“Did you think kidnapping was only permitted in Paris? I could fly you there, of course, but it’s so hard to get a bound body through customs.”
I stare at the man who’s so familiar to me and yet still a stranger. My lover. My enemy. “Elijah. This is insane. Tell me this is a joke.”
His head cocks. “Would it be funny to you?”
No. Nothing about this is funny.
The match he holds is small, but it gives off enough light for me to see the room we’re in. It’s some kind of basement, but more finished than the one underneath the French church. There are elaborate carvings on the wall, sconces empty of candles, and steel bars that look incongruously modern compared to the surroundings.
Symmetry. That was the word Adam used, and I finally understand it. Elijah is wearing a suit. He doesn’t look as slick as Adam. He looks strong, instead.
Like a missile encased in bespoke wool.
“Why are you doing this?” I whisper.
“Because you left.” He looks away and then back at me, his eyes dark and tragic. “I saw you. I wanted you. And I take what I want. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that, Holly.”
“Have you heard of dating?”
He gives me a small, private smile. “This is better. I don’t want to ask you out. I don’t want to give you the illusion that you can say no, Holly. You’re mine.”
“As romantic as this reunion is,” Adam says, “might I ask for some water. Food. Bandage. I would even accept medicine.”
I glance at him, and my eyes widen. “Is that blood?”
“A bullet wound, I’m afraid,” he says, his expression rueful and tight with pain.
“Oh my God,” I say, turning back to Elijah. “You shot him.”
“It was the only way to compel him into his current state of capture.”
“What about your brothers?”
“My brothers.” A shadow crosses his eyes. “I love them, but I’m more fully my father than they will ever be. That line they were worried about? I crossed it. It’s far behind me now.”
The match burns to his fingertips and goes out.
We’re cast into darkness. I suck in a breath and step backward, bumping into the warm wall. There must be heaters beneath this building to keep it this way underground. It’s a far more comfortable prison than the French church.
What a strange comparison to make. What an ironic turn in my life. I thought I was returning to my ordinary life with ordinary things. High heels and mocha frappes. Lunch meetings with my agent and editor. What must they be thinking right now? That I’m running late. That I somehow forgot. That I got caught in a subway malfunction, maybe.
They would never imagine that plain Holland Frank would be kidnapped.
They would never imagine this wasn’t the first time.
“I’ll give you the night to think over your situation,” Elijah’s voice says through the darkness. “In the morning we’ll talk. You’ll be more amenable to my demands by then.”
“What demands?” I say, panic rising in my throat, my voice squeaking.
His only answer is the click of his dress shoes on stone as he leaves. Hinges make a high-pitched sound. A door closes and locks. We’re alone.
I close my eyes, unable to face the reality. Unwilling to face it.
“I’m sorry, ma petite,” Adam says.
“For what?”
“For not being able to solve this predicament.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
“For what?”
“For hitting you when you’re already shot.”
He gives a small, musical laugh. “That didn’t feel amazing, to be sure. But I probably deserved it. And the bullet as well. He was only returning the favor. After all, I shot him first.”
I nestle down into the corner, feeling a strange kind of comfort. When you’ve lived long enough in the dark, it begins to feel like home. “Why did you shoot him?”
“I was his mentor, once. His friend. Then I became indebted to dangerous men. Powerful men. And he became a pawn to his lieutenant colonel. We were soldiers, each of us, on opposite sides of a secret war being waged.”
“In other words, he got in your way.”
That musical laugh again. “Yes, he got in my way. In my own manner I was trying to help him. Put him out of commission, out of the game. It wasn’t a lethal wound.”
“Neither was yours, it seems.”
“No, apparently our friend has a strong sense of symmetry.”
My chest constricts. He said he’ll make demands of us tomorrow. “How far do you think he’ll go to maintain that symmetry? Do you think he would make us… kiss?”
“I have come to regret those games,” he says. “They weren’t respectful.”
Anger wells in my heart. “You play the games. He plays the games. And always, I’m in the middle of them. Why? I’m just a regular girl.”
“I chose you before because you were the one thing he wanted but couldn’t have.”
“But I’m nothing to you.”
“Nothing? No. I’ve come to care about what happens to you, but you aren’t my lost love. That’s where he broke the symmetry. If he’d wanted to pick the one thing I wanted but couldn’t have, there would be someone else sitting in this cell with me.”
Because we’re whispering confidences, I ask, “Who?”
“Someone you know,” he surprises me by saying. “Someone you love.”
My forehead knits. “But who—”
“It does not matter. What matters is that clearly he plans to exact his revenge tomorrow. We had better rest and get some sleep.”
“I’m not going to sleep,” I say. “Now tell me who this person is. We barely know the same people. I can’t think of anyone who—No. Not London.”
“Is it so hard to believe? I imagine many men fall in love with her every day. The irony is that I have Elijah to thank for meeting her. If he hadn’t slipped her the diamonds, I would never have met her.”
“You’re the one who helped her,” I realize. “The one who helped me escape Paris.”
“Yes.”
“Because you wanted her to love you back?”
“God, no. She has no business being with someone like me. In the same way you have no business being with someone like Elijah North. When men like us sell our souls to the devil, there’s nothing left to give to a woman.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Elijah
Of course I don’t go to sleep.
There are infrared cameras set up in the basement, and I seat myself on one of the pews. The pulpit is quiet and dark. Even this many years later there’s the faint scent of incense. It’s embedded in the wood and thin wool carpet.
The church has been abandoned for a few years now. I bought the property under a shell company for twenty thousand dollars at a public auction.
It makes a good safe house.
Even my brothers don’t know about it.
Thinking of them makes my jaw clench. There’s no going back now. They would never accept me again after what I’ve done, but this is who I am. It was always a false front that they welcomed into their fold. They thought I was like them. I’m not.