The calm on William’s face slipped just a fraction, but it was all I needed.
“The man you trained is smarter in this world and in our business than you’ve ever been . . . and will one day replace you,” I growled, the threat in my words clear. I nodded toward the door. “Leave, and don’t come back. We’ll come to you when she’s ready—and she will be ready.”
Chapter 9
Unanswered Questions
Briar
The door to my room opened and shut, but I didn’t move to look at him from where I sat cross-legged on my bed. I continued to run my hands through my wet hair, staring at the wall as though there were a window there.
I wondered what it looked like outside here . . . wherever here was.
“Blackbird.”
I froze for a second then started finger-combing my hair again. In the four days since I’d woken up to a doctor taking an IV out of my hand, the devil hadn’t attempted to speak to me. He had brought me meals regularly—the first day staying to make sure I ate—but had otherwise left me alone.
When he spoke again, frustration laced his name for me. “Blackbird.”
“I have a name,” I said numbly and looked over my shoulder in time to see him fight back a smile. “I have a name, and I have a fiancé and parents and people who are looking for me.”
His smile abruptly fell, his face now void of all emotion. “You don’t have anyone looking for you.”
My fingers stopped running through my hair. Ice-cold dread filled me. “W-what? What did you do— What did you do to them?” I yelled, and turned to fully face him. “They didn’t do anything—I didn’t do anything to deserve this. I don’t understand why I am here,” I yelled as a mixture of sad and angry tears fell to my cheeks.
“Stop,” he commanded gently, coldly.
I gripped at my chest as different scenarios flashed through my mind. “Please tell me what happened to them.”
“You want me to play this game with you? Fine. What happened to who, Blackbird?” he snapped. “There is no one looking for you, because you had no one. Why do you think you were taken?”
It took immeasurable seconds to understand what he was saying.
“. . . you had no one. Why do you think you were taken?” Whoever they’d meant to take . . . it wasn’t me.
Which meant Kyle and his parents—my parents—were safe.
Relief filled me so fast and so profound that it made me dizzy.
“Then it was a mistake,” I choked out. “I had them, I had Kyl—” A sob forced its way from my chest. “You took everything from me,” I whispered. My right thumb and forefinger automatically went to where my ring had been on my left hand before I’d been taken, and my chest ached as I thought about Kyle.
“There’s no point in lying, you can’t leave,” the man said.
“Ly—” I cleared my throat and shook my head. “I’m not lying! I was taken by mistake. I’m supposed to be getting married in a week.”
The devil’s dark eyes narrowed in frustration, and he turned to leave as I continued shouting.
“My name is Briar Chapman,” I called out as he reached the door. “My fiancé’s name is Kyle Armstrong. His mother is the governor of Georgia. I was taken by mistake.” Then to myself, “This is a mistake.”
Hours dragged by before the door opened again. Not that it was uncommon for so long to pass between each time he visited, but I had been hoping for something different after I had given him my name and something to think about.
Then again, I doubted he cared.
“Are you ready to talk calmly now?” he asked with one dark eyebrow raised when I turned to face him.
I didn’t respond.
He walked closer until he was standing at the corner of my bed, and my hatred for him grew when I realized some distant part of my mind appreciated the way he looked.
The tie he had been wearing earlier was gone, and his shirtsleeves were now rolled up. His hands were crossed over his chest, revealing corded muscles and the scars and dark tattoos that contradicted the man he was.
Then again, it fit for a devil.
He is darkness, I reminded myself.
I flicked my gaze up to where he was staring down at me, waiting for my reply, and instead asked, “Do you have my ring?”
“What ring?”
I lifted my left hand for a second before dropping it back into my lap. “My enga—”
“Enough,” he hissed, and slowly relaxed his arms to slip his hands into his suit pants pockets. “You do not have a family, and you do not have a fiancé—I was told about your life when I bought you. Your lying will only frustrate me and force me to teach you another lesson.”
It took far too long to understand what the first lesson had been, and my lunch soured in my stomach. “T-the . . . the other night was a lesson?”
His nostrils flared, but he didn’t respond otherwise.
“You—I thought you were going to rape me,” I cried out, “and that was a lesson?”
“Keep pushing me and see if I don’t,” he threatened in a dark tone.
A shuddering breath tumbled from my lips before the room fell into a heavy silence. “I mean nothing to you,” I whispered, mostly to myself, then slowly looked up at him. My voice shook as I spoke. “Why do you want to . . . to keep someone locked in a room whose life and body mean nothing to you?” I pressed a hand to my chest. “Because they mean something to me.” When he didn’t respond, I begged, “Tell me why I’m here.”
“Because I own you.”
I shook my head quickly. No. Never. “What does that mean for me?”
“It means you’re mine.” He didn’t seem to care that he wasn’t giving me the answers I needed—and was afraid to have—he just continued to stand there with a look of eternal patience on his face.
My body trembled when I thought about that night—about the lesson—and my question came out weak and breathy. “Am I here for sex?”
He huffed through his nose. “Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?” I mouthed, my body shaking harder at his response. “Then what exactly?”
“Next question.”
I was so horrified about the thought of having been taken and sold into some sex trafficking ring that it took almost an entire minute to ask, “Can I please have clothes other than the robes?”
His sinful eyes roamed over my body, making me feel as though I wasn’t covered. “Not yet.”
“Yet? When can I?” I asked, but he didn’t respond, and my shoulders fell as I searched for another question. “Will I always be in this room?”
“Do you want to be?”
“No,” I said immediately. The room wasn’t small, but it felt like a dungeon. “There aren’t any windows, I haven’t seen outside in . . . in . . . in nearly a week,” I realized bleakly. “I don’t even know where I am.”
“Are you done asking questions?” he asked after a short pause. Again, he looked like he had all the patience in the world, and it was infuriating.
“You’ve barely been answering the ones I’ve asked.”
“Answer that one,” he demanded.