He didn’t react, at least not on the surface. Instead, he simply sighed. “You can be as angry as you want about the fact that I know you so well, but, in the end, does it even really matter? Stop playing around with facts that have no significance. All you’ll achieve is to spin yourself around in circles with no true benefit. Stop wasting your energy on petty things. You’ve already lost this game, my love. You lost long before you ever started playing.”
Pulling her eyes away from the cold steel of his gaze, she stifled the tears that threatened her eyes. Anger raced across her nerves, her hands clenching tighter in her lap to realize that he wasn’t wrong in what he’d said. The game they played was never one she’d ever had a chance at winning.
The instinct of self-preservation set aside, she opened her mouth to speak the thoughts that battered at her weary skull. “I thought that, maybe, you were softening up. That, perhaps, you could see my sister and me as something more human. Abusive men raised us both. Our lives were both intended as a trophy for the parents that raised us, rather than about anything that would make us happy and whole.”
Chancing a sidelong glance, she peeked over at Max. His expression was a mask of pity, his head shaking so slowly in disbelief that she wasn’t sure she was seeing it at all.
With a slap of his open hand against the counter, the sound so sudden and loud that it caused her to jump, he quashed any hope she had that he would make this life easier on her than the past twentyfour hours.
Her eyes darted from his face down to where his palm had landed, and from beneath his fingers she could see the crane crushed and broken, something fragile and beautiful rendered to be nothing more than a piece of forgotten trash. Never before had she felt such a tie to an inanimate object. The crane could just have easily been her or the woman he held prisoner in the basement.
“Do not mistake what I told you as a vulnerability inside me, Alice.”
Her eyes dragged up his arm, over his broad shoulder and along the cords of his neck to lock on to a set of eyes that cut as deep as the sharpest razor. Anger was obvious in the set of his jaw, a cold slice of steel that you didn’t know had maimed you until the blood seeped out, fast and hot.
“My father shaped me regardless of whether I walked the path he’d drawn for me. And he paid for those mistakes as a result. I don’t exist in this world for anyone but myself. And any vulnerability I had in life vanished when I left childhood behind. Don’t waste your time looking for weakness. You’ll walk away empty and a little more crushed and broken for the effort.”
Her throat worked over the thick fear that swelled up from her rapidly beating heart, her skin prickling in response to a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.
Forcing herself to speak, she worked quickly to repair whatever damage she’d caused by her assumptions. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by what I said.”
Inclining his head slowly, he studied her for several moments. His appraisal complete, he said, “I want to show you the surprise I have for you. I think you’ll appreciate the small bit of freedom that comes with it.” He paused for a moment, his head turning to look at the television screen – at the image of the solitary hooded woman – and back to Alice. “But you’d be smart to never allow yourself to forget the price.”
Her eyes closed, the burning tears slipping down along her cheek to trace the line of her jaw. Futility was the cloak she now wore, the painful, twisting knowledge that there wasn’t a shred of decency or humanity in the man that now ruled her life.
With measured steps, he rounded the kitchen island to offer his hand to her. “Come with me, Alice. You’ll like what I have to show you.”
A snake that would bite her, his hand hung between them for several seconds, the fingers coiled to strike as soon as she reached out to accept it. But with little choice, she reached for the predator in her midst. A warmth that wasn’t welcome against her skin, it hurt her in so many ways that she felt paralyzed by the contrast of emotion flooding her.
Comfort because he’d chased away her nightmares.
Hatred because he’d threatened the one person she loved most.
Bitter resentment because he’d made her body respond to him in ways that no other man had succeeded in doing.
There wasn’t one single emotion she could grasp onto when he was touching her, not one single thought that didn’t become a jagged edge that ripped at her heart and mind.
Trailing him at a leisurely pace, she kept her eyes trained to the ground, her attention not drawn up again until she heard the familiar sound of a code being tapped into a panel by an outside door. Her brows knit together in confusion.
“You’re taking me outside?”
The question slipped before she could contain it, and she hoped that he wouldn’t become more angered by the fact that she questioned anything he did.
Without answering her, he led her through the door into the warmth of the humid breeze of the morning air.