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Dom’s step faltered. Old and ill, King Magnuz still knew how to slide a dagger. The king was right. Elle wasn’t for him, he knew it, but that didn’t change a damn thing. He yanked open the driver’s side car door but stopped before sitting behind the wheel and looked back at the king, maybe for the last time.
“You’re right. Elle’s not mine, but that doesn’t mean I won’t always be hers.”
And right now she needed him.
…
Elle woke up to a blue sky outside the window of the gilded prison that had been her childhood bedroom. One of the Hulk twins sat on an overstuffed chair, his bulky arms crossed and his eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses that he hadn’t taken off since he’d escorted her to her mandated makeover. Now that wasn’t creepy at all. She’d thought the poison GPS tracker cuff would have gotten Walther to let up on the goon squad. It hadn’t.
“Good morning.”
He grunted.
Well, so much for charming him with small talk to get him to conveniently look the other way. She flipped the thick comforter off and padded across the floor toward the connected bathroom, glad that she’d found a pair of pajama pants and a loose top waiting for her on top of the bed when the goon squad had locked her up in her tower bedroom for the night. The last thing she wanted was to give her captors a show. Shuffling across the thick carpet, her head still hazy with sleep, it took her a second to realize that Hulk One was following her.
She turned and nearly slammed into his concrete slab of a body. “I’m going to the bathroom, and you’re not coming with me.”
Nothing from the giant.
“Come on. Do you think I’m going to try to flush myself?”
He might have breathed. It was hard to tell with his head so high up.
“Anyway, there’s this.” She waved her arm with the cuff. “I’m not going anywhere, but I would like to pee in private.”
His mouth formed a hard line, but he gave her a curt nod before turning and walking back to his chair by the door.
Score. Elle didn’t look back as she rushed across the room and didn’t let out the breath she was holding until she closed the thick, oak bathroom door behind her. She hurried to the linen closet next to the shower and yanked open the door. Shoving aside the stack of plush, cream towels, she pressed her palm against the back of the closet and fe
lt the wall give. It wasn’t a Scooby-Doo door, but her ancestors were as paranoid as the chalet’s architect. Like most castles of a certain age, there were concealed servants’ passages hidden between the walls at Elskov Castle. Now all she had to do was get rid of the stupid cuff.
Turning, she caught sight of a blonde out of the corner of her eye and squeaked in surprise before realizing she was looking at herself in the mirror. The makeover team hadn’t been chatty or even the least bit friendly, but they’d done a great job taking her from her Nancy Drew strawberry blond back to the practically platinum she’d been since birth. Her brown contacts were gone, too, leaving her with the bright blue eyes that matched her father’s.
Fury sizzled to the forefront again.
Her father was alive.
How in the fuck had he hidden that from her for all these years? How had he never reached out? How had he left her alone? Not that it mattered. He was as good as dead to her now anyway. She didn’t know where he was, and he’d refused to even speak to her on the phone before the Fjende attacked the chalet. He couldn’t have made his feelings more clear. Whatever she’d been to him at one time, she wasn’t anymore. She stomped over to the shower and turned the knobs with shaking hands, letting the water rush over her arm before grabbing the soap.
“Taking a shower,” she hollered over her shoulder as she worked up a good lather.
Using the soap as a lubricant, she tried to slide her hand through the cuff. Metal scraped against her tender flesh, pressing against the bone in her palm. Pain shot up her arm, and she clamped her jaws shut tight to keep from screaming, but she continued to pull her arm back as she pushed the metal cuff forward. The damn thing wouldn’t go.
She sat back and sucked in a deep breath, her hand throbbing in agony and panic creeping up with stronger and surer steps with each heartbeat. The temptation to whack her arm against the porcelain tub until either the ceramic or the cuff’s locked clasp cracked had her crazy eyed. But she couldn’t. Sure, Walther could have been lying about toxin spraying from the cuff if she broke the clasp, but did she really want to risk it? No. She had to be smart. Inhaling a deep breath, she looked around the bathroom, looking for something, anything, that could help.
That’s when she noticed the small, thin, square box in a basket by the sink. The label read: shower cap. The makeover mavens must have left it to protect the dye job. She grabbed the box and ripped it open, pulled out the cap, and tested the plastic covering and tight elastic band that went around it. Oh, that baby wasn’t a cheap, flimsy shower cap. This was the industrial, beauty salon, means-business kind that would keep everything out. It would work. It had to. She didn’t have another choice.
The idea gave her the heebie-jeebies, but desperate times called for putting a shower cap over your face. Eyeballing the silver clasp, she gauged just how much force she’d need to pop it. It would take work, but it wasn’t impossible. After all, the threat wasn’t in the difficulty but what would happen after.
She dug through the cabinets until found a flashlight and tucked it into the pocket of her pajama pants, then searched until she found something that would work on the cuff—narrow, pointed hair scissors. Weighing them in her palm, she tested the balance. They were quality craftsmanship, which would make things easier.
Steam from the shower filled the room, and a droplet of sweat slid down her neck. The last time she’d been in a steamy bathroom, she’d walked out to find Dom waiting for her. Her knees gave out, and her ass met the closet toilet lid with a hard thunk. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel his hands on her and hear the rough whisper of her name on his lips. Her throat tightened, and tears pricked her eyes. She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured Walther instead of Dom, let the anger boil and drown the grief. Dealing with that would come later. Now she needed to focus on taking back her crown.
She pulled the shower cap on so it covered her face instead of her hair and secured the elastic, triple-checking that the elastic was secure. Each breath brought the thick plastic up against her nostrils. Each exhale made the air inside the covering thick and humid. She held her breath.
God, if there was any other way…but there isn’t.
Without giving herself time for second thoughts, she took the hair scissors, slipped the tip through the small opening in the cuff’s clasp as far as it would go, and twisted until it snapped. A white mist sprayed from the diamond as the cuff fell off her wrist, landing with a clank against the tile floor.
