Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
I stop, look at her. I’m still holding the door open, icy wind blowing in. I fucking hate this town.
“What does that mean?” I ask, my voice somehow controlled even as my heart races.
She doesn’t answer but calls the service elevator. Using a key she must have gotten from the front desk, she inserts it and pushes the button for the Penthouse.
“Nigella. What does that mean?” I ask again once we’re inside.
“I’m going to make coffee. You’re going to have a shower. Then we’ll talk about it all. There’s… a lot, Silas.”
“I need to get to her.”
“She’s not here. Go. Shower. Put on clean clothes.”
“Nigella—”
“Look, even if I knew where she was, which I don’t, you go near her, and you’ll be back in that jail cell before you can blink. Do you hear me?”
“I don’t fucking care what happens to me.”
“You won’t be able to help her if you’re behind bars, will you? They were capable of holding you for three days without filing any charges and without allowing me to see you, Silas. Three days. That’s illegal. Sullivan Fox is not playing games. Go get a shower and change and then we’ll talk.”
She’s right. I know that. “Did they hurt her?” I ask, knowing the answer before I even see it on her face. Before she lowers her gaze and turns to walk into the kitchen.
I don’t know what to think, what to feel. My throat is tight, my stomach tense. It’s not anger, not yet. It’s fear. For her. Of what they can do to her. What Sullivan Fox is capable of. Ethan will punish her to get to me. I know that. He’ll do anything to hurt me. He has her, and he may be the more dangerous of the two men because he has a personal vendetta against me. Sly hates me, but it’s different than how Ethan feels.
The coffee machine starts to percolate. I make my way into the primary suite, strip off my clothes that smell of jail, drop them in the trash can and stand under a boiling hot shower. I then dress in dark slacks and a sweater, not bothering to shave before returning to the main room to find Nigella pouring coffee into two mugs on the table where that box I’d found in Horatio Hart’s study sits open, a hole where the lock used to be, and what I assume to be the contents of what was inside in a stack on one side.
She takes the seat closest to the stack, and as I take the opposite seat, my gaze catches on the envelope I recognize. The one Sly had me deliver to Hart so many years ago.
“Are you hungry?” she asks.
I shake my head, wrap my hands around the coffee, my eyes on that stack. “Start talking. What happened? What did they do to her?”
“I tried to go upstairs to get your jacket and keys, but a guard had been placed at the door, and I saw one upstairs too before they shut me out. They wouldn’t let me in. The one downstairs wouldn’t even acknowledge me. Just stood like a wall in front of that door and it didn’t matter what I said. What I threatened. It was a good twenty, almost thirty minutes before Ethan Fox walked Ophelia out of that door.”
My blood runs cold. “What do you mean walked her out?”
Nigella closes and opens her eyes. She’s always been a very direct, pragmatic woman. She gets to the point and doesn’t sugar coat. “I mean she was a mess, Silas. She couldn’t walk, much less stand, on her own.”
I put the mug down because I’m pretty sure I’m going to shatter it.
“What does that mean?”
“He hurt her. Ethan hurt her.” She hesitates and I wonder what I look like. “I’m sorry, I tried to get up there, but even if I had, I don’t think I could have stopped it.”
“What did he do? What the hell did he do to her?” I ask, not recognizing my own voice.
“When they got back into the ballroom, I could see…” she shakes her head. “He handed her to Sullivan, who danced with her, but I saw he was holding her up mostly. Her feet…”
“What?” I say, my eyes narrowing, jaw clenching, my breathing tight.
“Her feet were bleeding. I could see it. Her back maybe, too.”
Emotions war within me. I failed her. I left her there alone and unprotected.
Ethan hurt her. He fucking made her bleed. I will make him bleed drop for drop.
But I have to get to her first. She is still unprotected. Still at their mercy.
And Nigella isn’t finished yet.
“When the dance was over, Sly led her up to the stage along with the family to announce her engagement to his son. I think she almost passed out up there.”