Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
He did say captive, after all.
He feeds me half the bowl before he’s satisfied. His fingers are sticky with sauce when he pulls back, and he wipes them on his jeans without looking at me.
“Now it’s time to shower,” he says.
“What?”
“You’re covered in dried blood and warehouse grime. You need to shower.”
“I’ll pass.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
We stare at each other. The air between us crackles.
“You want me to strip down while you watch?” I ask, putting acid into every word. “Is that what this is?”
On his face, for just a second, I see the man from Montana—the one who looked at me like I hung the stars.
Then it’s gone.
“Five minutes,” he says. “I’ll be right outside the door.”
I don’t move.
“Now, Mia.”
I turn and head into the bathroom, breathing a quick sigh of relief as the door closes shut. My hands are shaking as I strip off the tank top, the bra, the knickers. I can feel him on the other side of that door, listening, and I hate how much it affects me. Hate that even now, even like this, some twisted part of me wants him to walk in.
The water is steaming. I stand under it and let it scald me, hot on my bruised skin, washing away blood and sweat and the last remnants of who I was before he said hello, Mia and my world collapsed.
When I come out wrapped in a towel, there are clean clothes on the bed. His clothes. A T-shirt that will drown me, sweatpants I’ll have to roll at the waist. No knickers.
He’s not in the room.
I dress quickly, surrounded by the smell of him, his detergent and something woodsy and underneath it all, that scent that’s all Nate. The shirt hangs to mid-thigh. The pants pool around my ankles.
The door opens.
He freezes when he sees me in his clothes. Something raw and hungry flashes across his face before he shuts it down.
“Get some sleep,” he says roughly. “We’ll continue this in the morning.”
“Continue what? You asking questions I’m not going to answer?”
He’s across the room before I can blink, hand fisting in the collar of the too-big shirt, hauling me up onto my toes.
“You think this is a game?” His voice is low and lethal. “You think I’m playing with you?”
“I think you don’t know what you want.”
“I know exactly what I want.” His grip tightens. “I want answers. I want the truth. I want to know if any of it—” He stops. His jaw works. “I want you to talk to me, for fuck’s sake.”
“Then you’re going to be disappointed.”
For one endless moment, I think he’s going to kiss me. Or strangle me. The line between the two has never felt thinner.
But he just shoves me back onto the bed and stalks to the door.
“You’ll break eventually,” he says without turning around. “Everyone does.”
The door slams.
The lock clicks.
I curl up on sheets that smell like fabric softener and stare at the ceiling, counting my heartbeats, wondering how many I have left.
CHAPTER 34
VANGUARD
I can’t sleep.
It’s been hours since I left Mia locked in the guest bedroom, and I’ve spent every single one of them pacing my penthouse like a caged animal, trying to ignore the fact that she’s there, her presence haunting me like Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart.
I sigh and press my head against the cool glass, watching as Manhattan churns on under dark skies, oblivious to my unraveling.
Mine.
The thought surfaces, all primal and absolute. I shove it down.
The thing is, the painful, ironic thing is, she’s not mine. She was never mine. I was a mission, an assignment, and she was a carefully constructed lie designed to get inside my head and my bed and extract everything useful before discarding the rest. She used me, just like everyone else does. She’s just the first person to fool me so entirely.
But she’s here now. In your space. Under your control. Right now, she is yours.
I push off the window and stop at the wet bar, pour three fingers of whiskey, and drain it in one swallow. The burn doesn’t help. Nothing helps.
Eliminate the threat.
The voice whispers from somewhere deep in my skull, that cold, mechanical part of me that sounds like my own thoughts but isn’t quite. It’s been louder since the warehouse.
She’s compromised you. She knows too much. End it.
My hand tightens on the glass until it cracks.
No.
I set the broken glass down carefully, watching blood well from the cuts on my palm. The wounds slowly begin to heal before my eyes, but for a moment, I feel pain. Actual physical pain that I so rarely feel.
It’s clarifying.
I’m not going to kill her.
I’m not.
But I don’t know what the fuck I am going to do.
I find myself outside her door at three a.m.
I don’t remember walking here. One second, I was standing at the window, watching the lights of the city blur through exhaustion, and the next I’m in this hallway with my hand on the doorknob and no idea how long I’ve been standing here. Like time has been whisked from my memory.