Silas steps into the dim circle of light cast by a single dangling bulb. He’s got his right arm wrapped in a thick, clean white bandage, but he looks otherwise undisturbed. The unhurried, lazy smile is back on his face.
"I'm running calculations," I say, my voice sounding like gravel being ground under a heel. "Mainly about how much it’s going to cost me to replace this dress. Red silk is notoriously hard to dry-clean."
Silas lets out a short, quiet laugh. "He really did pick a strange one. Most girls in your position would be crying by now."
"Most girls aren’t me. They didn't graduate top of their class in finance," I spit, ignoring the way my jaw screams at the movement. "Which means most girls don't understand that crying has a zero percent return on investment. What do you want, Silas?"
"I already told your man what I want," he says, stepping closer until he's looming over me. He smells like cheap mints and old blood. "I want to watch him do the math. I want to see if he can solve an equation where the only answer is his own ruin."
"He's better at calculation than you think," I mutter.
"We'll see." Silas turns his head toward the dark corner of the warehouse. "Bring the other one out. Let them have a chat. I like to be hospitable before the show starts."
One of his guards, a thick-necked guy with a scar running across his lip, drags a second chair into the light. Tied to it is a girl. Her face is smudged with dirt, her curls are a chaotic nest, and she’s wearing a rumpled, oversized gray NYU sweatshirt.
My heart stops. The cold concrete beneath my feet feels like it’s tilting.
"Tania?" I whisper.
She lifts her head. Her eyes are red, swollen from crying, but the moment she sees me, a choked-off sob escapes her throat.
"Atara!" she gasps, her voice cracking. "Oh my god, Atara! Your eye—what did they do to you?"
"I'm fine, Tania. I'm okay," I say, the words tumbling out in a frantic rush. My throat feels tight, a sudden, terrifying wave of panic threatening to drown me.Not her. Please, God, not her. She was supposed to be in Queens. She was supposed to be safe on her couch."What are you doing here? How did they find you?"
Silas smiles, checking his watch. "I'll leave you two to catch up. Ten minutes. Don't make too much noise."
He walks back into the shadows, the metal door of the office at the far end of the warehouse clanging shut behind him. The guards stay, but they retreat to the perimeter, their rifles slung low, ignoring us.
"Tania, talk to me," I whisper, leaning forward as far as the ropes will let me. "How did this happen? Did they snatch you from the apartment?"
Tania shakes her head, a tear escaping and cutting a clean path through the dust on her cheek. "No. No, Atara. I... I wasn't in New York."
"What?" I blink, my swollen eye throbbing. "What do you mean you weren't in New York?"
"I got a call," she says, her voice trembling so hard I can barely understand her. "Three days ago. A man with a very polite voice... he said his name was Echo. He told me you were in Las Vegas. He said you were safe, but that you were homesick and lonely."
My brain stalls.Echo?
"He said... he said his boss wanted to surprise you," Tania continues, her lip wobbling. "He flew me out on a private jet, Atara. First class. Everything. He said you had been through a really bad breakup and needed your best friend."
I sit there, the silence of the warehouse suddenly roaring in my ears.
Lorcan.
He did that?
The giant, grumpy, terrifying crime lord who smashed my phone and locked me in the East Wing... he flew my best friend across the country because he thought I was lonely? Because he wanted to make me smile?
"But when I landed," Tania sobs, her head dropping, "we didn't even make it out of the private terminal. Some men in tactical gear... they hit the car. They killed the driver. They took me. I've been in a basement for two days, Atara. I didn't know what was happening. I thought you were dead."
"I'm not dead," I say, but my voice is barely a whisper.
I look down at my hands, tied tight behind my back. My skin is bruised, my fingers are cold, and my head is pounding. But my chest feels like it’s being split wide open, filled with a sudden, devastating warmth that has absolutely nothing to do with this freezing warehouse.
He loved me.
It wasn't just the sex. It wasn't just the dominant need to keep me in his shadow or the way he looked at my neck in the boardroom. He had looked at me, really looked at me, and seen a girl missing her home. He had spent his own resources, his own time, to bring a piece of Brooklyn to the desert for me.
