Elias clenches his jaw and turns to the laptop as he starts typing. “Why do you want this anyway?”
“That’s not your concern.”
I press my lips together as I think about the airport. What reason could Robert have for wanting information onit? He obviously already had ties everywhere; he’d been running his empire just fine without Elias’s hacking skills before now. So why did he need him to perform this task?
“Are you trying to flee the country?” I ask, the only reason I can think of for him wanting to know about it.
He sighs as if disappointed in me. “I don’t expect you to understand, dear sister. You never were the brightest.”
The insult has me glaring his way. I want to argue, to tell him that anything I don’t understand is because he didn’t do his job as my guardian to teach me about. He purposely left large gaps in my knowledge, leaving me naive and vulnerable so I’d depend on him, and later, Ivan. But I decide to keep my mouth shut.
Maybe he should underestimate me. I’ve learned a lot in the month I’ve been away, thanks to my guys, and I might be able to put some of that knowledge to use to get us out of here.
For now, it’s best he still thinks of me as the same naive girl I was before I ran. Glancing at Elias, I wonder if he’s been given anything to eat or drink since we got here.
I pick up my half-full bottle of water and turn to Robert as I ask, “Can I give this to Elias? He’ll work better if he’s not starved and dehydrated.” He stares at me for a moment, as if wanting to know if I have an ulterior motive, before nodding slowly. He must realize there’s no harm in me giving it to Elias.
I stand slowly, grab the plate of veggies, and move to the table. Elias stops typing as I move up beside him and place the plate beside the laptop, handing the bottle over to him. He reaches up to take it, his fingers purposely wrapping around mine and sending me a small spark of strength before Robert yells at me to hurry up.
Pulling my hand away, I offer him a weak smile before resuming my seat. Elias chugs all the water before starting in on the veggies, keeping his eyes and free hand on the laptop the whole time. Of all the things Robert could have requested, this is probably the easiest. He could have asked for something that could put innocent people in danger. But I didn’t see the harm in him knowing more about an airport.
After a few minutes, Robert leaves, leaving strict instructions for the guards not to allow us to talk to each other. I see several guards pacing outside the room, while two station themselves inside the doorway.
Over the next hour, I try to talk to Elias a couple of times, but it’s quickly shut down with threats to hurt him. I try to talk to one of the guards next, but he just ignores me.
I end up lying on the couch, angling myself so I can watch Elias work. At least with him in here with me, I don’t have to worry about what they’re doing to him. If only we had a way to communicate.
Elias glances at me, then, when he sees I’m watching, reaches down to scratch his right leg. I watch the movement and try not to let anything show on my face when his hand starts to sign.
Of course,sign language! It’s not easy to do; the guards are facing me, and Elias is doing it one-handed at his side, making most words impossible to sign. I watch as he spells out his question.
I think he’s asking where they took me before I was in here. Knowing I can’t get away with full-on ASL, I let out a deep sigh as I rub my cheek with one finger, hoping he realizes I’m pointingup. I see the tiniest nod from him in understanding, then I add two more fingers, before I close my fist, my thumbpointing to my right.
Let’s hope he gets that, upstairs, third door to the right.
He keeps typing on the laptop, his eyes flitting back and forth between me and the screen before dropping his hand again. I think he tells me three to the left. They were keeping him in the same hallway as me? That’s promising. Of course, that’s if they take us both back to our same rooms again. I didn’t even know how many guards I’d been left with since I was locked in a closet.
But maybe if they returned me there, I could control my panic and find a way to escape. Hopefully, since I was cooperating, I wouldn’t be shoved back in there. That would make things a lot easier.
Of course, getting out of the rooms was only the first step. This place seemed to have way more guards than we’d ever had in Arizona, and without Elias guiding me behind the scenes, I wasn’t sure we’d be able to escape this place.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
ROBERT
The shift toward evening brings the kind of clarity I have always appreciated, a quiet narrowing of the world that allows the next steps of a plan to stand out in precise detail.
Every part of my plan is now in place, and I find myself settling into that familiar headspace where decisions feel almost effortless. The pieces are arranged, the path is set. All that remains is to ensure that each man understands the role assigned to him.
As I walk the corridor, the thought of Wren edges into my mind with the same unwelcome persistence it has always carried. Most people assume resentment is loud, but in truth, it settles quietly, seeping into the bones over the course of years.
I remember watching my parents give her everything they never thought to offer me, their attention folding toward her in ways they never once turned toward their own son. Even as a child, I understood the imbalance; she occupied a space in their lives that left no room for me, a brightcenter they revolved around without ever noticing who had been pushed to the edges.
It is remarkable how thoroughly love can blind people. They mistook favoritism for kindness, indulgence for affection, and they never realized how easily that kind of devotion breeds carelessness. She grew soft under them, adored and coddled, while I learned to live in the shadow she cast without ever meaning to.
I saw what she represented long before she did, and I refused to let her continue as the beneficiary of a life built on someone else’s neglect of me. People rarely understand how dangerous inequality can become, especially when it festers over years.
She needed to be brought back down to something manageable, something controllable, something that did not eclipse everything in the room simply by existing. Servitude accomplishes that remarkably well. It teaches humility where there was none. My parents never had the conviction to create that balance, so I created it myself. She may resent it, but resentment has never been a valid measure of right or wrong, only of how tightly a person clings to what they believe they deserve.
