Then her gaze fell on the leather box.
It sat on the side table where he’d left it, the lid sealed snugly on top.
Daisy rummaged through the contents, searching for file 1922. When she found it, she yanked it free from the box and opened it on the table.
She recognized some pages from what she read at the doctor’s house. Cringed at his clinical notes in cramped handwriting, taking offense again to the terms she’d read before. Submissive tendencies. Virgin Level II. Low risk.
It felt like a lifetime ago, but it had only been yesterday. She flipped to the back of the file and found her essays.
Jack… J.T. Was he the one behind all of this?
Flipping another page, she stilled. Her government ID stared up at her with her full address. But that wasn’t all. Her mother’s death certificate. Details about family members she’d never mentioned, never shared, never offered to anyone.
How did they know? How could they possibly?—
The next photograph stopped her heart.
Large and unflinchingly naked, her body filled the page. Arms at her sides, chin lifted, face captured in frozen mortification. The clinical lighting of the examination room rendered every flaw, every rib, every shadow in merciless detail. Daisy touched the locket hanging from her neck in the picture, her mind flooding with heartfelt apologies no one would ever hear.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, but deep down she hoped if spirits did exist, her mother sat this night out. “I’ll figure out a way to get it back.”
She couldn’t leave here without her locket. Maybe she could ask Aunt V for help finding it—if she ever saw the woman again. She should have never brought it with her. There were a lot of things she should have done differently in the last twenty-four hours, but there was no regretting things she couldn’t change.
Daisy looked down at her body, hidden now beneath his shirt. Shame flooded her chest, hot and suffocating.
Her gaze returned to her file. How many people had seen it? All of them?
Hadrian knew things about her, things written on these private documents. Every tribute was numbered. Why, so they could reference them?
The hunters probably studied each image, memorized every body before the chase even began. Embarrassment curdled into something darker and harder. Something with teeth.
She ripped the photograph out of the file and tore it in half. Then quarters. Then kept tearing until nothing remained but confetti.
The other pages in her file followed. The copy of her ID. Her mother’s certificate. Every scrap of personal information they stole without her knowledge or consent. She shredded them with vicious efficiency, her breathing ragged, her fingers working until they cramped into fists.
How dare they?
How dare he?
She pulled another folder from the box. Another woman’s face stared up from the photograph inside. Another life laid bare in clinical detail.
Daisy tore it apart.
And the next. And the next. She worked through the box systematically, destroying every file she touched, every photograph, every invasion of privacy her hands could find. The carpet at her feet disappeared beneath a growing drift of paper snow.
Then she found Maggie’s, and her hands stilled. Her folder felt different. Personal. Heavier.
Daisy’s gaze drifted to the balcony doors, to the darkness beyond where the hunt continued. Maggie was out there somewhere. Running or hiding or caught. There was no way to know.
What if she never made it to the safe zone?
Daisy lowered the file aside, her fingers lingering on the number briefly, before she stood. What could she do? She was as helpless up here as she’d been down there.
They were all helpless.
The leather box waited, half-empty now, its remaining contents already damned. She carried it to the hearth and knelt before the flames, feeding the files to the fire one handful at a time.
The paper caught immediately, and flames roared to sudden life, blazing higher than she’d expected. Heat washed over her face, and she scrambled backward.
