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“I think it was more than you intended,” I told him.
She hadn’t wanted to tell me why it was that she was claustrophobic, but I was sure there was a reason.
Aiden threw me the keys. He wouldn’t admit he was wrong, but his jaw tightened the way it did when he knew he’d fucked up. “I have to spend my day pretending that I’m tracking her down. Take care of her.”
As if that weren’t already my intention.
CHAPTER8
Selena
I woketo the feeling of being lifted into the air.
My first impulse was to strike out. I slammed my fist into something hard and solid before my eyes even opened, and then a strong hand wrapped around my wrist.
My eyes flew open, my body already tense.
Xander’s beautiful face gazed down at me. “If you’ve been having a bad dream, I’ve come to wake you from it.”
He was still holding my fist, and he pressed a kiss to the knuckles I had just used to hit him.
I looked around and realized he had just lifted me out of the cage. If Aiden had come in with the keys, I hadn’t woken. Had I been drugged again?
Or had I just been sleeping the deepest sleep of my life, holding hands with a mobster?
I wasn’t sure which possibility was more horrifying. I slept poorly almost everywhere. The best sleep I got was with the hum of my vending machine in the corner of my room. I’d been at the house long enough to believe I was really safe there. But when I left its walls, I was always on a mission. I was always in danger.
And the nightmares always came back.
“Aiden came and unlocked the door,” he confirmed. “and I made some plans for our day.”
“What are those?” I hoped one of them was breakfast and I hoped another was a long, hot shower. I didn’t enjoy sleeping in my clothes as I’d done yet again last night.
He raised his hand to show me what he had palmed in it. A keyring with five keys on it. The keys to the cage.
Panic choked my throat, and the expression on his face shifted from triumphant to worried. “No, no. No one’s going to put you back in the cage. Here… I’ll show you.”
Having set me back on my feet, he twined his arm around my neck and pressed a kiss my forehead. The soothing motion surprised me.
So did the fact that I felt…soothed.
Instead of blindfolding me as Dominic had done, he kept his arm around me as he led me out of the room into an enormous basement. A black wrought iron spiral staircase led up, nearly lost in the darkness.
“Dominic told me he had to blindfold me to bring me upstairs.” I leaned into the warmth of his side; he smelled like clay and ink, and it was strangely comforting. “I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
Showing concern for someone is the quickest way to get them to care for you in return. After all, I knew how well that worked from the other side; I’d felt cared for when he stayed with me the night before. But I had to keep my guard up. This was not my home, and these men were not my friends.
“I’m pretty sure Dominic just said that because he wanted to carry you,” Xander said.
Indignation swept through me, remembering how Dominic had made me feel helpless. I was going to make him suffer for those feelings of helplessness, sooner or later.
The two of us made our way upstairs and emerged through a door that had been left unlocked. It bothered me to think that there had been all those unlocked doors between me and safety. It had just been that damn cage that held me.
The delicious smells of breakfast cooking filled the air. “What do you want?” he asked me. “I’ll get it sent up to my studio.”
“Your studio? What kind of art do you make?”
His lips ticked up on either side. “You’ll see.” Then he added, “I recommend the caramel apple French toast. Aiden’s private chef is very talented.”
