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“It was business,” I said.

“It started as business.” She stepped closer, and the low light caught the silver threaded through her dark hair. “But business doesn’t split a man’s knuckles like that. Business doesn’t put that look on your face.” Her gaze moved over me with the clinical patience of a woman who had built an empire on noticing things other people worked very hard to hide. “You came in here distracted. You left a room I’ll have to fix. That’s not a man closing a deal, it’s a man defending something.”

I held still under her examination because flinching would have told her more than anything I could say out loud.

She found the split knuckles first, the blood already drying into the cuff. Then her eyes traveled up, slow and deliberate, and stopped once she got to my hairline near my temple. Of course, it was where the stitches sat hidden unless you already knew to look for them.

“Vincent did the hand,” she said. “And the chair. And the glass. But he didn’t do the rest, correct?”

“Yes.” But I didn’t have time to get into this with her. I needed to get back to the woman I refused to move on from. I started walking away from Delphine’s examination and said one last thing over my shoulder. “I have to go.”

“Fine, but be careful with her.”

That stopped me for half a second longer than I would have liked. However, I kept walking and didn’t reply to her comment. What more was there to say? It seemed as if I was wearing a neon sign on my forehead that indicated I was fucked in the head over this woman.

And the only thing that would cure that was being near her again.

After what felt like forever, I headed to my driver and my car that was still idling at the curb of The Carnal Solstice. Once I was settled and we pulled off, I pulled out my cellphone and found a message from Declan.

Sutton left her bedroom.

12

SUTTON

Everything about this penthouse was strange, but the complete and utter silence I was experiencing had taken that feeling to a new level.

I wasn’t sure if Cain was still here and I didn’t want to run the risk of running into him this evening, so I decided to stay in the place that I could somewhat call my own. But now, I was getting restless and on the off chance that he’d left, it seemed like a good time to explore my surroundings a bit more.

I cracked the door open first and listened. The hallway gave away nothing about who was and wasn’t here. I stepped out anyway and quietly closed my bedroom door behind me.

The camera in the corner of the hallway tracked me, or I assumed it did. I refused to look directly at it. I’d decided sometime around three in the morning that I wouldn’t give Cain the satisfaction of watching me track his surveillance of me, even though that was precisely what I intended to do. My objective was to let him think I was wandering because there was nothing suspicious about a woman with nowhere to go pacing the borders of her cage.

The first room I walked into was the main living area. I was well versed in it because it was the room I needed to cross in order to get to the kitchen. However, I was able to take my time because I wasn’t trying to outrun him staring me down.

The space looked different at night. The floor-to-ceiling windows that had taunted me now framed a city lit up. I could see why Cain decided to get this place just for the view alone. I walked across the room to get a closer look because pretending the view didn’t move me was definitely a lie. Maybe if we had met under different circumstances, I could get used to just staring out at the scenes before me. But that was a foolish thought because no amount of skyline could change anything that had occurred. I turned away from the glass before it could soften me any further.

I looked over the main living room to see if there was anything I didn’t notice before during my journey from my main prison cell to the place where I could grab a bite to eat. There were two low sofas facing each other, a single armchair angled toward the windows, a glass coffee table with nothing on it. Most people kept things on coffee tables. Not to mention, this man lived alone so not even a remote control left askew because you didn’t feel like putting it back after watching television was weird. The decorative bowl I half-remembered from when I first arrived was gone too. It was then that it dawned on me what this could mean: he removed things that I could consider throwing or launching as weapons.

That was useful information in two different ways. It meant he didn’t entirely trust the locks and the men and the fingerprint elevator to keep me in line. And it meant he expected there might be more violence from me again.

Good. I wanted him to keep bracing for whatever he thought was coming his way because it was another way to keep him on his toes and never knowing my next move. Heck, I didn’t even know what I was going to do next, so that made two of us.

I moved on to the next room in the penthouse, which was the kitchen and it was the room I knew most about. The kitchen at night felt larger than it had that morning. The under-cabinet lighting cast everything in a soft glow that looked stunning across the marble countertops. Marta was gone, which I’d expected at this hour and was grateful for.

I opened the cabinet closest to his refrigerator first. Plates, bowls, glassware were all neatly arranged and that was a shock to no one. I closed it and moved to the next and then the next one. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular yet. I was watching to see if the act of opening cabinets summoned anyone, a voice through a speaker, a man in a black suit materializing in the doorway to remind me of the rules.

Not a single soul came. I filed that away too. It seemed as if I was allowed to move around freely within the confines of my cage. I opened the refrigerator doors next and wasn’t surprised to find it completely stocked. There were the obvious things: eggs, milk, and an assortment of vegetables and fruits. But it was the smaller items that confirmed what I already knew. Things like the brand of oat milk I kept in my own refrigerator at home. The specific Greek yogurt I bought every week because it was the only one that didn’t taste like chalk to me. A jar of the specialty jams I’d discovered at a farmers’ market two summers ago and had been quietly obsessed with ever since.

I shut the door harder than I meant to, but also what in the entire hell? It was still freaking me out that he’d anticipated everything I might want. Every preference, including some of the small comforts that I enjoyed, seemed to have found a place in his home. The worst part, the part that genuinely frightened me, was how easy it would be to mistake all of it for care, when in reality it wasn’t.

There was a difference between feeling seen and being stalked to the point where a man knew what skincare products you use because he’d authorized people to break into your place and tell him. A man who learned what yogurt you liked so he could trap you with it was not a man who cared about you. He was a man who collected things and you were now a part of the collection of things his mind told him that he needed to own.

I left the kitchen before I could spiral further down that particular hole. Standing in front of an open refrigerator and looking over the ways this man had violated my privacy wasn’t going to help me figure out how to get out of here. I needed to keep moving and keep studying to build the picture of this place that I would eventually use against him.

The hallway beyond the living area branched in two directions. One led back toward my room. The other I hadn’t explored yet because I’d been too exhausted and didn’t want to alert Cain to what I was doing. The art on the walls here was slightly darker and more abstract than the pieces near my room. I tried the first door and found my eyes widening as I realized what I’d just discovered: Cain’s bedroom.

I should have closed the door immediately because that would have been the smart thing to do. Instead, I stood there with my hand on the handle and let myself look.