“I know; it’s like something out of a fairy tale, isn’t it? He appeared right when I needed him the most and whisked me away from my horrible life.” Meeting both of their eyes, my voice doesn’t waver. “I finally have hope for my future, and it’s all thanks to him.”
“Your room,” Julian declares, stopping in front of a door a short jaunt down the hall from his.
I’m torn between relief and confusion. “We’re not sharing?” At his raised eyebrow, my cheeks heat while I rush out, “I only meant, since we’re pretending to be dating, I sort of assumed,” I trail off, embarrassed.
With a low chuckle, he leans in, bracing a hand on the wall beside my head to murmur in my ear. “Sleeping with someone is a quick way to get a knife in the back. You want me to fuck you, you just need to ask. But I sleep alone.”
He never so much as touches me, but a shiver skitters down my spine nonetheless. “I don’t beg.”
His tongue traces a path over his top teeth as he pulls away, eyes flicking over me. “Everyone has their breaking point, Elysium. And I do so look forward to discovering yours.”
Shoving off of the wall, he turns away without once looking back, closing his bedroom door behind him. Releasing a pent up breath, I head into my room, noting the lack of a lock on it. Grabbing the chair from the vanity, I prop it beneath the handle, though I doubt it would actually stop him if he were determined.
Yet he doesn’t seem like the sort of man to break into a room in the middle of the night; he has people for that. He’s more the type to force someone’s hand until they have no choice but to submit, to come crawling to him, begging for his mercy.
I’ve long since learned that there isn’t truly any mercy in this world, and pleas simply fall on deaf ears.
A quick glance around the room leaves a weird nagging sensation in the back of my mind begging for attention, and I do another sweep, trying to understand what has my alarm bells going off. Everything’s immaculate; so much so, I doubt there’s a fingerprint or speck of dust to be found. The vanity has new pallets of makeup that I wouldn’t even know what to do with, along with several brushes and combs. The bed has fresh sheets, the comforter turned down and folded to perfection. And though I’m half convinced something is going to jump out at me, I slowly open the closet door, finding nothing inside, not even a change of clothes.
All of my stuff is in Julian’s room in case the police found a reason to look around. Shit.
Thankfully, my clothes are comfortable enough to sleep in, because I’m not about to go knocking on Julian’s door in the middle of the night after how things ended in the hallway. Still, I’m too keyed up to even attempt to sleep, even if it’s one of the most luxurious beds I’ve ever-
The bed.
Cocking my head to the side, I take a closer look, that nagging feeling spurring me on. Despite the modern appliances, all of the furniture in this place is antique. Yet this bed, though it’s a similar mahogany color, is less flashy. Still nice, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t carry the same air of meticulous, hand-carved history. Instead, it’s just smooth, unblemished wood, like it’s a newer bed, as if someone had to replace-
“Motherfucker,” I whisper, staring around the space again as it finally clicks what feels so off about this room.
Grave’s dead girlfriend is what got him banned from Julian’s house. And this place looks like it was scrubbed down to the last molecule, polished to perfection. Or more appropriately, to remove every potential bit of evidence.
“Of all of the rooms he has in this place, he chose the haunted one to keep me in. Awesome.”
Rubbing a hand over my arm uneasily, I scan the room again, mental images of bloody corpses and screaming ghosts making me jumpy. If he put me in here as opposed to a different one, there has to be a reason. He might be intrigued, but as he blatantly stated in the hall, he doesn’t trust anyone, much less me. So he designated me to the one room already tainted by murder as a precaution.
Walking towards the window, I glance out at the massive expanse of grass below, the trees tall enough to block out my view beyond the property. The rest of the world may as well not exist, not a soul to be seen. Just a man with more secrets than he has rooms in his house, and a girl in over her head.
Exhaling a slow breath, I shove away the fear and focus on what matters. Everyone’s scared of Julian King, but I have an opportunity here. They can’t kill him without damning themselves because of the blackmail he uses to keep them in line, so I need to find out what it is. A file that’s released as soon as he’s deemed dead? An inside man in the police? His lawyer that has instructions to release the evidence stacked against him if he’s murdered?
If I can figure it out, then I can destroy it, and we’ll all be free.
He wants to train me to be inconspicuous, to keep my ear to the ground? Perfect. Let him mold me into his downfall.
The smooth wood beneath my feet gives way to gleaming white tile as I step into the attached bathroom, splashing water onto my face. Pulling my hair back into a braid, I kill some time, waiting for enough to pass that Julian will likely have fallen asleep.
Removing the chair from the door, I head back out into the hall on silent footsteps, leaving our bedrooms behind. The tour he gave me earlier was rushed, just enough to allow me to bullshit familiarity of the place. But even more than I mapped the rooms he pointed out, I mentally marked the ones that he didn’t. Any door that he didn’t deign worth mentioning could be relevant, either as insight into the man’s empire, or the source of fear from the men banned from this house.
There isn’t so much as a squeak beneath my feet as I make my way down the stairs, the place immaculately maintained. It’s such a far cry from the way that I grew up that the simple absence of a loose floorboard makes my chest tighten and I have to shake my head to get it back in the game.
Some people have everything, and yet they still feel like they need more. Julian has enough wealth that he could retire the rest of his days and live comfortably, yet he manipulates people into stealing shit and extorting them. The constant quest for ‘more’, like it’s never enough. He could set every person in his employ free and not even feel their absence, yet he chooses not to.
Because it’s not about wealth, it’s about control.
Bypassing the kitchen, I head down another hallway, the place a labyrinth of doors. Pantry, bathroom, and then I stop in front of one he glossed over.
Don’t be the basement, don’t be the basement.
Licking my dry lips, I twist the knob, and push it open. Exhaling heavily as I face the closet full of cleaning supplies, I pull the door shut again with a soft snick as it latches.
