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Carter was right. I had underestimated him.
He gave me another option, but since that option didn’t give me what I wanted, I couldn’t take it.
Despite the threat he’d unleashed, I couldn’t let it deter me. I had to get out of here.
I retrieved my phone from behind the crock in the kitchen then carried it into my room to take a look. I played the video and fast-forwarded it to the moment when Carter entered the code into the alarm system.
I got it.
I got all five numbers and the pound key.
I had the code to escape this place.
A light of hope shone from my heart, and it was the first time I’d felt excitement in the last three years. I’d accomplished something I didn’t think was possible. I had the code to turn off the alarm. If I left while he was asleep, I would be hours ahead of him. He wouldn’t notice until the following morning, and by then, I could be anywhere.
And if I took one of his cars and crashed it into a lake, he wouldn’t even know where to begin to look for me.
I could run and disappear. Once he stopped searching for me, I could reveal myself again.
But then I remembered one little flaw in my plan.
The tracker.
It was embedded in my ankle, deep underneath the scar tissue.
I didn’t have any other choice. I would have to cut it out.
There would be so much blood, so much pain. It would be disgusting, staining the bed all the way down to the mattress. I didn’t know how to do stitches, and even if I did, I doubt he had the supplies. I would have to bandage it up as best as I could before I fled.
I didn’t want to do it.
But I had to.
I had to do whatever was necessary to get out of there.
And finally go home.
I made dinner that night, a mixed green salad with chicken and rice. Carter had someone drop off groceries at the house, and I was told to make meals based on what was brought. I worked in the kitchen, roasting the chicken in the oven while I perfected the rice on the stove. I used to cook at home all the time. It was a regular part of my life. When I was stuck with Egor, all those everyday luxuries were taken from me. It was nice to be in the kitchen, nice to cook a meal I could actually enjoy.
Carter was in the living room, watching TV, shirtless like always. He enjoyed his scotch, a nighttime ritual he’d done every single evening since I’d arrived. If he didn’t have such a strong hold on his faculties, I would be concerned by how much he drank. He could hold his liquor better than anyone else I knew, even Egor.
I eyed the sharp steak knife sitting on the counter. With a razor edge and made of stainless steel, it was the perfect instrument to remove the tracker from my ankle. It would be painful, but since I’d found a stash of bandages in the downstairs bathroom, I should be able to make it work.
I just had to sneak it into my room.
Carter had stopped locking me in my bedroom a week ago, confident that the tracker and alarm system would be enough to keep me inside. His bedroom and office were locked, so there was no way I could get to him.
Unless I burned the house down.
That wasn’t the worst idea…except I didn’t want to kill him.
I shouldn’t care about granting him mercy just because he wasn’t evil like Egor. He wouldn’t rape me, but he wouldn’t give me my freedom either. There might be different degrees of evil, but at the end of the day, it was still evil in its most basic form.
It shouldn’t matter that I found him attractive…despite everything I’d been through.
But I still couldn’t do it.
I finished dinner then set the plates on the coffee table in the living room. In the morning, Carter liked to sit at the dining table, but in the evening, he liked to sit in front of the TV. For most of the day, he was either on the phone, working out, or taking care of things in his office. I hadn’t seen him leave once, with the exception of a family emergency.
I wondered if he would ever leave.
It would make my plan easier. I could do all of this when he was out of the house, rather than if he was asleep. But since I had no idea when that would happen, I didn’t want to wait a day longer than I had to.
Carter’s eyes watched my movements as I set the plate in front of him. “This looks good.”
“Thanks.” I sat on the other couch with my plate, enjoying a glass of wine since I would need it for the pain I was about to self-induce.
