“What are you doing?” Julian is at the bars again.
“I’m thinking.”
And all the while I’ve been thinking, I’ve been staring at the brick wall that each cell is built out from. The wall is rough and unplastered, something I never thought about before, because why would anyone bother plastering the walls of a torture chamber, after all?
But those bricks also offer an opportunity.
I go closer to the wall in my own cell, looking at each brick individually. Seeing each tree in the forest.
“I’ve changed my mind, Teddy MacCallum,” Julian says. “I think you and I could be great friends.”
He might as well have said,Warmer.
I run my hand along the wall, feeling for any loose bricks. There are none in the easily accessible areas of the wall. That only leaves one place—under the bunk. It’s bolted to the wall and floor, immoveable, so I have to wriggle under and turn on my side. But my persistence is rewarded when I feel one of the bricks give a little under my probing fingers.
I feel my way around the mortar. It’s definitely loose. I start prizing it out with the tips of my fingers, and then suddenly it’s in my hand, and I drop it to the floor with a sharp clack.
Excitement makes me clumsy. I shove my hand into the hole left by the brick and graze my knuckles along the sides, feeling around. Something cold meets my fingers, and I know at once what it is.
I was right.
It’s akey.
Julian has stored a key in each of these cells, careful and unobtrusive, just in case.
Panic finally rising, I start to scramble back out from under the bed. Because of course, if there are keys in every cell for him to get out, that means—
Oh, shit.
I get to my feet as fast as I can, but it’s too late. The door is sliding open, coming to rest with a quiet clank. And Alessandro will haveno ideawhat’s going on, because I’ve been silent during the whole search.
Julian dangles a key of his own from the tips of his forefinger and thumb. He’s leaning up against the doorway to my cell and smiling at me. “You really have no instinct for survival at all,” he tells me. “Still, you’re brainier than I thought, Teddy MacCallum. And,” he sighs pleasurably, “I bet all those brains will make a very pretty pattern spread out across the floor.”
“Alessan—” My shout is cut off dead as Julian’s hand closes, viselike, on my throat.
He pulls me close, and puts his lips to my ear. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, “but it’s just you and me, Teddy MacCallum.”
CHAPTER47
SANDRO
I’ve never run so fastin my life—and yet so slow. I’m in a nightmare, my feet sticking to the cold stones as I sprint down the passageway from my father’s study to the cells below where I—stupid, stupid,stupid—left Teddy alone with Julian.
I knew what Julian was like. Iknewit was unsafe. And I still let Teddy walk into death for me, for my pride, for my over-inflatedego…
Merely to prove himself.
My fingers are shaking as I stab in the entry code for the door, and I just about pull it out of the wall when it slides open too slowly for my liking.
Julian is waiting for me. He’s standing there with Teddy by the throat, smiling directly at me as I aim my gun at him. He’s been waiting for this—for me—to let me watch it happen.
“Don’t—” I gasp out, stopping dead as he holds up his other hand.
“No closer, Sandro,” he says politely. “Or I will. Put the gun down, please.”
Teddy’s back is to me as Julian holds him between us, but I can see him struggling, kicking out, grabbing at Julian’s wrist, the side of his face bright red as he struggles to breathe.
I drop the gun and kick it away. “What do you want? Name it and it’s yours, but don’t…” My voice catches. I can’t even say it, let alone think it.
