Chapter 8 Kaia
KAIA
A week passes and Flynn stays true to his word.
I don’t see him at all.
Some days, the curiosity of what he expected out of the exchange burns hot in my chest, and I try to seek him out since, despite being a captive, I’m granted relative freedom in the estate and its surrounding garden.
Flynn avoids me, though, and I only catch glimpses of him in the garden with his daughter or leaving the estate with Frank.
Angie, I’ve noticed, also vanishes whenever Flynn leaves the estate.
He clearly doesn’t trust leaving her here alone with me.
My unsatisfied curiosity eventually burns into anger, which cycles me right back to the crushing grief that leaves me sobbing under the covers as I mourn everyone I held dear.
Anya constantly visits my dreams, turning precious memories into twisted nightmares as she celebrates her birthday, making the estate blow up when I light the candle, or a game of hide and seek twists into finding her dead body while her ghost screams at me for not saving her.
I miss her.
I miss her so much that sometimes I can’t breathe and I spend hours just gasping and crying on the floor.
In between the waves of grief about my aunt and my brother, I try to hone my anger into something useful.
Staying here weeping isn’t fixing my situation, and each day Flynn survives is just another day he gets away with what he’s done.
My uncle blowing up that warehouse is a clear order if nothing else. Flynn must die.
I ignore the quiet confusion about how Uncle Antov expected me to survive that explosion, reasoning that he likely decided Flynn would never bring me and thus I was never expected to be there. If Antov feels even a fraction of the grief I do about Aunt Kara, then it all makes sense.
Killing Flynn is the only way out of this.
I just have to do it quietly. Traumatizing poor Angie in the process isn’t the kind of guilt I can live with, not since I discovered that she’s currently non-verbal, not that anyone will tell me why.
Any question I have for Frank or Florence the maid, or any other servant or guard that looks my way, is met either with silence or quickly brushed off onto another topic.
I’m alone and it’s driving me crazy.
Not long after a shower to wash away my last bout of tears, I ease out of my room and set about walking the manor.
I’ve been taking to the halls nearly every day to keep active but also to learn the layout of this place.
It all tucks into my mind for future use; what each door leads to, how many corridors intersect with one another, where the exits are and what rooms can be used to hide or escape.
The library on the third floor has a window that doesn’t latch correctly and with some careful rope placement, it could be an escape route.
Same for the servant’s exit near the kitchen.
Damp has worn away one of the hinges to the point that a few good kicks would turn that locked door into an open flap.
I walk and I learn, even if I don’t have a fully formed plan yet. Getting out isn’t the problem, it’s leaving the surrounding grounds.
Today, my path takes me to the second floor where the sound of running water catches my attention.
Flynn’s bedroom is here, and curiosity, as well as the inkling of opportunity, carries my steps down the corridor and right into his bedroom after flipping off the security cameras I know hug the corners of the ceiling.
I’m right, it is his shower.
The door to his ensuite rests ajar, and steam slowly curls out at the base of the door, melting into the thick, dark carpet that covers his room.
A gigantic stained-wood four-poster bed takes up most of the space with equally dark-stained furniture covering the walls.
One chair near the window is draped in a teddy bear blanket, and the table just in front of it is laden with different coloring instruments, sheets of printed paper, and children’s books piled precariously high on one corner.
It all looks out of place in an otherwise refined room.
Is this my chance? He’s showering, which means he’s distracted.
Given our height and strength difference, the element of surprise can only work in my favor, but I’ll need to be quick.
Something sharp and lethal will bring an end to his life, and given that he’s in the shower there’s more than enough time to make my escape before anyone comes looking for him.
But I’m weaponless.
Scanning the room, I quickly check the pile of books and coloring pencils for anything sharp enough to kill.
Other than a freshly sharpened pencil, there’s nothing.
My quick search brings me right back around to his dresser, where a set of small trim scissors rests near the mirror, right next to a silver locket.
Flynn’s silver locket.
The way he toys with that thing, I’m surprised he’s taken it off.
One side of the locket is slightly worn from Flynn’s thumb constantly tracing the raised flower pattern decorating one side, and one of the tiny hinges shows similar wear and tear.
Burning curiosity gets the better of me, and before I know it I’ve swapped the scissors for the locket and it rests in my palm.
Turning it over, a single word is engraved across the back in swirling writing.
Evangeline.
My brow twitches slightly. Is that what Angie is short for?
Fuck.
Flynn doesn’t make sense to me.
This monster of a man carries a locket with his daughter’s name on it.
He insults me yet throws his body over mine to protect me, threatens me and yet in the same breath is so gentle in the snatched moments I’ve witnessed with his daughter.
My thumb slides down to the latch and I press lightly, my heart jumping slightly as the metal gives way under my pressure.
Suddenly, a wet hand flies out and snatches the locket so fast from my hand that the silver chain faintly burns my fingers.
“Ow!” I jerk my hands back and clutch my fingers, then glance up and freeze.
Flynn stands before me utterly and completely naked. His hair sticks up in all directions, gleaming from the water that still clings to the strands.
Droplets roll down his jaw and further down his neck over the healing scratch I cut into his throat last week, and, despite my best efforts, I can’t help but glance down.
His torso shines in the light, dewy from the heat of his shower, and a few trailing water droplets map out the ridges of his abs all the way down to the mouthwatering, muscular V at his hips.
His thick cock rests between his thick thighs and my mouth runs dry.
I glance back up and brace for any manner of insult for staring at him, but rather than looking at me Flynn’s focused on examining the locket as if he fears I’ve done something to it.
“Don’t fucking pry into things that aren’t yours,” Flynn barks at me, lifting his head once he’s satisfied.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be holding me here then,” I snap back.
His dark brows knit together while he places the locket back around his neck and it glints at me, taunting me with how close I was to seeing what’s inside.
“Why are you here?”
“I’m bored,” I snap. “And I was contemplating killing you in the shower.”
“You’re bored?” He crosses his arms across his broad chest, sending another flurry of water droplets down his sculpted body. “I have the perfect cure for that. Instead of ogling me, you can suck my dick.”
Warmth immediately curls in my gut at an alarming rate, but despite it I tense my jaw and glare up at him. “Fuck no, I don’t want that nasty thing near me.”
“Then get the fuck out.” Flynn begins walking toward me, and it’s like the walls suddenly draw in around us both making Flynn seem even bigger.
I step back, then again and again until I’m in the hallway and Flynn’s in the doorway. Not once does he break eye contact until his hand is on the door, and anger flickers in his eyes. “Don’t touch shit that isn’t yours.”
The door slams in my face.
What the fuck was that?
I’m stunned.
Is he really more pissed at me touching that damn locket than admitting I was trying to find a way to kill him?
I scan the groove in the wood, mapping out the pattern while trying to make sense of what the hell just happened, but I come away with more questions than answers.
The way he acts, it’s as if he really does want me to kill him.
He’s not exactly going out of his way to protect himself, but it has to come from arrogance.
He doesn’t see me as a real threat and likely doesn’t care about how I feel or the strength of my conviction.
He foiled one plan by using his dick.
If he’s like any other man I know, that’ll be giving him false confidence.
I’m just a joke to him.
By the time I make it out into the garden, my confusion has faded and is replaced by hot anger that increases under the late afternoon sun.
I don’t know what to do. Anya isn’t here to talk things through with. I have no phone and I can’t text my brother because he’s gone.
Flynn’s hatred for my family runs deep, but my time here hasn’t brought me any closer to a decent reason.
We really are just some sort of game to him, the next roadblock in line to get rid of.
But if that’s really the case, what was he hoping to get out of the exchange with me?
Money?
Drugs?
Land?
It’s got to be one of those three. Flynn clearly doesn’t care about anything else.
Despite the lick of anger heating my thoughts, walking the garden brings me the subtle warmth of peace.
All the patrol guards are, for the moment, too far away to bother me. Under the sun, I can squint and pretend I’m walking the gardens of my own home.
Anya’s inside dealing with food, Vic’s in the garage doing something with the car he loves more than life, and I’m walking toward the two large trees at the end of the garden where my parents are buried.
It’s a nice fantasy, one that calms my heart and keeps my mind at ease as I walk the stone path around the garden.
But like everything else in my life, the fantasy doesn’t last.
Passing a wooden trellis and flowerbed, my steps halt.
The end of Flynn’s garden doesn’t have two tall trees acting as grave markers.
It has a long stretch of grass leading to a stone patio and a metal gazebo covered in beautiful vines and stained glass.
Grief comes rolling back like a cloud that floods my chest and I wince, rubbing at my breastbone with a flat palm.
There’s no Anya. No Vic. No trees and no familiar bed to crawl into.
Turning on my heel, I glare back at Flynn’s estate and mull over what the hell I’m supposed to do.
All the training I’ve received over the years, the advice and the promises never prepared me for something like this. Definitely not for a man who sees me as a joke rather than a threat.
As a sinking defeat settles over my shoulders, my attention drops down to the path and the mess of weeds and plants twisting together to my left.
Just like my heart.
Wait a second…
A small green plant with delicate white bellflowers drifting softly in the wind rests just near the base of the hedge.
The sight of them makes my heart lift suddenly and a new plan rapidly forms in my mind.
Flynn won’t see me as a joke for much longer.