Not Jenny. Ellie. The woman in my house was Ellie Samuelson.
“We go to Hanoi.” I said grimly. My fingers played with the USB key. “I cannot watch this, Jean-Luc. I didn’t think I could watch Dylan hurt anyone, but I especially cannot watch this. Dylan McAllister kidnapped her. Raped her. Tortured her. She is owed her revenge. If she wants to go to Hanoi, I will get her in.”
“Alexander.” Jean-Luc’s voice was intent. “Are you going to tell her?”
How could I? “Not yet.” My voice was very low. “I have five days. I’m going to be selfish.”
He didn’t reply. What could he say? Jean-Luc had been my friend for a long time. He understood. Instead, his soldier’s training took over. “Dylan’s guards are mercenaries,” he said. “If he’s dead, they might not stay around to retaliate, but this could turn into a gunfight. I will fly to Hanoi with you.”
I nodded. Jean-Luc would bring guns. I always travelled with a weapon as well. It was expected and I’d always been waved through by Dylan’s guards. Why would I have been questioned? I was trusted.
Jean-Luc left. I stayed where I was. When he’d been there, I could bury my emotions and lose myself in the planning. But with him gone, I had to confront the way I felt.
Jenny was Ellie Samuelson.
So many emotions but foremost among them was pride. Dylan’s victims had all ended up broken. The wounds didn’t heal quickly.
But my bright star was a fighter. Whatever the years had brought since Dylan had captured her, she had overcome everything. She should have flinched away from pain and sex and men, but instead, she’d asked for a session in the playroom only two days ago.
For the moment, she looked at me with those luminous, trusting green eyes. Her lips curved into a smile when I reached for her. She leaned up and kissed me goodnight before curling next to my side to sleep.
When the truth came out, all of that would change.
She would have a gun in her hand. I would make sure that the chamber had more than one bullet. When the time came, when she lined up to fire, she would have a choice. Dylan would die.
And she might elect to shoot me as well.
I closed my eyes for a second. If it came down to it, I was ready. Ever since my suicide attempt had failed when I was seventeen, I had been living on borrowed time. Perhaps the clock had run out.
Chapter 17
Ellie / Jenny:
All day, Alexander had been acting strange.
In the morning, he’d cancelled our plans quite abruptly. We were supposed to go to Reims and see the cathedral and taste champagne. But after his friend Jean-Luc had left, he’d come upstairs and he’d told me he wasn’t going to be able to make it. “Please do go by yourself,” he urged me, refusing to meet my eyes. “I have to work, unfortunately.”
“Okay,” I replied. A slice of disappointment cut through me, but I dismissed it. Even if I could forgot who he worked for, there was still the fact that he wasn’t looking for commitment. He only wanted a submissive for three months. I’d been spoiled by his company, but this wasn’t something that could last.
I wandered disconsolately through Reims, acutely missing his presence at my side. Perhaps he was tiring of me. We had spent most of the last two weeks together and maybe it was too much for him.
Or perhaps his refusal to accompany me today had to do with the impending return of his girlfriend Sylvia. Ever since Provence, he’d been acting more like my boyfriend than my Dominant. Perhaps he was regretting it, pulling back to send me a message about where the boundaries were.
I’d been fully prepared for him not to be around when I returned to his house in the evening, but he was in the kitchen, slicing up some peppers into thin rings. “Stir-fry for dinner?” he asked.
“Sounds good,” I replied, dropping my purse on the kitchen island. “Can I do anything to help?”
He shook his head. “No, Elodie did most of the prep before she had to leave. Her nephew is sick.”
I took a seat and watched him work. “Is everything okay, Alexander?” I asked hesitantly. On the few days he couldn’t make it with me to see the sights, he was usually quite interested when I returned. Today, there were no questions. Just this intent slicing of peppers.
“Sure.” His reply was clipped. “Jenny, I have a business trip to take next week to Vietnam. You had expressed an interest in seeing more of the world. Would you like to accompany me?
This was it. The culmination of six years of training, of many months of planning this particular operation. I had put myself through Madame Lorraine’s auction for this, steeling myself when I found out Alexander and Marc had been the same person. Everything had led up to this moment.
Yet viscerally, the only emotion I felt was loss. In a week, it would all be over between Alexander and me.