Chapter 8 Mouse in a Maze
Mouse in a Maze
“She’s up to something.” Stone zoomed in, following her from one camera to the next as she walked briskly down the east hall.
Ash flattened his palms on the desk, too worked up to sit down. “What the hell was the point of making her agree if we’re just going to leave her alone?”
Stone met his brother’s bruised stare. “You better put more ice on that.”
“Fucking Hunter.” He pressed the frosty glass of vodka to his eye. “He always does this.”
Stone laughed. “Right. This is exactly like the last time we took a woman captive,” he said dryly, as if anything like this had ever happened before.
“You know what I mean. He always thinks he’s in charge—”
“Shut up.” Stone leaned forward. “She’s going to The Cave.”
Ash set down his glass and watched as she stared up at the camera planted above the door. “Wait until she sees what’s on the other side.”
“She knows. She was there last night.”
His surprised gaze jumped to his face, but quickly returned to watching Mary. “What are you up to, little lamb?”
Her delicate hand reached for the knob, and she frowned. Jiggling it again, she kicked the door and let go.
“What the fuck?” both men said at once.
Ash growled. “Hunter probably locked it.”
“Why?”
“Who the hell knows?” Ash snatched his glass and paced the control room. “This is bullshit.”
“Chill.”
“Fuck off.”
“I mean it, Ash. You had no right to go at her like that this morning. You’re already on thin ice.”
“Now, I gotta hear shit from you?”
He sent him a warning glance. “We’re still figuring her out.”
“You guys act like she’s some unsolvable puzzle. She’s a rich little runaway looking for trouble.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I do. Don’t be so fooled by those big innocent eyes. She’s no virgin.”
Stone’s nostrils flared as he ground his molars. “Well, you would certainly know.”
Ash’s low chuckle nearly earned him a second black eye. “She was sent here for a reason, Stone.”
“You too, now? She’s not a fucking spy.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Stone frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“What if she was sent here as a gift? For us?”
“By who?”
Ash shrugged. “The universe.”
“Give me a fucking break, Ash—”
“I’m serious. We’re always saying it would take a special woman to tolerate the three of us. What if we somehow manifested this?” He glanced at the monitors. “She could have fought me this morning, but she didn’t. And I know when a woman’s faking.”
Stone lifted a brow. “Coercion and submission are two different things. She submitted because she’s scared we’ll turn her in. That confirms she’s running from something. We don’t have shit until we have her full story.”
“Maybe this is the way to make her talk.”
“By fisting her?”
“Trust. That kind of intimacy requires trust.”
About to call Ash an idiot, he opened his mouth, but something held back his words.
“See, you agree with me.”
He narrowed his eyes but couldn’t deny there was some sense to his theory. If she trusted them, she’d eventually come clean. “There are other ways to figure out who she is.”
“And Hunter has that covered.” He shrugged. “We can go at this from multiple angles.”
Stone sipped his vodka, watching as Mary followed the labyrinth of corridors from one wing to the other, like a lost mouse desperately trying to escape a lab.
When she reached the door of the grotto, heavy and sealed, she tested the lock. It opened with a tug, and her eyes widened as she stepped inside. Both men moved closer to watch the screen as Ash cued up the internal cameras.
Stone dropped back in his chair, elbows braced on the armrests, eyes fixed on the wall of monitors. The image flickered—grainy in the low light—but it didn’t matter. He could see her.
She stepped into the grotto wrapped in a black sheet, the fabric draped over one shoulder like some pagan goddess caught between modesty and sin. Steam curled around her as she moved deeper inside, slow and uncertain, every shift of her body traced in shadow and silk.
The cavern looked colder through the cameras than it was in truth—stone walls, carved arches, the faint shimmer of condensation where heat met centuries-old rock—but he knew better.
The air in there was thick, heavy with mineral vapor and cedar smoke.
He’d designed it that way. A place meant to draw out secrets.
To put people at ease and break down the last of their inhibiting walls.
She hesitated before the first pool, the dark water gleaming like liquid glass. Then she walked on, bare feet against warm stone, curls coiling tighter from the inescapable humidity.
She paused by the statues, fingertips ghosting over marble forms older than the country she came from. Every motion was careful, reverent, but he saw the tremor in her hand. The way she was fighting not to look over her shoulder.
His mouth curved. “She’s learning.”
“She knows she’s never alone.”
The cameras followed her through each chamber—the salt room, the baths, the long corridor where steam thickened to fog. She was silent, lost in the hum of dripping water and the occasional sigh that escaped her lips when the heat kissed her skin.
And then she reached the final door. The sauna.
Framed in the glow spilling through the ironwork, the black sheet clinging damply to her thighs, she looked like temptation carved out of night—something he could almost touch if he stepped closer to the screen.
Stone leaned forward, forearms on his knees, eyes narrowing as she pushed the door open and disappeared inside. The monitor filled with gold light and mist. It was the only place their camera lenses couldn’t manage.
He exhaled slowly, the ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth as he stood, throwing back the last of his vodka and setting the crystal glass down with a definitive click. “I’m taking a walk. Watch the cameras.”
“For what?” Ash yelled, but Stone didn’t bother answering as he left the room.