Chapter Twenty-six
Nico returned to being silent as he led me through the streets of Wonderland, refusing to answer any of the questions I threw at him.
And I had a lot of them.
What had he meant when he said I was blind?
Why would he claim I didn’t have a boyfriend?
Had something happened to Warren?
And where the hell was he taking me?
Wherever it was, it wasn’t close. The walk seemed to stretch on forever.
“Some kind of clue would be nice,” I said as my frustration mounted.
Nico ignored me. Again.
That proved the final straw. I stopped dead. “I’m not taking another step until you tell me what’s going on.”
Nico gestured toward a tall building in front of us. “We’re here.”
I stared up at it. It looked like most non-commercial buildings in Wonderland. Maybe a little more ornate and expensive. “Where’s here?”
Nico sauntered back to stand in front of me, his expression unreadable. “You’re at a crossroads, Lysander.”
I rolled my eyes. “Deep. Mysterious. Suitably cryptic.”
“I’m not being cryptic.” His tone was surprisingly earnest. “You have a choice. You can walk away right now and keep believing whatever it is you want to believe. Or you can come inside and learn the truth.”
Something in his voice made my stomach tighten.
“But I’m warning you,” he continued, “if you go in there, it won’t be easy. And it definitely won’t be pleasant. In fact, I suspect you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
I studied him. “So you’re telling me not to go in?”
A faint smile touched his lips. “Would I bring you all the way here to do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Fair.”
He turned away and swiped a key card against the entrance panel. The lock clicked open. “Your choice.”
It wasn’t really a choice. I’d been searching for answers ever since Warren’s disappearance. Now someone was offering them to me. From anyone else, I might have suspected a trap. But Nico worked for the Harts. If anyone knew what was going on, it should be him.
I followed him inside. “I choose the truth.”
He didn’t respond. Just gave a curt nod and headed for the stairwell. The climb seemed endless. Not because of the distance, but because of the growing sense that something was wrong. Really wrong.
There was only one apartment at the top—a penthouse. Music drifted through the open doorway, along with laughter and conversation.
Nico headed toward it. “Looks like they’re having a party.”
“Who?”
No answer.
Of course.
He stepped inside without knocking.
The apartment opened into a huge living room decorated almost entirely in black and white, with people lounging across sofas and armchairs, smoking, drinking, and talking.
“Nico!” The shout came from a man with bright blue hair.
“You here to party?” He didn’t wait for an answer.
“Grab a drink. Grab a spliff. Take your clothes off.” He laughed hysterically at his own joke, his belief in his comedic skills no doubt influenced by whatever substance had dilated his pupils.
More drugs. Fucking fantastic.
“No,” Nico said flatly. “I’m not. Where is he?”
The man struggled upright, fighting against the sofa’s intent of sucking him back in. “Victor?”
“Who else?”
“Who’s Victor?” I asked.
Nobody answered me.
The blue-haired man jerked his thumb toward a closed door. “Private party in the bedroom. You know what he’s like.”
Nico headed that way. I hurried after him, every single person watching us go, their curiosity unmistakable.
Again, Nico didn’t bother to knock, opening the bedroom door and walking straight in.
The monochrome theme continued inside, even down to the sheets on the bed being black.
Not that I could see much of them for the two naked women tangled together on the bed, kissing and touching each other as if their lives depended on it.
They carried on in our presence. Either they hadn’t noticed, or they didn’t care.
I’d been so fixated on them I didn’t immediately register the man sitting in an armchair with his back to us. He was watching the two women as if he were at a show.
“What?” he snapped without turning. “I’m busy.”
Nico rounded the chair to stand in front of him. “Come and meet Victor.”
I very much didn’t want to. We were intruding.
This was awkward beyond words. Or at least, they were the excuses I told myself.
In reality, I suspected that some part of me already knew.
Maybe it had noticed the blond hair. Maybe it had recognized something my conscious mind refused to.
Whatever the reason, it took a lot of willpower to get my feet moving to join Nico.
“This,” Nico said quietly once I stood at his side, ”is Victor Chronis.”
The world stopped.
Warren looked back at me. Or someone who looked enough like Warren to make my heart forget how to beat.
For a second, my brain rejected what I was seeing.
The hair was wrong. The stubble was wrong. The clothes were wrong.
Warren had always worn loose clothes. This man wore fitted ones, his muscular arms on display. Warren had been clean-shaven. This man hadn’t shaved for a few days. Warren had always carried himself with a kind of apologetic awkwardness. This man looked comfortable taking up space.
But none of those differences mattered.
Because it was him.
He wasn’t tied up or hurt, or frightened. And he certainly wasn’t waiting to be rescued. Instead, he was sitting in an armchair watching two women perform for him.
“This is Warren,” I heard myself say. My voice sounded hollow.
“He goes by a lot of names,” Nico said. “But Victor is his real one. Isn’t that right?”
“It is.” The man—Victor—tilted his head and studied me. “I’ll admit,” he said, “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again, Lysander.”
Even his voice sounded unfamiliar.
He shifted his attention to Nico. “Why would you bring him here?” His gaze moved between us. “And you’ve dressed him up as your mini-me. That’s adorable.”
I ignored the gibe. Mostly because thinking was hard and there were bigger priorities. “I don’t understand.” The words felt pathetic. “Someone kidnapped you. I saw it with my own eyes. I came here to find you. I’ve been looking for you ever since.”
A memory surfaced: DC Thornton telling me there was no record of anyone named Warren White, and that they couldn’t find a man who didn’t exist. At the time, I blamed police incompetence. Now I didn’t know what to think, my brain attempting a series of mental gymnastics it couldn’t seem to complete.
Warren—I still couldn’t think of him as Victor—suddenly clapped his hands. The sound made me jump. “Enough,” he announced, his focus on the bed. “Leave us.”
The women immediately stopped kissing and untangled themselves. One threw him a dirty look before grabbing a robe and storming out. The other seemed less bothered. She paused in the doorway long enough to blow him a kiss.
“You’re gay,” I blurted.
Warren/Victor laughed. “Bisexual, actually.”
“But you said—”
“I said a lot of things.” His smile widened. “Mostly whatever you wanted to hear.”
Then something happened that felt worse than everything else combined. His entire demeanor shifted. His shoulders. His expression. His voice.
Suddenly, Warren was sitting there again. Wide-eyed, earnest, and innocent. “Will you be gentle with me, Lysander?” he asked in a soft voice. “I might not be a virgin, but I don’t have much experience. I want things to be perfect between us.”
The exact words he’d used the first night we’d slept together.
Acid flooded my stomach.
Seeing my expression, he laughed. Just like that, Warren vanished again. “Poor Lysander.” He sounded delighted. “You look like someone’s taken your favorite toy away.”
“Just tell him no one kidnapped you,” Nico said.
“No one kidnapped me,” Warren repeated obediently.
“I don’t—”
Nico grabbed my arm before I could finish. “We’re leaving.”
Warren/Victor’s laughter followed us as we headed to the door. “They won’t like this, Nico! You’re going to be in deep shit. Maybe I’ll even tell them myself.”
Nico stopped at the door, turning back. “You won’t.”
Victor grinned. “Why not?”
“Try it and you’ll find out.”
The smile melted from Victor’s face. He recovered quickly, laughing again. “I love it when you’re butch. Why don’t you spank me and then maybe I’ll be a good boy?”
Nico tugged me through the door and let it slam shut. I was vaguely aware of walking through the apartment and back down the stairs, but everything felt distant and muted. Like I was moving through water.
By the time we reached street level, Nico was practically dragging me.
“Give me the watch.”
I blinked. “What?”
“The watch.”
He was already reaching for my wrist.
I yanked my arm away, shaking my head. “No. It was a gift.”
“It’s a tracker.”
My breath caught.
“How do you think I could always find you?”
I looked down at the watch, everything starting to click into place.
Percy and Lola had taken everything from me except the watch.
Why had I never found that strange? Then there was the way people’s eyes had strayed to it, their expressions changing once they’d clocked it.
Even the auction house had left it on me.
I went back further. All the way to Nico commenting on it when we had breakfast. And the boat to Wonderland. My face had never been my ticket. It was the damn watch.
Without a word, I unclasped it and handed it over. Nico turned it over, his jaw tightening as he read the inscription. Then he dropped it on the pavement and crushed it beneath his heel.
“I have questions,” I said.
He nodded. “I thought you might.” His gaze swept the street. “Not here, though. You never know who might be listening.”