Page 21

“Are you concerned about me?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I’m trying to understand what kind of person comes home with someone else’s blood on his clothes as if this is a normal occurrence. Are you about to ask if I have everything I need?”

“Do you? Have everything you need that is?”

The question landed exactly where he wanted it to. He’d noticed the deflection and chosen not to chase it, which was its own kind of pressure. I held his gaze rather than retreating into the answer he expected.

“I found the library,” I said. “That’s what you walked in on.”

“So you did.” He didn’t step back. The proximity was deliberate, a test to see whether I would move to put space between us first. I didn’t. “You haven’t asked what happened.”

“Would you tell me if I did?”

“No.”

“Then there’s no point in asking. Look, I’m going to go to bed.”

I moved to step around him, but I didn’t get far before he spoke again.

“There’s something you wanted to ask me.”

I stopped because he was right, which I hated. The library had given me a reason to be in this part of the penthouse, and I wasn’t going to waste it by storming off because it could cost me access to the room that most interested me.

I turned back to face him. “Fine. Am I allowed to read the books in here?”

He tilted his head slightly, the way he did when I’d said something he found more interesting than expected. “Of course. You don’t need my permission for that,” he replied. “Read whatever you’d like. That’s not the kind of thing I’d deny you.”

The irony of it sat there between us, but I refused to unpack it. I needed permission to do basically anything else, but this was fine. “Good,” I said. “I needed something to occupy my time.”

“What did you find that interested you?” he asked.

I hadn’t expected the follow-up, though I should have. Cain didn’t ask questions he didn’t already have a use for the answers to.

“History,” I said, which was true enough to be safe. “There’s more of it here than I would have guessed.”

“You guessed I didn’t read.”

“I guessed you bought books to fill shelves for aesthetic purposes.” I let my gaze drift back toward the books. “I was wrong about that part.”

“Most people are wrong about that part,” he said. “It serves me to let them be.”

“Then why correct me?”

“Because you’ll be here long enough to learn the truth regardless,” he said. “I’d rather you learn it from me than construct your own version. Have a good rest of your evening, Sutton.”

With that, I was dismissed and I turned on my heel to walk away, quickly enough to put distance between us but not quickly enough to look like I was running away from him even though, deep down, I knew I was.

13

SUTTON

By the seventh day of captivity, I had stopped pretending this schedule was something I chose. Breakfast came at eight whether I wanted it or not, lunch at one. The timing for dinner was a bit more flexible especially depending on how heavy lunch was. Every meal arrived under a silver cloche which was doing too much since this was just a fancy cage meant to keep me trapped for however long Cain decided.

Today’s lunch was a roasted vegetable thing with couscous and a piece of white fish and if I was being honest, it was really good. That was the part that grated. Everything Marta made was delicious and I did have to admit it made being locked up here more palatable.

I sat at the dining table for today’s meal because eating in my room had started to become boring. Besides, the dining room gave me a better view of the penthouse than my room ever could. From here I could see the hallway that led to the elevator, the glass door where one of the guards rotated through, and the corner of the kitchen where Marta worked. I cut the fish into smaller pieces than I needed to, mostly to give my hands something to do while she moved around the kitchen to my left.

“This is very good,” I said. “The fish.”