The next morning, Alexander wasn’t in bed when I woke up.
In the daytime, my sins of the previous night were magnified and there was nowhere to hide from the self-recrimination. What had I been thinking? The best case scenario was that Alexander was a tool for me to get to Dylan and nothing more than that. The worst case scenario was something far more sinister – that Alexander had somehow been tied to my own kidnapping, that he had killed his submissives at the end of the three-month term, or worse, sold them to a brothel in some far forgotten corner of the world.
Yet I had sought him out. I had thrown myself at him. I’d taken comfort in the strength of his body.
You are a fool, I told myself harshly. You are acting like a besotted teenager. Take off the rose-tinted glasses.
Similar self-recriminations plagued me the entire way to the café where I once again took the phone the girl behind the counter handed me and made my way to the bathroom. When I was safely ensconced in a stall, I dialled Lucien. “It’s happening,” I said. My voice shook. “He asked me to go to Hanoi.”
“He did?” There was a note of surprise in Lucien’s voice, then the realization of what was happening sunk in for him as well. “Fuck. Ellie.”
“I know. It’s so surreal. Can this finally be it?”
Lucien choked back a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob. “What did he say exactly? When do you leave?”
“Next week. He just asked if I wanted to go. I’ve been telling him I want to travel and see the world.”
“Ellie,” Lucien’s voice sounded so strange. “Is there any way I can be there? In the room? Could I be a long-lost brother or something?”
What was wrong with Lucien? Of course he couldn’t be there. Alexander wasn’t a fool – a long-lost brother showing up at Dylan’s compound in Hanoi would raise all kinds of suspicions. More than that, our mission would be over before it even started.
But I thought I understood and my heart broke for Lucien. This had been his revenge as well. Dylan had kidnapped his sister Claire. She’d killed herself in a whorehouse in the Middle East, seeing no way out of her life except that final, irrevocable step, and for the rest of his life, Lucien had to live with the knowledge that he had failed her. Killing Dylan had been his only goal for such a long time.
And now, I was going to Hanoi, not him.
It was brutally unfair. The only reason I was able to infiltrate Dylan’s compound was because I was a beautiful woman who had been bid on by a rich man at an auction. Just because of that, my heart’s desire got fulfilled and Lucien’s did not.
Of course, the only reason I’d been taken in the parking lot in Beechwood Mall was because I’d been beautiful. The sword had cut both ways. I hadn’t asked to be placed on this road – Dylan had made that choice for me.
I clutched the phone in my hand, searching for the right words, though I wasn’t sure there were any in this situation. “I don’t think so,” I said finally, as gently as I could manage. “That’ll just put them on their guard, won’t it?”
Silence greeted me. I waited for a long time and eventually, Lucien seemed to gather himself together. “I’ll fly out to Hanoi,” he said. “But I can’t make it into the compound. You’ll need to fight your way out.”
I didn’t say anything to contradict him. Both of us knew that the chances of me walking out of this situation alive were slim. Even if Lucien could be in Hanoi, what could he do without an army?
He was just one person; we’d always acted alone. While Lucien had associates that did research for him, people he could count on for things like weaponry and fake passports, we’d never worked with another mercenary and we’d never joined cause with anyone else. “People are trouble,” Lucien always said. “It’s best to work on your own.”
Of course, he’d also started training me, making a lie of that particular philosophy.
“I’m not concerned about that,” I said, infusing a note of confidence into my voice. “Dylan is the only thing that matters.”
Chapter 19
Ellie / Jenny:
Sylvia Anliker was in Alexander’s house when I returned.
I froze. Shock coursed through me seeing her there. She was seated on the couch in the living room, flipping through a magazine and looking bored. That look changed when she saw me. Suddenly, the predator had found its prey.
“Alexander,” she said coolly, “is remarkably relaxed with his submissives. You will find I’m not. Kneel.”
I narrowed my eyes. Alexander had promised to protect me from her. I didn’t know if I trusted him about everything, but in this one thing, my trust was absolute. No one was a good enough actor to hold me in his arms and comfort me as I rocked and cried. He’d whispered words of reassurance to me in Provence. He had sworn that he wouldn’t let Sylvia near me.