”
“Sister.” He lifts his gaze to mine.
As soon as he says the word, a memory surfaces. “Mia,” I whisper her name. Small details, glimpses of our life together, trickle into my awareness. Her dirty-blond hair tickling my face. Her sweet, slightly crooked smile. Her laughter. Her tears.
Then—
He took her from me.
The current builds, a torrent of memories flooding through me. She was ripped through the bars, dragged from the cellar—stolen away from me. I don’t need to recover all my memories to know the truth.
She’s buried beneath the garden with the others.
“London, breathe.” Grayson’s voice coaxes me back from the darkness, and I force air into my lungs.
“I don’t want to remember,”I confess.
And I don’t. If he tortured her in front of me, if he killed her… My mind has sheltered me from a horror no child could or should have to process. Even now, the pain constricting my chest is so overwhelming, that I can barely withstand its crushing force.I don’t want to feel this.
“She can’t be my sister,” I whisper.
“There’s only one way to be sure.”
I curl my fingers against the edge of the chair, gripping until my knuckles ache.
“Dig them up,” I say. Only this time, the words hold another meaning. DNA testing would confirm whether I had a sister. It would confirm other things…
“You’ll never get answers from him,” Grayson says, as if reading my mind. “But if you pass your final test, you’ll no longer need them.”
He buries his head in my lap, and the impulse to touch him flares like a match. The yearning blazes hot and consuming between us. I steel my resolve, struggling to hold on to some fragile semblance of myself.
