Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 167759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 839(@200wpm)___ 671(@250wpm)___ 559(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 839(@200wpm)___ 671(@250wpm)___ 559(@300wpm)
‘Good. You’re awake.’ A figure swims in and out of focus in the gloom. ‘I worried for a moment that I might’ve given you too much.’
‘Ben? Is that you?’ He steps away from the corner, his arms folded across his chest, his expression grim. I feel like I should be wary. Like something important has happened, but I can’t think what.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Like I’ve had the flu.’
That’s benzodiazepine for you. It can take you to heaven or make you feel like hell.’
‘Benzo . . .’ I can barely wrap my mouth around the word.
‘Easier just to say roofied.’
Oh my God. ‘By who?’ But even as I’m asking, my mind is whispering the answer.
Sinister.
‘I’d like to tell you it’ll all come back to you, but it doesn’t usually.’ His voice is even, like we’re talking about the weather or the soccer results, as he pulls out a chair from the darkness. Darkness, yes. We’re in a room. Windowless. But the air is cool. There’s a lamp plugged into the corner on my right, and though the light spilling from it is poor, it still hurts to look.
‘That happens sometimes, too,’ he says crossing over to the lamp and tilting the shade to make less glare. ‘Sensitivity to light, headaches, a lack of memory. It sounds like you got all the unfun stuff from your trip.’
‘Why did you do this to me?’
‘Quite simply because I need you incapacitated for a little while.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ll tell you, but you need to understand first that if I do, there’s no chance of me letting you go. There will be too much at stake. So, the choice is yours, Rose. Do you want to know all? Know everything?’
‘No,’ I answer immediately. ‘Don’t tell me. I don’t want to stay here. Let me go, Ben, and I promise—I promise you on my life—I won’t breathe a word to anyone.’ Images begin to swim through my head. The girl in the blond wig. An old photograph.
‘Do you promise you’ll leave? You’ll go far, far away and never come back to Monaco?’ His words are earnest, his expression as solemn as any I’ve ever seen.
‘I promise—I’ll go. I’ll leave.’ I’m not entirely sure why I need to leave but I’m pretty sure the first place I’ll go to is the police precinct. ‘I won’t cause you any problems if you just let me leave.’
‘You’re either much stupider than I thought, or I dosed you a little too hard. Non.’ His earnest expression falls, like the curtain falling at the end of a play. ‘Maybe you think I am the stupid one.’ In two steps, he’s towering over me. In one frightened heartbeat, he’s crouched in front of me, his hands on my knees. ‘You’re going nowhere. So, I’ll tell you everything.’
‘No! I don’t want to hear.’ I recoil from his touch, cold tendrils of dread wrap like vines through my insides, filling my veins with ice water—the sensation seeming to wake me the fuck up.
‘Of course you do. Fear lurks in the unknown, Rose. Better to face your future. Make friends with it. Accept it, I think.’
‘My future is not here with you.’
His smiles indulgently. I almost expect him to reach out and ruffle my hair.
‘How long do you think that Austrian man kept his daughter underground?’ My heart jolts, my spine stiffening. ‘Years, certainly. You see, I’m going to keep you here for as long as I see fit. Or until I get bored of your company. Whichever comes first, I think.’
‘I don’t want to hear this!’ Like a small child afraid of the dark, I screw my eyes closed, my hands pressed tight to my ears. ‘You’re not keeping me here.’ I kick out, pushing to stand when he’s suddenly towering over me, his hand at the back of my head, yanking me by my hair.
‘You will listen, putain.’ His breath is as hot on my cheek as my knees are weak. ‘You remember the coffee shop?’ He smiles as I try to nod.
Sinister, sinister, my smile screams out.
‘I’ll give you the abridged version. ‘Emile fucked your mother for a time, and she must’ve been a very good fuck because, almost thirty years later, he left you shares in the company. You! Who did nothing to deserve or even earn them! Bad enough that he promised me the running of the company, bad enough that he left Remy the majority share, but he has to go and leave an interest to you. All this time, you’ve been fucking your brother. How’d you feel about that, ma chérie?’
‘That’s not true. I know it’s not.’ Even through my denials, I feel like I’m going to throw up. It can’t be true—it can’t!
‘And the worst of it is, Remy has known all along. Beautiful, tortured Remy.’ Ben pouts, his brown eyes sad. ‘Sleeping with his sister. So wrong.’