In a rare moment, I blurt out the first thing that comes to me. “My sister. The bastard murdered my sister.”
“What?” he asks after a stunned moment.
“He was the doctor on my sister’s case. He allowed the cancer to eat her alive before he made a move. He had the fucking power to do better and didn’t. Caldwell may as well have put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. My parents and I had to watch her suffer through torture before she was taken from us.”
He doesn’t say anything, not for a long moment, and the silence ringing between us is louder than the traffic around us. Raissa is not a topic I relish bringing to the forefront of conversation, but Lucas needed to know the gravity of my hatred for this man and how it has grown exponentially in the last thirty minutes.
“Christ, Tristan, I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say except for now you know that if I get my hands on him, don’t stop me… no matter how bad it gets.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. Just know the only way I will stop you is if it means you’ll go to jail. That would hurt Nora and I refuse to allow her to hurt anymore.”
I find it hard to even breathe. Not knowing exactly where she is or what is happening to her is killing me. I have to calm myself just a little. The only thing that will or can do that is the sight of her face. I minimize the tracker app for just a moment to swipe through the folder of images she possesses in my phone. Each picture is more beautiful than the last. I stop on one from the first night we met. The dress. The dress she was to wear tonight. The dress that she’s in right now. The dress he’d better not be touching in any way.
Lucas looks my way as we make a right. He catches a glance of what is captivating my every thought. “Did you take that?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“That was the night I got her to go out to Nuova. You were there?”
“Yes.” I was going to leave it at that. One word. One word for her is not enough. “I heard her laugh from the street. I caught glimpses of what I now know is the most beautiful soul that exists or will ever exist. I loved her before I knew her name.”
Chapter 27
Nora
The door to the hotel room closes behind us with a click and I stand frozen with petrified tears streaming down my face when I hear him turn the lock, sealing us in this would-be torture chamber completely alone.
I’m motionless when he walks past me, brushing his arm against mine. I won’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction, even though everything inside of me wants to scream and kick and fight.
But I can’t. Not yet.
“Isn’t this romantic, Nor?” he says as he opens the suitcase that is sitting on the bed, pulling out stacks of clothes that I immediately recognize. Clothes I left behind when I left him in London. “I brought some things for you to wear. The things I preferred you in, of course.”
“You kept them? Why?”
“I knew one day we’d be back together again. Didn’t you?”
No. No. No. No.
“I like the dress I’m wearing. You liked me in formal wear. I’d like to keep it on, please?”
Please. I’m asking permission. I know he likes it. I know he needs it.
“While this dress suits your obvious curves, the color is all wrong for someone on my arm. I need you ready to go.”
“Ready to go? Go where?”
I look around the room wildly any time his eyes aren’t on me. I need to find a way out, a weapon, anything I can get my hands on.
“Away with me.” He moves the suitcase back to the floor. “Now, come here… and kneel.”
I feel sick. My hands shake and my body is physically rejecting the idea of kneeling for him. I can’t.
“Evan, I—”
“DOES IT SOUND LIKE THIS IS OPEN FOR NEGOTIATION?”
My body can’t hold its reactions anymore. I cringe at the thought of what he’s asking. I jump at the volume of his voice. I pray that someone outside hears him and will come to my rescue any second. I will my thoughts to go to Tristan so he can save me.
I need to do what I can so he doesn’t hurt me or worse. The breath in my lungs shakes as I close my eyes and slowly lower to my knees at his feet.
He groans in pleasure and lays his hand on my head, tangling his fingers into my hair and tugging painfully. When I shriek in pain, he only does it harder.
He’s getting off on the control and the pain he’s inflicting.
“Don’t move,” he commands and leaves me kneeling in my dress.
I keep my eyes downcast for a moment, then I start looking around again. Did he leave the gun unattended? Is there anything I can do to get out of here?
He comes back a few moments later and shoves my head back down, so my eyes are on the floor again.
“I said don’t fucking move.”
I can see his bare feet… and the fact that his legs are now bare. Oh God. He’s naked.
“Evan, please, don’t do this.”
I can’t allow him to touch me… or worse.
“I’m not going to do anything, Petal.” He steps up to me and grabs my face, angling it upward so I can see that he is, in fact, naked and what he wants me to do to him is clear. “You are.”
“No!” I shout and throw my hands out, grabbing, scratching, and punching whichever part of his body I can get to first.
“FUCK!” he screams in pain and stumbles back and away from me, giving me just enough time to scramble to my feet and bolt for the door.
My fingers barely begin to fumble with the lock before his hands wrap around the back of my neck and yank me violently away. My temple smashes into the wall on my right. The pain seers throughout my head. My hand tries to come up and touch where it all radiates from. There is no way I’m not bleeding. Before I can touch my skin, he grips around my wrist and starts tugging me into the middle of the room.
“I thought you’d listen this time. I thought we’d grown past your goddamn defiance.” He throws me onto the bed and I bounce on the lush, too soft mattress. The motion makes my head scream in pain. “I didn’t want to do this, Nora.”
I don’t even have time to react before I feel his weight on me, forcing my hands up over my head, and that’s when I feel the cold metal rings encircle my wrists.
He has now handcuffed me to the bed.
He leaves me once each of my hands is secured to the headboard and my arms are stretched too far above, leaving me unable to move because any small attempt sends pain into my back and underarms. He holds up the small, silver key that would be my freedom and lays it on the nightstand right beside me, just out of reach, because that’s the kind of bastard he is.
“I should have taken you that day in that bastard’s office,” he says from across the room as he tugs on boxer briefs.
“Wh… what?”
“You were curled up like a precious kitten in Sloane’s office. The sun was coming down on you. When I touched your skin, you were even warm. If that old biddy hadn’t nearly caught me, I could have easily made off with you that day.”
I knew it.
I stare up into the ceiling and warm tears slip down my temples.
I felt him in the room that day, but I thought I was dreaming. He was there. He’s always been there. Watching me, biding his time… like a predator.