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No. Wait.
His eyes aren’t brown.
Why are his eyes brown?
Am I dreaming?
Cold water sloshes over me.
I gasp, jerking awake. The chains that hold me up rattle with the sudden movement. The water soaks my hair and clothes, and by the time it drips off my legs, it’s tinged pink with blood.
“Have a nice little nap?”
There’s a flash.
I groan, trying to regain my footing. My limbs feel like jelly, my muscles cramping.
“This is cliche,” I say, the déjà vu of my words striking a weird chord inside me. “Torture for torture’s sake feels… disingenuous.”
“Are you worried about my sincerity, Ms. McGovern?”
“Maybe.”
Luke Abernathy comes closer. “Here’s the thing. My investors have become…spooked, let’s say, by recent events. We’re dissolving our operation, but not without one last payday. Which means nothing can go wrong. It’s going to be a team effort.”
I cough. Blood comes up, spraying all over his crisp white shirt. I lick my split, swollen lips. “Oops.”
His lips turn down, and he pulls at the ruined fabric. “Do you know how long you’ve been here?”
I readjust my grip on the chains. I can hold them and take some weight off my shoulders, which I do periodically. “Long enough to fall asleep like this, so…” I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“It’s been thirty-six hours since you got in the elevator with me. But you’re not done, yet. You’re going to hang out here as my insurance for this game to goexactlythe way I want. If it does, you live.”
“If it doesn’t?”
“Then your husband will get you delivered back to him in pieces.”
I shudder. Was any of that dream real?
“Where’s your boss?” I ask.
He stares at me, seeming fascinated with my face. And then, with a small smile, he leaves me hanging.
Literally.
I shouldn’t have pulled out that tooth. Out of all the things wrong, that spot in my mouth seems to pulse worse than the rest. Probably because, of all the things, I did it to myself. I cut off my nose to spite my face, in a way.
Tears burn my eyes. My dream seems to blend with the rest of the conversations I’ve had with Luke Abernathy since he took me.
I got into his car willingly. Maybe not a hundred percentwillingly, but more with a sense of duty to just get this over with on my terms. Because running isn’t going to get me anywhere. And if the dream conversation was real, it was Knox who triggered this.
If we don’t get free of him, we’ll be bound to the Abernathys forever.
My feet slide in the blood under me. He didn’t beat me—he had someone else get their hands dirty. I think Joel was his exception. The one person he didn’t expect to give him up ended up spilling all his secrets.
To me.
And now I hold them, although he hasn’t asked me about any of it.
