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I sit on the sidelines for a while and watch them playing, until we’re summoned inside for dinner by a very muscular man in a butler’s tuxedo. He’s a butler like I’m a prima ballerina. He’s just like the other men here—ex-military and all lethal. Joshua is taking no chances.
After dinner, Astrid and her children retreat to the guest wing of the house, with several bodyguards accompanying them.
Joshua and I settle into his living room. He leaves me to fetch a bottle of red wine and pours a glass for each of us, and we stare out the floor-to-ceiling windows, at the twinkling stars and the curving crescent of the moon.
“I’m offering ten million dollars for information leading to my brother’s arrest.”
“Ten million?” My jaw actually drops. After he gave millions of dollars to my friends? “You’re going to end up with nothing left.”
“I won’t even notice it’s gone.” He smiles at me teasingly. “Why, Tamara, are you a gold digger? Are you going to run off with someone richer?”
I shrug. “Well, the money was the primary appeal, yes.”
“Funny.” He reaches out and touches my lips with his thumb. “I love your smart mouth. You give me endless reasons to punish you.”
I smile secretly, picturing the way he spanks me, and turn away, sipping the wine and staring out the window at the stars.
But I don’t know what to say next. An uncomfortable silence stretches between us. “I don’t know how to do this,” I tell him. “I don’t know how to spend time with you when it’s like this. When I’m not chained up and spending all my time scheming to escape.”
“I don’t either,” he says, “but we’ll figure it out.”
I find that surprisingly touching. The part of me that wants to hate him is getting weaker and weaker. This is a man who wants me and only me, a man who’d die for me.
Joshua takes a long, slow sip of wine before setting his glass down. “I’m hoping that Charlemagne isn’t on the loose for too long. My brother’s face is all over the news tonight. I made sure of it. I gave an interview by Skype this morning after the news of his escape got out. Not something I enjoyed doing, but it helps get the word out. I can turn on the evening news if you want.”
I shudder. “No. If I never have to see him again, that’ll be too soon for me.” I hug myself. “I guess if he’s caught, I’ll need to testify against him.”
“Yes. I can have my lawyer work with you to prepare you for that.”
I drain half the glass of wine in one gulp, thinking about having to face that bastard in court. Joshua leans forward to refill it, and I see the faint hollows under his eyes. “Are you sureyou’reall right?” I ask him.
“Not by the standards of civilized society, no.” He smiles. “But it’s decent of you to ask.”
“It just seems like—”
“I answered you twice.” There’s a hard edge to his voice now, and his eyes are the color of storm clouds threatening a hurricane. I sink back into my chair, stung. Fine. I won’t ask again.
To change the subject, I say, “So, have you identified any candidates for…hunting?”
He glances at me in surprise. “You really don’t have a problem with what I do?”
“Not when you’re cleansing the Earth of the scum, no.” And I mean it.
All the suffering that Astrid and her children and I endured at the hands of Micah can be traced even further back. They can be traced back to Joshua and Micah’s father. An abuser doesn’t hurt just his victims. Some of those victims, forever damaged, will go on to inflict various kinds of pain to a new generation of victims, and then their victims will do the same. And the poison will spread and spread, like an oil spill spreading over clear waters and coating everything it touches with suffocating darkness.
If Joshua’s father had been killed before he could hurt anyone, then countless untold agonies would never have happened.
“I have a list of possibilities. Obviously while my brother had you, everything else was on hold, but I still kept my list. Do you want to look over it with me?”
“Okay,” I say without hesitation, but when he leaves, I feel a moment of doubt.
I’m going to help Joshua pick out someone to kill. I’m going to help him make a decision that will end someone’s life. Can I really go that far? Should I avert my eyes?
No. If I’m willing to accept that Joshua kills people, if I’m willing to be with him despite that, then I can’t separate myself from what he does. Pretending it’s not happening doesn’t give me a Hail Mary pass. I’m every bit as culpable as he is.
When he returns, he opens a document on the laptop and puts it on my lap. I look over the pictures. Joshua’s hands are trembling slightly, but I don’t say anything. If I do, he’ll just deny it and bite my head off.
He starts talking about the men on the computer. I listen to his litany of the things these men do, and I feel faintly ill. Pedophiles, rapists, sadists. Why is there so much evil in the world?
