“She attacked me! I was fixing myself something to eat!” She goes to him, leaning against him, shaking as blood drips on the floor. “She used the knife on me!”
Oh, my god.“I didn’t.” It comes out as a weak whisper, barely audible even to me. “I didn’t.”
“Jesus Christ!” Liam barks, walking her over to the sink before glaring at me.
“She’s lying,” I croak, though I know he won’t believe me. I doubt he even hears me.
He grabs a dish towel and wraps it around her arm. “Keep pressure on it.” My horror only deepens as he takes hold of me, pulling me close enough that his enraged face fills my vision. “I should’ve known.”
“I didn’t do it,” I whisper, shaking my head, planting my feet, not that it makes a difference. He still drags me from the kitchen, making me run to keep up with his long stride as he pulls me deeper into the penthouse, muttering to himself the whole time. I’ve never been back here before. There’s a heavy door at the end of the hall, which he opens by punching a code into a keypad.
“Won’t make that mistake again,” he growls, swinging the door open. “I should’ve left you here to begin with.”
My body goes ice cold when I realize I’m looking into a cell. That’s the only word for it. No windows, no comfort, only a cot and what looks like a combination toilet and sink, which heshoves me against. I fall, yelping when my bruised knees hit the metal. By the time I catch myself and turn around to face him, he’s already out of the room and closing the door behind him. He doesn’t say another word. He won’t even look at me.
This time, the lock clicks. This time, he’s going to make sure I can’t escape.
While all I can do is try to piece together what the hell just happened and how much worse life is about to get because of it.
18
LIAM
It doesn’t make any more sense to me today than it did yesterday. None of it does.
I woke up with a weight on my chest, like an elephant had decided to have a sit-down on my sternum. The bed was empty apart from me. It’s almost funny how long it takes for someone to get used to something new. Waking up alone—after hardly sleeping at all—felt foreign.
The gloomy, gray light beyond the windows reflected my mood as I went through the motions of my day. I barely felt the water in the shower. I brushed my teeth robotically, without thinking. The sight of my hollow-eyed reflection in the mirror made me turn away in… what? Disappointment? Disgust with myself? Whatever it was, the feeling has clung to me all day like a scent no amount of soap will wash away.
Hours later, after spending most of the day trying and failing to focus on anything but the attack, I’m no closer to understanding what I walked in on. I only know I should have prevented it somehow. How did I not see this coming?
Yet again, I didn’t think it through. This time I could have lost someone valuable. The thought brings up a wave of burningrage, like lava escaping the mouth of a volcano and incinerating everything in its path. What would’ve happened if I hadn’t gotten home when I did? What would I have found in the kitchen?
No matter how many times I turn it over in my mind, I can’t bring myself to put the image together. Selina, bleeding out on the kitchen floor. It doesn’t gel. She’s tough, she’s skilled, she’s had to fight as hard as I have for as long as I have. I can’t imagine her going down like that. I don’t want to, either.
By the time dusk begins to fall, I have to admit the day is a total wash. Instead of continuing to fight the urge, I pull up the video feed from the cell. The sight of my captive stirs conflicting emotions I’d rather not feel. Regret. Concern. There she is, where I left her, curled in a ball on the cot. Her face is to the wall, like even now she’s trying to hide herself from me. She did a pretty good job up to this point—I would never in a million years have imagined her with the… what? Guts? Insanity? Is that what it is? Did she inherit her father’s taste for blood?
When I search my thoughts, what I know of her, I find it difficult to believe that. She’s tough. That much, I can’t deny. But vicious? What did she have to gain from attacking Selina? There’s no escaping. She doesn’t know the code for the elevator, which is only the first of her problems. How would she survive on her own with no money and nowhere to run?
The direction of my thoughts makes me growl at myself while I take one last look at Aurora’s shivering form before turning off the feed. This is my biggest mistake in a nutshell. Thinking too much about her, trying to make sense of her. She is my prisoner. My pawn. A man doesn’t waste time trying to rationalize the actions of his pawn.
Guilt makes me reach for the phone. Selina picks up on the second ring. “Hello there.” She sounds weary. I can relate.
“How are you? How does the wound look?” I offered to call Dr. Baker for her last night, but she refused. She’s tough, insisted she didn’t need help.
“I’m alive. Thank you for being so concerned.”
“How could I not?” After all, I left her wide open to danger, didn’t I?
Why the hell does that not feel right? Something keeps tapping at the back of my mind. It won’t let go of me. Last night, I assumed it was all a matter of guilt, the way I couldn’t shake a sense of something being wrong. Something that doesn’t add up. It’s still there, as strong as ever, churning in my gut.
“I’m telling you, we underestimated her. I blame myself,” she says, while I turn my attention to the security feed once again. This time, I’m not interested in the feed from the cell as much as I am in the feed from yesterday, in the kitchen. The camera is mounted over the window and can take in the entire room. I need to see for myself. I need to know how someone like Aurora can get the better of someone like Selina.
“She is her father’s daughter.” There’s an edge to Selina’s voice. I can understand why. “She’s insane. Can you even imagine the way he actually raised her? And there she is, pretending she wasn’t part of all of that. I think we know differently now.”
I hear her buzzing in my head like a mosquito while I pull up the footage from last night. There’s only one problem.
“The file is corrupt,” I mutter. I pull up the footage from the entryway, above the elevator doors. That’s fine. It shows me stepping out of the elevator, pausing. The sound of Selina’s scream froze me for a second, since it wasn’t what I expected. I then rush out of frame.
