Chapter Thirty-three
Nico didn’t look my way. It was like the slave auction all over again. He’d come to my rescue then, so there was no reason to believe he wouldn’t do it again.
Right?
Except the Harts hadn’t been there that day. Did that change things? Would he turn the other cheek because of them? The questions kept piling up, and I had no answers. Only a deep-seated hope that his turning up had to mean something.
There were no shadows in the courtroom to stop me from studying his face for clues. It didn’t matter, his expression carefully neutral. If he cared I was here, he wasn’t showing it.
Nico took a seat behind Kellan. His glance at the man on the floor conveyed neither surprise nor disgust. How many ‘pets’ had Kellan owned? And assuming they were many, what happened to them once he grew tired of them?
I ignored the proceedings as the lawyer continued questioning yet another witness I didn’t recognize. My one and only focus became catching Nico’s eye. I stared at him so intently that my eyes began to water.
It made no difference. He was still enough that he could have been a statue in the gallery. He was certainly handsome enough. I thought back to all the mornings when we’d fucked, Nico’s libido—and stamina—a force to be reckoned with. He always looked at me then.
The witness’s dismissal didn’t shift my gaze from Nico. Look at me, damn it. Why are you here if you’re not even going to look at me?
“That was my last witness,” the lawyer announced to the judge.
That should have been a relief. Instead, all I could think was, what now?
Maybe Nico wasn’t worried because this really was just a game. A show, as I’d assumed earlier. Wonderland’s version of a prank. Perhaps he was here to take me home once they’d finished making a laughingstock out of me.
I just had to see the rest of it through.
The judge cleared his throat. “I think, given the overwhelming amount of evidence we’ve heard today against Mr. Carroll, that there’s really only one verdict I can give.”
“Guilty,” someone in the audience shouted. Possibly the same someone who’d shouted it earlier. There was no laughter this time, everyone more interested in listening to the judge.
“I don’t think there’s any point in going through the charges one by one,” he continued. “That would be a waste of everyone’s time. I dare say we could find a few where there’s a modicum of doubt.”
I rolled my eyes. Yeah, like all of them. They might have stripped me of the power of speech, but they hadn’t taken away the use of my eyeballs. Not yet, anyway. Although it was probably best not to tempt fate.
“For that reason,” the judge announced. “I find the defendant guilty of most of the charges.”
A cheer erupted from the audience.
Bloodthirsty fuckers, aren’t you?
The judge inclined his head toward Queenie and Henry. “As always, I defer to you for sentencing.”
“Well, I think it’s obvious,” Henry said, pausing for dramatic effect. “The question isn’t whether Mr. Carroll belongs in the gallery. The question is how many years he should remain there.”
Breathing became even harder as the words sank in.
Museum.
Years.
Nico had told me that the people there were being punished. At the time, it hadn’t seemed like something I needed to be concerned about.
Now…
I’d thought the statues sinister enough when I’d walked among them. Knowing I might end up as one of them made it ten times worse.
“Hmm...” Queenie tapped a finger against her lips. “I think anything less than five years would be too generous.”
Five years!
I tried to speak, but with the ball gag in my mouth, all that escaped was a muffled moan. No one paid the slightest attention.
They couldn’t keep me here for five years.
Could they?
I already knew the answer. Nico had made it abundantly clear how difficult getting off the island would be.
They’d lured me here as a plaything, and I hadn’t fulfilled that role to their satisfaction, partly because of Nico’s intervention and partly because of my stubbornness.
Now, because I refused to be what they wanted, they were going to remind me who was in charge.
“I’m thinking ten years,” Henry said. “We should set an example.”
Queenie smiled at her husband. “Always the wise one. Perhaps we meet in the middle at seven and a half?”
Henry lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. “That sounds fair.”
Fair? To whom?
It certainly wasn’t fair to me.
All I’d done was let myself get duped into coming here on a trumped-up rescue mission. For that, I was expected to spend the next seven and a half years unable to move while strangers gawked at me.
No wonder there were rules against touching the exhibits. They were probably afraid the bitterness and resentment would build until the first person to reach out lost a finger.
What if I rebelled? What if I refused to be turned into living art?
I already knew the answer. They’d kill me.
This wasn’t mercy. It was torture disguised as justice.
My gaze found Nico again.
Nothing.
Not a flicker of emotion.
He’d watched every second of this without saying a word.
“I want him first.”
The words were so unexpected that it took me a moment to realize who’d said them.
Kellan uncoiled himself from his seat and approached with the assured saunter of someone who knew he always got what he wanted.
I’d already seen that play out back at the nightclub when he’d plucked one of the party-goers from right under his girlfriend’s nose and turned him into his pet―the same pet whose previously blank expression had now given way to fear.
His life might be miserable, but at least he was alive. And I could see him realizing what would happen if someone else replaced him.
Unable to say anything as Kellan drew close, I settled for glaring at him.
It didn’t have the effect I’d hoped for.
Instead, he laughed. “I like him. He’s got balls.
My current dog’s become too obedient. He barely barks anymore, never mind does anything interesting.
All he does is lie there when I fuck him, and who wants to fuck a corpse? ”
He glanced back over his shoulder at his parents. “It would be such a waste for him to gather dust in the gallery.”
Queenie regarded her son with an indulgent fondness that made me want to throw up. Not that it was an option with a ball gag in my mouth unless I wanted to choke to death.
“You go through so many pets,” she said with a smile on her lips.
Kellan turned back to me and climbed onto the wooden parapet so he could peer over it. His gaze raked over me at an agonizingly slow pace, lingering on my crotch for so long that I began to think he had X-ray vision.
“I want this one,” he said. “It’s pretty.”
It.
The single word sent a chill through me. My heart hammered against my ribs, my palms slick with sweat. I leaned to one side so I could see past him. There was only one place I was ever going to look.
Nico.
There was no way he couldn’t be paying attention now.
Except he wasn’t.
He stared down at his phone, his brows slightly knit in concentration. What could possibly be so important that it took precedence over the shit show unfolding in front of him?
I couldn’t speak. I needed him to speak for me. I needed him to tell these people exactly what they could do with the idea of me becoming Kellan’s pet.
“So, can I have him?” Kellan asked, petulance creeping into his voice.
“Of course, darling,” Queenie replied. “There are plenty of exhibits in the gallery. What’s one less?”
Grinning from ear to ear, Kellan hopped off the parapet and sauntered back the way he’d come. He stopped in front of the man crouching on the floor, looming over him until the man finally surrendered to the inevitability of looking up.
“I don’t need you anymore,” Kellan said.
The man nodded and lowered his gaze back to the floor.
“Do you know what that means?” Kellan asked.
The man shook his head.
I wished I knew his name. Someone should. I wondered whether his girlfriend had gone to the police after she got home. Not that it would do any good when they wouldn’t investigate.
“It means you can go,” Kellan said.
“Go?” The man’s voice came out thin, as though he hadn’t had the chance to use it in a long time.
Kellan pulled an exaggerated frown. “Unless you don’t want to. Unless you’d rather stay a dog?” He crouched until they were eye to eye. “Is that what you want, Todd?”
Todd.
His name was Todd.
It was good to know it finally.
Todd shook his head. “No... Not at all. I just thought—”
He was already scrambling away from Kellan, his eyes fixed on the door only a few meters away. He crawled up the first few steps on all fours before remembering he was human and cautiously pushing himself upright.
The audience watched with malicious glee.
That should have been my first clue.
The second, more obvious clue was Kellan’s barely perceptible nod to a man stationed at the back of the courtroom.
His stance, broad shoulders, and immaculate suit marked him as one of the Harts’ security.
He might even have been one of the men from the nightclub, though I hadn’t paid enough attention to know that for sure.
He watched Todd out of the corner of his eye.
The courtroom was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.
Sensing freedom was within touching distance, Todd suddenly exploded into motion. He sprinted up the last few steps and threw himself at the door.
A heartbeat later, he was through it.
The security guard followed only a few steps behind.
Less than thirty seconds later, a gunshot rang out.
Still staring at his phone, Nico flinched.
If I hadn’t been so consumed by what had just happened, I might have taken it as a sign of humanity—a sign that he wasn’t entirely like the rest of his family. Queenie and Henry certainly didn’t seem the least bit bothered by their son ordering someone’s execution.
As for Kellan...
He turned to the audience with a smile. “It’s sad when you have to put a pet down, but sometimes it’s necessary.”
Tears stung my eyes, and I blinked them back before anyone noticed. Were they for Todd? Or for myself—for what my future might hold now I was Todd’s replacement?
The more I learned about how the Hart family operated, the more Kellan’s attention felt like a death sentence. I wondered what the record was for holding his interest—and whether lasting longer was actually a blessing.
I dreaded finding out.