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Only when she’s truly out do I head into the bathroom. Shucking my underwear, I move under the shower head and crank the water as hot as it’ll go.
I want to scald those images from my brain. I want to boil myself clean, just for listening to what she went through. For once, it isn’t the Beast that tells me I’m dirty, I’m impure, I’m doomed.
It’s Alix’s truth.
It’s what she survived.
I plant my palms on the tiled wall, pushing hard to shed some of my rage through my shaking shoulders. Soap, shampoo, the razor sitting ready on its shelf… None of it’s enough to make me feel clean.
Fuck all of this. Fuck a world where men can dream up the sort of torture Alix endured. Fuck Jonas and fuck Ansel and fuck fucking Klaus, whose fucking sick obsessions started all of this.
The shower won’t run cold—modern plumbing and a tankless water heater guarantee that. But when my skin is red, when my fingers start to pucker, when the steam billowing off the tiles seems thicker than the clouds on a rocket’s launch pad, I finally turn the water off.
I dry myself, tucking the towel tight around my waist. I drape another over my shoulders.
Back in the bedroom, Alix still sleeps soundly. I resist the urge to brush her cheek with my fingers, to settle my palm along her spine. Dreaming, she doesn’t need my comfort now.
I head downstairs.
I feel ashamed for what I made her do. I didn’t have the right to push her that hard. I shouldn’t have forced her to tell me things she wanted buried forever.
Because the worst thing is, she didn’t give me any magic answer. She didn’t tell me any secrets I can use. She didn’t give me a single fact I can turn into a weapon to destroy the fucking Herzog brothers forever.
All that shit. All those nightmares. For nothing.
I dig in my desk for a burner phone. I keep three or four on hand.
I find the card Best gave me on the yacht. He answers on the first ring. “Best.”
“It’s Trap,” I say.
He just waits.
“Option one,” I say.You let us loose on their compound, and we do what we do best.
“What’s your deadline?”
“They’ve given me till August 15.”
“So no later than midnight, August 14.”
“That’ll do.”
“Okay. I’ll take care of it.”
There’s no discussion of fees. No explanation of how he intends to take the Long Island fortress. No details, because I don’t need to know.
But just like that, I’ve removed Jonas and Ansel Herzog from my life.
17
TRAP
* * *
Iwant to make it up to her.
I want to make things right.
