Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
The footsteps were audible in the hallway, coming closer to my bedroom.
I was so tired from working these last three days that I didn’t even want to have sex, but snuggling with Bastien felt better than sex sometimes. The smell of his skin, the heat from his muscles, the way he could touch me so softly and then grip me a moment afterward.
When I heard his footsteps enter my bedroom, I felt my exhausted eyes open. “Couldn’t wait another day?” My voice was quiet and cracked, my throat hardly able to work because I’d been asleep for so long. When I glanced at the clock on the nightstand, I saw that it was one in the morning.
He moved toward the bed, but he didn’t undress.
That was when I realized there was another man in the room, moving to the other side of the bed.
The alarm defeated the haze of sleep as my fight-or-flight response kicked in. I pushed the sheets off me, screamed, and tried to crawl down the center of the bed to get away from them both.
I was grabbed by the arm and shoved down on the bed.
I screamed like my life depended on it. “Help! Help me!”
A gloved hand cupped my mouth and muffled my screams.
A needle poked me in the arm, and then the skin burned when something was injected into me. It took a second or two to kick in, but then I could barely stand, the world started to blur, and I found myself toppling face first into the sheets.
Then it was black.
I heard voices.
“Give me that list—or she dies.” It was a voice I didn’t recognize, but he was clearly the instigator because he spoke so calmly, like my life literally meant nothing to him. “I will bury her alive, and you can watch her suffocate.”
I was aware of the cool tile against my cheek, of how hard the floor was. My eyes strained to open, strained to lift and fight the fog that was still potent in my blood.
“She’s not my wife anymore.”
I recognized that voice. Adrien.
“Let her go,” Adrien said. “She has nothing to do with this, and you’re violating the code.”
“I’m violating the code?” the man asked incredulously. “You rob our museums and sell our artwork to foreign pricks, and I’m the one violating the code? Like the civilized man that I am, I offered you a pardon. All you had to do was bow out, but you’re too much of a fucking prick.”
Adrien’s voice started to shake. “Then I quit. There you go.”
The man laughed. “Doesn’t work like that, Adrien. It’s too late.”
“I said she’s not my wife anymore.”
“But it’s obvious that she still means a great deal to you. Don’t play checkers with someone who’s playing poker.”
Adrien’s voice was unsteady, like he could barely string a few words together. “I’ll do whatever you want, Oscar. Make your demands.”
My eyes finally cracked open. I could see the tile that I recognized, tile that I’d walked across barefoot for years. My eyes lifted to where Adrien stood, his eyes on the man who’d captured me from my apartment.
“You say she’s not your wife, but you’re awfully cooperative for her.”
I couldn’t see the man who spoke, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
Adrien stood in jeans and a wrinkled shirt, like he’d been woken in the middle of the night to address this. That must mean only a few hours had passed, maybe even less than that. I kept my eyes cracked but was careful not to move so they wouldn’t give me more of the drug. “What do you want?”
“I want a list of all your buyers. I want to know what they bought and how much they paid for it.”
Adrien’s tanned face suddenly looked pale, like that request wasn’t easy to grant. “I don’t have it—”
“Lie to me again, and I’ll shoot her in the fucking head.”
Oh Jesus.
Adrien lifted his hands as he spoke, a poor attempt to de-escalate the situation. “Why do you want the list?”
“That’s my business, Adrien.”
“If I give you that list, they’ll come for me.”
“Yes,” he said. “But your wife—or ex-wife—will live.”
This was the moment when Adrien was supposed to quickly agree to save my life, but he remained quiet, trying to find a solution that got him everything he wanted. He said he loved me, but when he had an opportunity to save me, he squandered it. “If I give you that list, they’ll come for more than Fleur. They’ll come for my entire family, my friends, everyone I’ve ever known.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” the man said. “But that’s a chance you’ll have to take, because if you don’t take it, she dies.”
I was fucked.
Adrien started to pant, unable to keep his composure in the negotiation. “I’m the one you want. Let her go and kill me instead.”