Chapter 44
CHAPTER
FORTY-FOUR
I spent hours fruitlessly searching for an escape.
In this cavernous, medieval bedroom, there’s only two windows, one in the bathroom and the other behind a grandiose writing desk.
The first doesn’t open, and it’s far too narrow for me to shimmy through.
The latter is guarded by wrought iron bars—which feels like a less-than-hospitable choice on the hostess’s part, but what do I know.
Earlier, we were all but dragged up two flights of stairs, past another foyer on the second floor that appeared to lead into a ballroom. So, even if I could break out through one of these windows, I’d have to scale down multiple stories of slick, mossy stone… barefoot. Not ideal.
Outside, the castle seems to be surrounded by some sort of bog or shallow lake, leaving only one long, narrow bridge to come in or out. In the distance—dense forest and craggy mountains, as if we’re situated on an island inside a bowl.
Also not ideal.
Ominous clouds and low-lying fog rolled into view around midday, which brought an on-and-off stream of vehicles. I perched on the desk and kept track of each one. I’m not sure I couldn’t even if I tried.
Two Range Rovers.
One Mercedes.
A veritable fleet of Cadillac SUVs.
By early afternoon, I began to wonder if fourteen-year-old Sloane would have ever guessed that she’d spend her final day trapped in a castle, counting luxury vehicles like doomsday sheep. No—probably not. Although she’d be excited about the castle part.
I should feel like a princess, I mused dismally as another Mercedes rumbles through the fog. An original Brothers Grimm princess.
Manon’s words have been rattling around my skull, scraping poisoned fingernails down my skin and gripping my consciousness whenever I try to ignore them. You cannot escape who you are. Born a killer, destined to die a killer. How much different am I from Manon at my core?
She shaped her reality in order to survive. I allowed someone else to shape mine. Regardless, we have both made the world worse in our own ways because it’s what we felt we had to do.
All things considered, I am in an absolutely foul mood.
Graham couldn’t have been more perceptive in Boscastle. I’m petulant and temperamental, choosing to sulk instead of devising an alternative plan. But I think I deserve to sulk at this point.
There—another thing to add to my list.
Sloane is an orphan, a former spy, lover of the color green, and is prone to terrible moods.
That’s ironic. I’m discovering so much about myself now that I’ve laid down my weapons and surrendered to that unmarked grave I tried so hard to avoid. Do I deserve anything else?
Shuffling sounds outside the door.
Another guard change, as they’ve done every hour on the hour since I was shoved into this room. Three men, armed to their eyeballs, looking much more like Josef than Black Eye. I checked.
A girl should know when to give up the fight, you know?
So what if I’m about to be killed in front of a room full of criminals in some twisted unveiling ceremony or display of power—maybe both. At least I’ll be going out in style.
An image of Manon appearing from a rising platform out of the floor, surrounded by smoke and thunderous applause, forms in my mind.
She’ll say something to the effect of, “First this agent, next the ISA!”—look, I’m not a writer, okay?
—and proceed to shoot me in the head. Or, perhaps, I’ll be dangled from my feet into a pit of crocodiles. There, that’s better.
Do they even have crocodiles in Scotland? I think I would’ve liked to find out.
An absurd, crackled laugh tears from my chest. I clap a hand over my mouth, as if embarrassed for my jailers outside to hear me come completely undone.
“Who’s making you laugh?”
Graham.
Graham’s here, in this immaculately decorated prison, still managing to appear more Calvin Klein model than captive.
Wait—
“Are you real?” I whisper, jumping from the desk and approaching with the caution someone might have around, say, a pit of crocodiles.
I hallucinated being stabbed while on sedatives. Who’s to say this isn’t actually one of the guards?
Graham gives a concerned half-smile. “I believe I’m quite real,” he says. “Although I’m flattered you might think me a figment of your imagination.”
We’re within arms reach when I reply.
“How did you get in here?”
He raises an eyebrow. “The door.”
“Does that mean—” I lurch for the handle, brushing past him, but it’s still locked.
Graham sighs. “We remain trapped, I’m afraid.” He peppers a kiss on my temple, and we both freeze. “I’m sorry, it’s the first time we’ve been alone since?—”
Without hesitation, I throw myself into his arms, the both of us stumbling backward a couple steps from the impact.
He’s good and warm and solid, and he smells heady and familiar in an unbearably unfamiliar environment.
He murmurs something unintelligible into the top of my head, possibly in French or maybe Dutch, fingers coiling into my hair as his other arm wraps around my waist.
We stand like that for what feels like hours, and yet ends too soon when Graham pulls away.
“Did you?—”
“I didn’t know,” he explains.
“But how?—”
“I bribed the guards.”
A wry laugh falls from my lips. “Of course you did.”
“Unfortunately, I’m now rid of anything I can offer them, and we only have so much time.” Graham tips my chin up for a quick kiss, muscles in his jaw straining when he steps away, as if reluctant to create the space. “Here.” He presses Black Eye’s phone into my hands.
I’m not sure how he managed to smuggle it past the search and upstairs, but I don’t care to ask at the moment.
So much for useless skills.
“You—” Graham clears his throat, eyes darting to the door, and we both move as far away from it as we can. “—you could try to reach them, but I’m…” His voice trails off and he refuses to meet my gaze for a few moments. “I’m unsure if they’ll arrive in time.”
The cautious thrill of hope begins to shrivel. “Right.”
“Perhaps I can speak with my sister—attempt to reason with her.”
“She had us abducted off the streets,” I reply flatly, once more resigned. “I think she may be beyond reasoning with.”
Graham’s features crumple. “Manon was not always like this. For so many years, I blamed Klaus for her transformation, for the way she kept me at arm’s length.” His throat bobs, struggling over the next words. “I think perhaps… perhaps I never knew her at all.”
“None of this is your fault,” I whisper.
His eyes flash to mine. “You don’t understand,” he says, “I knew all along that we were in danger.”
“What do you mean?”
“Getting caught in New York wasn’t an accident. I’ve been running long before you, Sloane—prison was the safest place for me. The moment I was informed of my release, I knew I was in danger. And—” He hesitates, turning toward the window.
“What?” I say, impatient.
Graham shakes his head. “I thought you were an ISA goon. I was going to use you as protection and vanish the moment I secured what I needed.” He gives me a sad smile.
“You complicated the matter beyond what I could’ve anticipated.
And when Klaus—or rather, the man who called himself Klaus—offered me my freedom, the price was too high. ”
“What… what do you mean?”
“I mean that Raffaele didn’t intend for you to survive, and he only planned on keeping us alive for as long as it served him.
” His throat bobs, like he’s struggling over the next words.
“I know now that the visit to Manon’s estate was meant to be an exchange that had already been planned.
Raffaele delivered us to Paris, and in return I was supposed to provide the Consultant…
something of value for my escape. And you were never meant to leave that estate. ”
“But then how did we get away unscathed?” I whisper.
“I gave Klaus what was requested,” he replies, “or rather, bought us some time before they realized it was a fake.”
The rectangular lump in his pocket flashes in my memory. Could that have been what he retrieved from the Grand Palais?
I try to swallow, but my throat works fruitlessly. “So, it’s true—you knew all this time that Raffaele was working with the Consultant.”
“I didn’t know how to say it, and I wasn’t positive of the details,” Graham explains. “You could barely believe that I was taking you away to protect you. But to explain that the Consultant had offered me a deal, and I didn’t take it? Would you have accepted that as the truth?”
“Yes.”
This time, we’re both aware it’s a lie.
I’d thought he was the villain for weeks. The revelation that Raffaele had ordered the murder of so many former agents nearly tore me apart. I had to come to terms with it at my own pace, and more supposed evidence from the thief would have sounded like an elaborate lie.
Stalking away a couple steps, I turn back to him and perch onto the desk.
“I can’t figure out why.”
Graham’s mouth tightens with apprehension. “Why?”
“The ISA, Raffaele, the Consultant… it’s all connected,” I reply quietly, staring out the window as another shiny black car rolls across the bridge.
“We know that Manon and Raffaele have worked together in the past, despite her apparent hatred of him. We know that Raffaele got you out of prison for that mission… but why? And what made Manon suddenly change her tune?”
His shoulders loosen. “You are far from an agent now.”
I send him a curious look.
“There was a time when you accepted the facts provided and questioned little else,” Graham elaborates.
“A person can change quite a lot when their world implodes.”
He smiles. “You are who you have always been, Sloane. It’s a shame that they restrained your spirit for so long, you forgot it was there.”
My mouth curls into an unbidden, reciprocal smile, warmth budding across my skin and replacing the pervasive cold. “Will you at least tell me what you know?” I clear my throat in an attempt to sound casual. “It’s my last day, after all.”
“No, it’s not,” Graham replies, taking my hands in his own.
“I’d sooner die before I allow Manon, or anyone else, to harm you.
” His thumbs trace across my knuckles thoughtfully.
Everywhere he touches leaves a trail of sparks.
“Getting me out of prison was mutually beneficial for them both,” he explains, “Raffaele wanted something of my mother’s, and he foolishly assumed that Manon did not. She used his arrogance against him.”
I nod, sluggishly catching up. “She double-crossed him.”
“She tried.”
“What now? There are no moves left to play.”
“I never finished telling you the story about Checkmate.” Graham presses his lips to the back of my hand.
“Years ago, a chess champion studied the painting and came away with a theory—the game depicted wasn’t hopeless, as so many had thought.
That, maybe, while the boy’s opponent had presumed imminent victory, there was one final move to be made. ”
“A hail mary,” I whisper.
The corner of his lips curl. “He just has to be courageous enough to make it.”
A knock sounds at the door, startling us both, the recollection of our surroundings souring my mood. When we kiss, that forgotten ember sparks back to a hopeful glow. He rests his forehead against my own and drags his thumb across my bottom lip with gentle reverence.
“There aren’t enough apologies in the universe for what Manon ruined,” he breathes.
I flush, my hands buried in the front of his shirt. “I’m not sure I’ve ever enjoyed dancing as much as that.”
“No, no, that’s not?—”
Pounding sounds again, louder and insistent. Graham’s eyes slide shut, chest deflating, and he shakes his head.
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
“Yes.”
Graham’s features brighten with a devastating smile, untangling from our embrace.
“Please,” I say, stepping forward, unsure if these will be our last moments before I’m killed. “Will you just tell me your part in all of this? Why does Raffaele need you dead?”
Glancing at the door, he lowers his voice and says, “Because I’m carrying his silver bullet—” He taps his temple. “—here. And there’s nothing he values more than his power. The Consultant discovered its existence, and now she wants it as well.”
My eyebrows knit together. “Why not tell me earlier?”
Graham reaches for the door handle. “Everyone who knows what I know has died.” His features are drawn when our eyes lock for the final time. “In case you are unaware, Sloane, everything I’ve done since Paris has been to keep you safe—and that’s not stopping now.”
His absence leaves a visceral ache the moment he slips back into the hall.
Minutes later, I’m standing in the same place when a tiny woman in a traditional maid’s uniform scurries inside, carrying a black garment bag and the pair of heels I was wearing last night.
The door clicks shut behind her, leaving the bag swinging gently, hung from the wooden canopy bed.
I absently rub my palms over my exposed arms and reach for the attached piece of cream paper.
It’s an invitation, written in calligraphy, the envelope sealed with wax and stamped by the same dandelion I saw on Manon’s signet ring.
The field of flowers at her estate ricochets across my memory, mocking me. They’re invasive, I’d thought, a weed.
That must’ve been precisely why she chose it. Underestimated, viewed as a pest or a delicate flower, yet incredibly difficult to eradicate. Resilient. The signs are so obvious now that I know the truth.
I rip open the envelope and hastily read the short message.
Do me the honor of wearing this dress, as a rebirth day gift of sorts.
My fist crumples the note and I throw it across the room.
Unzipping the bag, I stand back and survey it in the dying light. Floor-length, velvet, with a high neckline up around the throat, leaving shoulders and arms bare. The shade of fresh blood.
My teeth clamp down so hard they might shatter. With practiced movements, I shove all my questions down one last time. Investigating isn’t what’s important right now.
I glance back at the door, where Graham once stood. Deep inside, beneath the resignation and acceptance and pessimism, I scoop out that minuscule flicker and blow until it’s a raging fire. It might be hopeless. Ridiculous, certainly. Will I die? Well, the odds aren’t in my favor right about now.
But I think I have one fight left in me.