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She starts to drive, turning onto the main road and heading toward the hotel. “There’s a restraining order against you. They’re also insinuating you forced yourself on Ophelia.”
“What?”
“I don’t know what the fuck I witnessed that night, but I’ve never seen anything like it. This town,” she shakes her head. “I don’t know. But I will tell you one thing, I have a feeling they’ll use that to force your hand. A charge of rape is not something you can walk away from so easily.”
“Rape? I didn’t… Fuck, I wouldn’t, and Ophelia would never say I did.” I look ahead at the road, thinking about Ophelia now. Where is she? Where did they take her? What did they do to her after I was gone?
Nigella navigates the narrow, icy lanes. A new storm is brewing. I feel it in my bones. Hear it in the whistling wind.
I’ve been held at the local jail without a phone call or any contact with anyone apart from the junior officer delivering my meals. No charges were filed, and no one said a single fucking word to me, so I have no fucking clue what’s going on or what went on after I was dragged out in handcuffs.
When we get to The Sinistral, Nigella drives around back. “What are you doing?”
“You feel like chatting with reporters?”
“Are you serious?”
She nods.
Christ. Once Nigella parks the car, we climb out and walk toward the doors.
“Did she say that? That I forced her?”
Nigella’s brow is furrowed, and I know she’s choosing her words carefully. She’s careful not to look at me as we enter the hotel. “I don’t think she was in a state to say or do much, Silas.”
I stop, look at her. I’m still holding the door open, icy wind blowing in. I fucking hate this town.
“What does that mean?” I ask, my voice somehow controlled even as my heart races.
She doesn’t answer but calls the service elevator. Using a key she must have gotten from the front desk, she inserts it and pushes the button for the Penthouse.
“Nigella. What does that mean?” I ask again once we’re inside.
“I’m going to make coffee. You’re going to have a shower. Then we’ll talk about it all. There’s… a lot, Silas.”
“I need to get to her.”
“She’s not here. Go. Shower. Put on clean clothes.”
“Nigella—”
“Look, even if I knew where she was, which I don’t,you go near her, and you’ll be back in that jail cell before you can blink. Do you hear me?”
“I don’t fucking care what happens to me.”
“You won’t be able to help her if you’re behind bars, will you? They were capable of holding you for three days without filing any charges and without allowing me to see you, Silas. Three days. That’s illegal. Sullivan Fox is not playing games. Go get a shower and change and then we’ll talk.”
She’s right. I know that. “Did they hurt her?” I ask, knowing the answer before I even see it on her face. Before she lowers her gaze and turns to walk into the kitchen.
I don’t know what to think, what to feel. My throat is tight, my stomach tense. It’s not anger, not yet. It’s fear. For her. Of what they can do to her. What Sullivan Fox is capable of. Ethan will punish her to get to me. I know that. He’ll do anything to hurt me. He has her, and he may be the more dangerous of the two men because he has a personal vendetta against me. Sly hates me, but it’s different than how Ethan feels.
The coffee machine starts to percolate. I make my way into the primary suite, strip off my clothes that smell of jail, drop them in the trash can and stand under a boiling hot shower. I then dress in dark slacks and a sweater, not bothering to shave before returning to the main room to find Nigella pouring coffee into two mugs on the table where that box I’d found in Horatio Hart’s study sits open, a hole where the lockused to be, and what I assume to be the contents of what was inside in a stack on one side.
She takes the seat closest to the stack, and as I take the opposite seat, my gaze catches on the envelope I recognize. The one Sly had me deliver to Hart so many years ago.
“Are you hungry?” she asks.
I shake my head, wrap my hands around the coffee, my eyes on that stack. “Start talking. What happened? What did they do to her?”
