Chapter Thirty-two #2
I wondered for the first time as he approached the witness box what had made him choose me? My looks? It wasn’t vanity to say I was a handsome man. Or had it been something else? Had he spotted a weakness? Something easy to manipulate?
He didn’t walk like Warren.
Warren had moved with restless nervousness.
Victor sauntered.
He didn’t dress like Warren.
Warren hid beneath loose clothes.
Victor preferred to show off his body.
And as he took his seat in the witness box and leaned forward, even his smile was different.
Warren White had been a mask. A carefully crafted illusion. A chameleon.
Was Nico a chameleon too? Was that why he wasn’t here?
Victor lifted a hand in a mocking little wave. “Every time I think I won’t see you again, Lysander, I’m proved wrong. We’re like magnets.”
“Fuck you.” The depth of satisfaction I gleaned from saying it to his face surprised me. “I don’t even know who you are.”
He laughed. “You should. I became exactly what you thought you wanted. A quiet, loyal boyfriend. Someone nervous in bed so you could take charge. Someone you could teach. Someone who’d never argue with you.”
His smile widened. “And you lapped it up.”
“Perhaps,” the lawyer interrupted, “we could return to the matter at hand.”
“Of course.” Victor sat up straighter. “I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. All that jazz.”
“You wouldn’t know the truth if it smacked you in the face.”
Victor leaned back in the chair, hands clasped over his abdomen in a perfect parody of relaxed repose. “On the contrary, I always knew the truth. Can you say the same?”
Anger surged through me. “How much do they pay you for every person you bring here?”
Victor frowned theatrically. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He turned to the audience and tapped his temple. “Let this be a warning to you. Too much alcohol and too many drugs rot the brain. Before long you’re hallucinating things that simply aren’t true.”
The audience nodded along. Some even looked at me with pity.
I briefly calculated my chances of getting close enough to throttle him before someone intervened.
Not good.
I settled for glaring instead.
Unfortunately, it only made him smile more, as if the ability to mess with me fed something dark and depraved within him. How had I ever thought I loved this man?
The lawyer was talking again, and I did my best to focus on what he was saying.
“...is it true that the defendant entered your building without authorization?”
Victor nodded. “It is. He barged in while I was entertaining friends, causing them considerable distress.”
Friends?
Was that what he was calling the two women performing for him?
And just like that, I was done. The lies were infuriating enough, but the Nico-shaped hole in the entire case was impossible to ignore.
I cut across Victor’s testimony. “Nico took me there. Or are we pretending he doesn’t exist? He was at the nightclub. And the casino. And the supper club. And he was definitely at the auction because I didn’t buy myself.”
I counted the occasions off on my fingers. “Wherever I went, he was there. Yet somehow his name hasn’t come up once. Why is that? He took me to Victor’s apartment. He smashed the watch. Not me.”
“I think,” Queenie said, raising her voice over mine, “we’ve reached the limit of our tolerance for insubordination. It was amusing at first, but it’s lost its appeal.”
I laughed. “Why? Because I mentioned Nico? Where is he? Why don’t we hear what he has to say? Maybe someone should explain why his apartment no longer has a front door. Someone should call him. Someone should—”
I’d vaguely registered the door to the dock opening. I regretted not paying more attention when powerful arms wrapped around me from behind. They pinned my arms to my sides while another pair of hands forced something large and solid into my mouth.
Nico’s throwaway comment about me ending up tied to a bed with a ball gag in came flooding back as I desperately tried to spit out the cold silicone invading my mouth.
It was a battle I had no chance of winning. The two men were bigger, stronger, and clearly eager to carry out Queenie’s orders. A strap tightened behind my head and something clicked shut. A padlock.
Then they left.
I panicked when I couldn’t breathe.
A heartbeat later, I remembered I could breathe through my nose.
The ball stretched my jaw wide enough that the muscles already ached, and it had only been in for a couple of minutes.
How long would they leave it there?
An hour? Longer?
I’d been warned. I should’ve listened. Especially when nothing I’d said had changed a damn thing.
Swallowing became awkward. Drool leaked around the edges of the gag despite my best efforts to stop it. Nobody wanted to sit in public drooling like a dog.
The thought brought my gaze back to Kellan’s captive. He was watching me. His eyes weren’t as empty now. There was recognition there.
Sympathy.
Or maybe resignation.
As though I’d finally joined him.
Perhaps that was just my imagination.
They might have gagged me, but at least I wasn’t on my knees drinking from a bowl.
While I wrestled with humiliation, the trial continued without me. Victor had disappeared, replaced by yet another witness. I didn’t even recognize this one.
I stopped paying attention. What was the point when I’d lost the ability to protest?
The courtroom door clicked open again, and a man stepped inside. My fingers uncurled from my palms, and my shoulders dropped a few inches.
Nico.
Finally.