Chapter Fourteen #3
“Or what? You’ll hit me? Kick me? How about press that little black button again and electrocute me? That’s what real men do, isn’t it? Torture a woman just because you have a deep-seated psychological imbalance where you’re afraid of—”
“I’m not afraid,” he cut in. “And lower your goddamn voice. I told you not to fight me. I told you—”
“You told me that you’re going to do things and none of them legal. You told me that you were my only friend. A friend who will most likely fuck me over after taking everything I have to offer.” I shook my head. “You told me things I don’t understand, but I’m beginning to...slowly.”
“What do you understand?”
I lifted my nose. “You’re deranged. Diseased. Just like you said at the club.”
“Glad you’re starting to believe me.”
“You won’t get away with this.”
“No.” He sighed. “Probably not.”
I studied him. “You sound resigned.”
“To death?” He shrugged. “Always.” His eyes flashed quicksilver. “But your death? I won’t let that happen.”
“You’ll just torture me instead.” I laughed coldly. “Why do you even care if I die? That might be the only freedom I’ll be given. I’m nothing to you. Just a stupid girl you targeted at a club.”
He scoffed as if I’d told a painful joke. “Oh, how I wish you were nothing more than that.”
My stomach turned to stone. “Don’t you dare say there was something between us. Don’t—”
“You can’t deny there’s something—”
“Evil.” My insides frosted. “That’s what’s between us. That’s what you are.”
“Ily.” He squeezed his eyes closed. “Stop. I beg you. Stop fighting me. Verbally. Physically. Just—”
“Let me go!” I drove my shoulder into his chest. “Quit your gaslighting bullshit and get the hell away from me!”
In a lightning-fast move, he snatched my wrist below my cuff and trapped it behind my back, arching my spine and pressing my bare breasts against his white shirt. Flashing a look at the cameras, he angled me a little more, contorting me until I cried out.
“If you know I’m sick and evil and barely holding on, why the hell are you still standing up to me? Why tempt me with your sadness? Why drive me fucking insane by fighting back when you know what it does to me?”
“Know?” I scoffed, my eyes popping wide in pain. “How could I possibly know? I don’t know you. You stole my life, ow—”
He twisted my wrist, making me squirm against the shelves. His attention seemed half on me and half on the cameras, almost as if he manipulated my discomfort for whoever was watching rather than his own enjoyment. “I’ve been more honest with you than anyone in my entire life.”
Gasping, hating, I bared my teeth. “Am I supposed to be impressed? Do you expect me to swoon at your feet all while thanking you for electrocuting me?”
His fingers loosened around my wrist just enough to let blood pour back into my fingertips.
“The first time I did it, I didn’t know what the device would do.
The second...I apologise for.” He chewed on a growl.
“But you were screeching at powerful, sadistic men. It was the only way I could prevent them from retaliating.”
“Oh please.” I shook my head. “The age-old...‘I only hurt you to protect you’ bullshit. Save it.” I pushed his chest with my free hand, needing to get out of the cage of his arms.
He didn’t move.
Tingles sparked in my fingers the longer I rested my palm on his shirt. His chest rose and fell, his heart thundering beneath my touch.
I shoved again.
Nothing.
I dropped my hand and balled it against the stinging current left behind. I hated that he still held me prone. That his fingers flexed around my wrist wedged against my spine—a threat and a caress all in one.
Neither of us spoke for far too long.
Tension and awareness thickened.
Fight and fear, hate and hellfire.
I didn’t like it.
“Let me go,” I breathed. “Just...please. If you’re truly sorry for bringing me here. For gifting me to a dangerous creep who entertains rapists, then please...help me get out of here.”
Henri’s grey gaze bounced around the shelves—eyes narrowed as he searched the corners of the room, the bronze figurines of hunting dogs and stags, the quaint framed embroidery of hedgehogs and badgers. All the knickknacks were from another era, falsified and replicated in this mockery of a citadel.
Finally, he looked down at me and lowered his voice. “I see four cameras clearly. Who the hell knows how many are hidden elsewhere. I don’t know if they have audio, but I can guarantee we’re being watched right now, and we’ve already spent far too long whispering against the bookcase.”
“Then let me go.” I went to push him again but hesitated.
I didn’t like touching him.
I didn’t like the strange sensations that sparked between us.
I didn’t like that even now—even after everything he’d done and would do—my body was still aware of his. Still tempted by the forbidden. Still deluded by danger.
He exhaled hard as his gaze locked on my mouth.
“I know you have no reason to trust me, but...you have no choice. I will tell you one last time...I’m the only chance you have in here.
Thanks to me, you’ve been trafficked into a society that will never let you go.
You were the key to me getting inside, and I’m...
” He swallowed, his throat working. “I’m sorry. ”
“You’re sorry?”
“More than you’ll ever know.”
The way he said it. The aching truth behind it.
It made me pause.
Made me study him.
Slowly, things began to shift into nonsensical sense.
The key to getting inside?
The apparent reluctance to play?
The sincerity of his apology?
Who is this man?
And why did he seem different, all while awfully the same?
“Just who the hell are you?” My eyes narrowed. “Why do I keep getting conflicting emotions from you?”
He let my wrist go but he didn’t stop crowding me against the bookshelves. “You don’t need to know who I am, only that you need to obey me.”
Even that sounded forced. No, not forced...laced with something other than dominance.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the gruff ache in his voice was...loneliness.
“You hurt me, Henri. You willingly hurt me.”
“I did.”
A rock lodged in my throat. “And...you liked it.”
He winced. “More than I’ll ever admit to.”
Prickles darted over my skin. “You licked my tears. Back in the nightclub and now.”
“I told you.” He sucked in a heavy breath. “Your sadness does something to me.”
“Something bad.”
He groaned and lowered his chin. “Something I can’t control.”
I paused, trying to figure out what to say.
The fact we shared a whispered conversation in a perverted castle with me naked and him dressed was strange enough.
Coupled with the fact we’d only known each other a single day, and he’d almost raped me twice, ought to ensure I would do anything to murder him.
And yet...
Despite his unforgivable actions, his tortured vagueness gnawed.
He was trying to tell me something...
But what?
I frowned as I ran over his cryptic urging.
I’m the only friend you have.
Don’t fight me, and I’ll do my best to protect you.
Protect.
Not rape.
Not molest.
Protect.
“Why did you say I was the key to getting in here?” I whispered too low for the cameras to record.
He frowned. “Doesn’t matter.”
“If you want me to stop fighting you, then yes...it matters.”
Sucking in a breath, he shook his head. His gaze skittered away, skimming books and literary luxury before finally settling back on mine. His voice was barely audible. “You weren’t supposed to be here. I was meant to come alone. But...circumstances meant you were noticed, so I had no choice.”
The last two sentences lodged in my mind, echoing over and over again.
Meant to come alone.
You were noticed, so I had no choice.
I went very still, trying to figure him out.
I meant to ask about his first comment, yet stupid ego blurted. “You noticed me?”
He groaned. “That’s what you’re worried about?” His hand landed on my hip, flexing like a clawed paw. “Don’t worry, I’ll pay for that little slip-up for the rest of my life.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I was told to buy you. To proposition your ex so he left you all alone and in my control. But the rest...the other offer I made? That was real.”
“You were told to get rid of Sam?”
“Yep.”
“By who?”
“Doesn’t matter now, it’s done.”
My heart kept pounding; my mind kept whirling, trying to unravel his secrets. “So...you did things you didn’t want to do, but the million euros you offered me was your choice?”
“Yes.”
“Because you want me for yourself? Because you noticed me?”
His eyebrows came down. “Can you honestly say you didn’t notice me back?”
Lies sharpened my tongue. I wanted to hurl falsehoods like daggers, but instead, I held his stare and tried to be as honest as he’d been. “I noticed you.”
God, why does that hurt to confess?
“I-I was drawn to you.”
“Putain, c’est la merde. (Shit, this is so fucked up.) None of this was supposed to happen. I wish you’d never been in that godforsaken club. I wish you’d never noticed me or I’d noticed you. You’d be safe, and I’d...”
When he didn’t continue, I shifted against him. “You’d...?”
“Be here. Where I’m supposed to be.”
I cocked my head, studying him like an inquisitor. Thanks to Krish and his nonverbal days, I’d gotten used to reading body language. I’d gotten rather good, but Henri...he was hard to read. Hard to pin down his true thoughts when they scattered in all directions.
For a man playing the part of a rapist, he seemed oddly...sad.
“You said you were meant to come here alone?”
He scowled. “Are we going to stand around whispering all day? They’re watching—”
“If you want me to stop fighting you, then answer the question. Help me understand.”
He huffed. “Fine. Yes. You weren’t meant to be here, and like I already said, I’m sorry for dragging you along with me. This was never meant to be your task, just mine.”
“Task?”
He hung his head, exhaustion lining his eyes. “Yes. And I’m already fucking it up.”