The car pulls to a halt outside an address in the heart of the city. Some people would be calmed by that. They’d assume that nothing terrible would happen on such a refined street where everybody is dressed sharply and emanating a safe, staid energy. But that, I fear, is how they get you.
“I’m going in alone,” I say. “The two of you are going to circle the block until you’re called in. I don’t want to call you in. I want to come out with Ella, and we all go home.”
“I thought he wanted to see all of us,” Luke says.
“That is what he said, and if we have to do that, that is what we will do. For now, I want to be sure that we are exposing as few people to danger at one time as possible.”
I get out, and the car pulls off. I feel a significant amount of relief being on my own. Ella is nearby. Perhaps directly behind that front door. I step forward, and I knock.
The door swings open almost instantly. Ella is not there, but Eric is standing in the frame wearing the beigest of slacks and the broadest of smiles.
“Aiden, you came.”
Eric greets me like an old friend, or an old enemy, to be more accurate. This is not our first meeting. Our first meeting took place over ten years ago, on a battlefield where we stood opposed.
I would have been happy never to see Eric the Red again, but he does not forget. He bides his time and he waits to strike, and that is why now, at my moment of greatest weakness, he has blackmailed me here.
“Of course,” I say, letting him take my coat. A cold bolt runs down my spine as his fingers briefly brush over my shoulders. I do not like him touching me. He is the sort of man who absorbs life into himself. Even a limited exposure can be very draining.
“Can I see Ella?”
“I think we should speak first,” he says. “There is a lot you and I need to get into. I assume that is why you left your brothers behind, even though I requested their presence as well.”
“The family can’t be too careful about being wiped out,” I say bluntly. He laughs. It wasn’t a joke on my part, and he knows it, but it amuses him anyway.
“Come. Let’s have some afternoon tea,” he says. He leads me through to a sitting room that looks like it belongs in a museum, and makes a great show of pouring tea, providing little sandwiches on fine china plates, and doing absolutelyeverything and anything besides getting to the point because this is how he maintains control.
“I really would like to see Ella,” I say.
“Oh, I imagine you would,” he says. “She was the bait that got you here finally after you refused how many invitations would you say I have extended over the years?”
“Many,” I say. “I haven’t had the time…”
“Well over a hundred,” he says. “At a certain point, it’s just rude, really.”
“At a certain point, one might stop asking,” I reply. I am not here to be bullied, and he is not really here to fuck with my head either. He wants something, and the pettiness is not the end goal.
“True,” he says. “Let’s talk about Ella, then, shall we? I picked up your girl much the same way I’d pick up any stray. She was hungry, and I fed her, gave her a little kind attention, and she let me do whatever I liked with her.”
He is trying to bait me. It will not work. I know he took her at gun point, and that she settled in anyway because that is just how Ella works. She’s accustomed to being in custody. She’s lived her life under the ownership of one evil man or another. At this stage, she’s like a foster dog being moved from home to home.
She’d hate the comparison, both for how it made her feel and how accurate it is.
“Ella is immensely adaptable,” I say.
“I should say so,” he agrees. “She beds you, and earlier, your younger brother, who is killed by the man she works for…”
“Works is a strong word for someone who has been held captive most of their life,” I say. I pick through the offerings, and settle on a crumbly biscuit. Cucumber sandwiches might be the most pointless exercise in the history of pointless exercises.
“You need a lesson in etiquette,” Mr. Red notes, with a little smirk. “Why do you think I took her?”
“Same reason you launched a ham-fisted attempt to take one or both of my brothers. You want something from me.”
“I do,” Mr. Red smiles. “You’ve always been exceptional, Aiden. And you’ve never been entirely appreciated. I don’t think most people are even capable of seeing you for all that you are. Oh, they know you’re intelligent. And they know you are unique. They can see that there’s something that sets you apart. But they don’t really know what it is. They can’t describe it accurately.”
“Ella can.”
Mr. Red leans back. “Can she? She seems cute, and sweet, but I doubt she has the necessary darkness to understand what fabric you are cut from, Aiden.”
