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EMERY
When my alarm goes off, I can barely open my eyes.
Hovering in the place just between sleeping and waking, I can almost convince myself the night was a dream. A horrible, nonsensical dream.
But then my eyes do open, and I feel the ache in my shoulder from where I hit the door as the car began to drift.
I drag my hands down my face. “Why did I do that?” I mutter. “What was I thinking?”
I wasn’t thinking. That’s the unfortunate truth.
Adrik’s hand was on my thigh, inching higher. And I could feel myself drawing towards him, wishing he’d close the distance, wishing he’d put his hands on me and make good on all his darkest promises.
Then the frustration shifted to… something else. Something that’s lingered.
I hate how much control Adrik had over me. I hate how little control I have over myself.
My entire life has been a series of men wanting to control me. My father, Malcolm, Adrik… fuck, even Isabella’s father—for a night, at least.
For once in my whole goddamn life, I wanted to be in control.
“And look where that got you.” I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stretch. I’m still in my jeans. Yet another sign that this morning was all too real.
I don’t plan to see anyone else today. After everything that happened, it’s probably in my best interest to steer clear of Adrik. Isabella and I will just keep to ourselves.
My stomach growls. I’ll poke my head in on Isabella and then go find us some breakfast downstairs. Maybe there will be pancakes again. She loved them the last time the chef—
My mind stutters to a stop as I turn and realize my daughter’s door is cracked open.
“It was closed,” I say, as though I’m trying to convince myself. “It was definitely closed.”
I know I closed it. When Adrik and I got back to the house, he marched me to my room and shoved me inside, slamming the door behind me. I was worried the noise would wake Isabella, so I stuck my head in to make sure she was still sleeping. Then I closed it behind me as gently as I could.
“… Or did I?”
My heart is already pounding in my chest, but I try to take a deep breath. Try to stay calm.
“It’s fine,” I say. “She’s still there. I was tired. I didn’t close it all the way. That’s all it is.”
I stand up and inch towards the door, like creeping up on a nightmare will somehow make it less horrifying. My bare feet are silent on the hardwood floor.
“She’s asleep. She’s fine.”
Adrik warned me. He told me I would be sorry, that he’d make me hurt for what I tried to do to us. But I kept pressing on the gas when I should have hit the brake.
“She’s only a little girl. Adrik wouldn’t take it out on her.”
Why not? What do you really know about him? Do you truly think there’s anything he wouldn’t do?
Fear tastes acidic in my throat. I try to swallow it down, but I can’t. It’s lodged there, seeped into every cell like poison.
I push her door open. A shaft of light cuts across the plush carpet in her room and slices across the bottom half of her bed. The rest of the room is dark, but there’s enough light.
Enough for me to see that the blankets are tossed back…
And my daughter is gone.
* * *
“Where the fuck is he?” I shout, wielding the butcher’s knife like it’s a Viking sword. “Where is Adrik?”
The maid in front of me is a sturdy woman with wide hips and thick, black hair. But her eyes are frantic as she backs away from me. “I don’t know, ma’am. I don’t know anything!”
“Liar!”
The moment I realized my daughter was gone, I headed straight for the kitchen. I told myself that maybe she’d somehow wriggled her way into her chair and gone downstairs in search of pancakes. That I’d turn the corner and see her merrily chewing away. Hear her pipe up, “Good morning, Mama!”
I tried to stave off the unignorable thought—that someone took my daughter from her bed.
But when I stepped into the kitchen and saw she wasn’t there, I knew I couldn’t ignore it any longer.
“Where. Is. She?” I snarl again, punctuating each word with a stab of the knife in the air.
The door behind me swings open, and the maid looks over my shoulder, hope dawning on her face. I spin around so I’m face-to-face with the intruder…
Who turns out to be a tall blonde maid no older than I am. She gets one look at me and my knife and scrambles to retreat the way she came in.
“No!” I shout. I jump so I’m in front of her, blocking the door. “Where is Adrik? What the fuck has he done with my daughter?”
The woman looks unimpressed by my weapon, but she’s smart enough not to test me. She backs up so she is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the other maid.
“I’ve been preparing the dining room for breakfast,” she explains cautiously. “I haven’t seen Don Tasarov.”
The two women give each other a strange look I can’t read.
I narrow my eyes and level the knife at them. “You do realize you’re accessories to a kidnapping, right? When this is over and I have my baby back, I’ll turn all of you in. I hope they throw the fucking book at you.”
The dark-haired woman risks a step forward. “Miss, we don’t have any idea where your daughter is. Maybe give me the knife, and we can—”
“Liars! Both of you are fucking liars!” I spit. “You know where they are. Tell me!”
Neither one says a word. Because they won’t or because they can’t? I don’t know, and right now, I don’t give a shit.
I just want to know my baby is safe.
“Fine,” I spit. “Don’t tell me anything. But until I have my daughter back, I’ll tear this house apart. I’ll rip the walls from the foundation if I have to.”
They watch warily as I step around the island and reach into the nearest cabinet. I whirl around, and as I do, I send three plates soaring across the room. They shatter against the opposite wall, denting the sheetrock.
The dark-haired maid screams. The blonde curses.
“You’re psychotic!”
“Damn right I am.” I threw three more plates and a glass. It’s only been a few seconds and the floor is already littered with shards of glass and ceramic. “Tell me where she is and this all stops.”
I turn to grab more plates. The blonde sprints for the door. I hurl a plate in her direction, but she just barely makes it into the hallway in time. It shatters against the wooden door instead of her back.
The other maid doesn’t move. She stands against the sink and watches me shatter everything inside cabinet after cabinet. She’s frightened enough that I really do believe she’d tell me if she knew where Adrik was.
The blonde, however, was hiding something.
“Is there something going on between that dumb bimbo and Adrik?” I ask as I shatter a glass across the marble island.
The woman blinks. “I don’t—what do you—”
“Fucking,” I enunciate clearly. “Are they fucking? The woman seemed awfully loyal to her employer. I mean, he can’t be that good of a boss. He must be fucking her, right?”
I don’t own up to my own hypocrisy. The fact that he was inside of me less than twelve hours ago, and now, he has taken Isabella away from me… the thought makes my skin crawl.
Like my own hands are covered in her blood.
“Oh, I don’t…” The woman clears her throat. “I’m not sure. Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
She says something, but the sound is lost when I throw a stack of bowls across the kitchen island. They skitter across the granite and then shatter in an ear-splitting explosion on the tile floor.
“Don T—Adrik has dalliances with the staff occasionally,” she says. “If they are willing.”
“I’m sure most of them are willing,” I snort, even though it isn’t funny. “Why wouldn’t they be? They probably see things I saw the night I met him. He’s rich, he’s handsome, he’s wildly unavailable. But you think to yourself, ‘Maybe, just maybe… I’ll be the woman who turns his head.’”
My face heats with my admission, but I banish the thought by throwing three glasses in quick succession against the window above the sink. To my surprise, they bounce right off, unbroken.
“What is this, bulletproof glass?”
“Polycarbonate window panels, actually.”
