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Cleon was about to say more, but suddenly his blindfold was torn off. The light blinded him for a moment and he groaned as he blinked rapidly. When his vision cleared, what Cleon saw made him wish he was still blindfolded and left blissfully unaware of who he had been repeating his story for.
Damen Leventis.
It was Damen Leventis in the flesh, and the look on the billionaire’s face told Cleon his days were numbered, that he would have been better off making a confession to the police.
He started to babble, desperate to save his life. “I swear, Mr. Leventis, if I had known she was—-”
“Quiet.”
That one word was as sharp and cold as a killer’s blade.
Cleon wanted to pee again.
Damen said tightly, “I will not hurt you right now. I will let you go. I will let you heal. I will let you lull yourself into thinking I’ve forgotten you or that you’re untouchable because I know you’re that stupid. And I don’t mind that you’re that stupid. When the day comes that you are at your strongest, that you are at your most arrogant, I will come back for you. And that is when you will pay.”
Chapter 2
The ringing of the phone tore Damen out of his most terrifying memories, and for a moment he was disoriented, his senses on alert, his instincts bordering on murderous. He was ready to kill anyone who dared to even consider hurting Mairi.
The phone continued to ring, and sanity kicked in a moment later.
He swiftly crossed the room to pick up the phone.
“Damen Leventis?” the voice on the other end of the line asked hesitantly.
Damen did his best to make his voice even, but memories that had not completely faded made his voice tight with guilt and self-hatred as he asked, “Is this Mandy?”
“Yes.” A moment later, unable to stop herself, Mandy demanded, “Has something bad happened to Mairi? She hasn’t been answering her phone the past few days.”
Hope died with those words, Mandy unknowingly answering the questions he had yet to ask. Damen said hollowly, “I had called hoping you would be able to tell me where she is.”
Mandy paled. “You don’t know where she is?”
“Do not lie to me.” Terror, an emotion that he had only become familiar with since he had learned of what Mairi had gone through, made his voice especially sharp.
“I’m not lying. I don’t know where she is and you’re not helping matters when you tell me you don’t know where Mairi is either!”
Mandy’s voice had risen at the end of her outburst, and the note of panic in it was unmistakable. He knew then that Mandy was not lying, and terror swallowed more of the few remaining tendrils of hope that survived inside Damen.
“I’m sorry. I did not mean to be sharp with you. I am angry at myself, not you, for...” He almost laughed, realizing that he had no idea where to start about the innumerable things he had to be sorry for.
For every instance that Mairi had proven she loved him, there were ten things he did to make her think that he did not value her love at all.
“D-do you think she’s in trouble?” Mandy demanded.
“Her aunts should know where she is.”
There was something off in the Greek billionaire’s voice. Common sense told her that she shouldn’t believe Damen Leventis, but Mandy for once did not want to be practical. She told herself that she was just imagining things and that what Damen had said was true. Nothing bad had happened to Mairi. Her aunts would know where Mairi was and her friend would be fine. Was fine.
“How long has she been gone?”
“Five days now,” Damen said hollowly.
“Have you talked to her aunts?”
“I will call them after this.”
Another strangely tense moment of silence followed, and Mandy again felt afraid for Mairi. She whispered, “What happened?”
Damen wanted to say that nothing happened, but he knew he did not deserve to say that. He spoke tonelessly, not hiding a single fact. He told Mandy about how he had been stupidly and foolishly blind to Mairi’s suffering, how he had forced her into a situation that had almost gotten Mairi raped. He told Mandy how he had constantly doubted Mairi’s love, to the point that he had believed a stranger over Mairi, to the point that he had thrown Mairi out of his house and treated her no better than a gold-digging whore.
He waited for Mandy to shout at him.
But she did not.
When she next spoke, she was crying. “I didn’t know...Velvet or I didn’t know any of this. We told her not to apply anymore because she kept getting rejected...”
Fate, once again in a cruelly ironic mood, interfered, giving Damen’s imagination the kind of accuracy only a powerful clairvoyant would have...or one whose love was so great that when it was betrayed, its ability to hurt was unparalleled.
