AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As I poured myself a Scotch, curiosity got the better of me. Would Aidan really have sent her back to the dungeon? He needed her. More than he admitted.
Rocky padded past me, his claws clicking on the polished floors. Aiden didn’t like having Dominic’s rottweiler roam the house, so he must be at least a little afraid of Selena…even if he had locked her away.
The basement was thoroughly soundproofed. It wasn’t until I had descended the staircase that I heard the first faint sound of her. She wasn’t in the same room where Aiden had first stashed her. She was in the room with the cage.
I had to swing open the door to hear her screaming.
Then her gaze met mine, wild eyed, through gilt bars. The gilt was scratched away in places, revealing the dull steel beneath. There was blood around her fingernails.
“What did you do?” I was full of curiosity. She seemed to have lost her mind.
She looked up at me, but didn’t manage to answer. Had Aiden put her in here knowing how much she would freak out? I didn’t think so. This wasn’t a normal level of terror about being stuck in a cage in a gangster’s basement, and there certainly would have been a fair amount of fear that was legitimate in that case. But she seemed lost in her panic.
That didn’t fit with the kind of girl I’d expected Aiden to bring home. It didn’t fit with the spark of the girl that I had seen when I first helped Dominic bundle her into a closet. And it didn’t fit with the wild energy I’d felt enter the house when she did, like a strong, salt-tinged breeze coming off the ocean.
So I tried again. “What are you afraid of?”
She shook her head. She was clearly not interested in giving me any more material.
But I wasn’t the one who would hurt her. “Talk to me.”
“Let me out.” Her voice came out on a whisper.
“Not a chance. I don’t have the keys.” I touched the lock, which was an old school, simple lock and key. Well, five of them. It hadn’t looked like this before. Aiden had changed things once we captured her in the dungeon.
“What if you did?” She tried to sound unruffled, but her voice was still raspy from the screaming, so it didn’t really work. She sounded cute though, with the huskiness.
“I’d still choose Aiden over you,” I said bluntly. “But… I’m willing to do something to help the time pass for you until he lets you out.”
“He’s going let me out?”
“He’s not going to leave you to starve down here. Sooner or later, he’ll have another tenant and that would make a big mess.”
She was clearly trying to master her feelings.
“Aiden thinks you’re quite impressive. Why are you screaming?”
She looked as if she were debating which was the better option, to tell me or to keep her secrets. In the end, she must have realized that if Aiden thought that she wasn’t impressive, her life would be over.
“I’m claustrophobic.”
“So you don’t like the cage.”
She looked at me as if I were stupid. “Who would like the cage?”
“You might be surprised.” Aiden had another one like it, although it wasn’t down here in the dungeon. Plenty of girls had happily climbed inside.
I asked her curiously, “How much does your claustrophobia impact your daily life? Can you go caving?”
She scoffed. “Caving is idiotic.”
“Elevators?”
“Elevators are fine. They’re only for a minute, I haven’t been locked in them by a madman, and I’m often not…”
She bit it off her words like she was hiding a secret.
“Often not what?” I asked her. She looked at me as if she weren’t going to tell me, but that was okay. I could guess. “Often not alone?”
