Someone stole the chips?
Oh God. Does he think that it was me?
He’ll never let me walk away if he believes that I’ve stolen those fucking chips. He already considers me a thief who stole a hundred thousand from him. He’ll never believe me when I tell him that it wasn’t me.
Surely, he has surveillance. He must know that it wasn’t me.
“The chips have been replaced with something else.”
My heart calms a bit when I realize that he hasn’t brought me here for a confrontation or to coax a confession. “I don’t understand what replaced means.”
He removes an intricate wooden box from the cabinet. “I renovated this house when I purchased it ten years ago. The men doing the construction on the house found this box behind one of the walls. It was between the master bedroom and a small room that had been concealed by a wall. No one knew that it was there. Not even the realtor who sold the house to me.”
“What kind of room?”
“I suspect that it could have been accommodations for a house slave that the master took as his lover.”
A lover. A slave. Accommodations right next to the master’s bedroom. Doesn’t sound a lot different from what he wants to do with me.
“I did some research and found that the original owner of the house did own slaves. And one particular female house slave listed on the census was mother to several children. No father was named as far as I can tell, so I’m inclined to believe that the owner was likely the father of her children. But it’s just a hunch. No way to know for certain.”
“What a bastard.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe he treated her well.”
“Doesn’t matter. She was still a slave owned by another human being. That’s not right.”
“Maybe he loved her and set her free.”
Is he kidding me? “Doubtful.”
“You’re judging a dead man that you don’t know.”
“And you’re defending him.”
“I’m not defending anyone. Hell, the man may have never even touched the woman. Her children could have been fathered by ten different men for all I know. It was only a suspicion that I voiced. No need to get angry about it.”
Maybe I’m being a little hypersensitive about it because I feel like he wants to do the same thing to me, minus the children.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that I truly despise human inequality.”
“As do I… but forget about the room. Forget the man and woman that we don’t know. This is what I want to talk about.”
He lifts the top of the carved box, and it’s filled with ornate brass keys plus one heart-shaped padlock sitting on top. “These were the contents inside the box when I opened it ten years ago.”
“What is all of this?”
“I have no idea, but it has mesmerized me for a decade.” He removes one of the keys from the box. “The whole lot is worth something to a collector. I’ve had decent offers but I couldn’t bring myself to part with them for some reason. And now I know why.”
Feels like he’s talking in riddles. “What do you mean?”
“There were one hundred keys in this box. I tried every one of them, and only one works to open this padlock. The one in your hand.”
The key has a brass heart-shaped bow and intricate shaft. It’s actually a beautiful key. The whole box is—that is, if keys can be beautiful.
“I want to make a deal with you, Emma Lia.”
Whatever Tristan wants, Tristan gets. At any cost. This deal can’t be good for me, but I’m willing to hear him out. “What kind of deal?”
