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I stopped, surrounded by neon lights and blinking signs. Cars rolled past and washed my body in beams of white light. Breathing hard, I stood in front of a coffee shop. But I didn’t feel like I was part of the city, part of the people who bustled past and gave me strange looks for having run across the walkways at night. I felt exactly like my name implied. Like a ghost. A specter whose soul had just been shoved into a car and been carted away.
“What’s your visual?” Tab asked, her voice tight.
I expelled a hard breath, and it misted out in front of me, blurring the lavish city around me. Mattie was gone. They had her, and I’d failed. “She’s gone,” I choked.
Iwas getting really sick of the kidnapping thing. At least with Kael, I’d known that I wasn’t in real danger—something about him had resonated with me from the very beginning. I’d always trusted him on some inexplicable level. But being taken by strangers had been so much worse than I’d imagined. The abrupt violence of it, their hands on my body, the suddenness with which I’d been taken from a triumphant and proud moment to heart-crushing terror, had stolen my breath. One moment, I’d had my eyes on Kael, on his smug appreciation of the effect the slideshow was having on the crowd. And the next—darkness. They’d shoved a cloth shopping bag over my head, of all things. Fucking animals.
The long plane ride here hadn’t been much better. No soothing, brainless drugs for me. No, I’d been handcuffed and chained to a chair in a private plane for hours, and even now, my body felt the stiffness of that treatment as I walked the halls of the French chateau.
Although, I had to hand it to Fate. There was an odd sort of symmetry about winding right back up where my nightmares had begun. As my bare feet padded soundlessly down the plush carpets of Jonathon’s mansion, I quelled my panic and painted over it with forced indifference. I’d escaped this Hellhole once before. I could do it again.
And I wasn’t alone this time. I filled my lungs with soothing oxygen and a burst of courage at that thought. Kael would come. I knew he would. I just had to hold on and make Cohen’s life a living nightmare until Kael could find me. For the first time in my life, I had someone I could rely on, and I didn’t doubt him for a moment. I didn’t doubt his willingness to save me, and I definitely didn’t underestimate his ability to carry it out.
Bide your time, Mattie. Don’t do anything reckless. He’s coming.
The hired muscle that flanked me in the front and back led me through the baroque-style hallway until we took a turn to the right, and the space opened up. I let my eyes wander through the unfamiliar room, roving over glass cases and pedestals that displayed glittering artifacts. It looked a bit like a museum—a very old, dark, somewhat dusty museum. The arched windows let in some light, but other than that, only the singular spotlights over each glass case illuminated the space. The floors had been lacquered bright red, and the walls had been embellished with intricate woodwork and stained glass.
In fact, the more I looked at it, the more I thought it looked like a church where ornaments were worshipped in place of a deity. A chill erupted along my arms as I passed Fabergé eggs, polished doubloons, and ancient pottery shards. How very direct of him to bring me to his trophy room.
Jonathon stood at the end of the room in front of a large glass case, his head tilted to the side and one hand propped on his hip. Dressed in a brown and tan striped button-down that he’d tucked into brown, paper bag pants, he looked like literal shit. A walking turd. He looked over at me as I approached, and then his too-wide mouth split into a grin. “Look at you. You look stunning in that dress, Matilda.”
I curtsied mockingly. “Fuck you.”
Jonathon laughed softly, folding his arms and taking a few steps so he stood across from me. The spotlight from one of the displays caught the curly tuft of hair on his head, and I had the disturbing thought that he looked like Josh Groban’s psycho half-brother. “I’m sure this all feels a little dramatic at the moment.”
“Actually, it feels a little boring,” I countered. “Your villain textbook is like three hundred years out of date. You don’t actually have to take me to a castle.” I looked to my left and found a giant, gold egg on a stand. I picked it up and tossed it with interest. “Just FYI.”
Jonathon’s eyes followed the movement of the egg, looking uncomfortable for the first time. “Like I said. A little dramatic.”
I rolled the egg in my palm, knowing very well how breakable it was. “Speaking of dramatic, did you catch my theatrical performance at my farewell party?”
Jonathon’s dark eyes stayed glued to the egg in my hand. “I did. Keen of you to pick up on that being a farewell party. Why go if you knew?”
I tapped my fingers over the gold orb. “I got a little cocky.”
Jonathon’s eyes flicked to mine again. Deranged amusement shimmered in their depths, darkened by the lack of light in his gallery. “And you had Ghost, right?” I almost dropped the egg. Jonathon reached out and plucked it from me, hinging it away from me and holding it aloft. His amusement made more sense now. “Oh, did you think I had no idea?”
Yes, you flaming dung heap. I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if you knew or didn’t.”
“Because he’ll come get you?” Jonathon guessed. He leaned over and carefully placed the egg back in its protective cradle. He quirked his head to the side to regard me as he straightened. “Yes?”
I folded my arms. “What is this, exactly? You said you saw what happened to my parents at that party. I have several steps in place to ensure that they go under, and SynthoCare with them. There’s nothing for you to gain here. In a few weeks, there won’t be any money. No deal.”
Jonathon snapped his fingers, and a white-gloved woman—a curator, I guessed—stepped forward to polish the egg after I’d smeared my fingerprints all over it. He gestured to the room of collectibles. “I told you how I feel about you, Mattie. Don’t you like that? Doesn’t it make you feel special? It should. I value you. And I bought you, fair and square.”
The blond woman who had picked up the egg bounced a glance to me, and then back to the egg. She looked more nervous than I felt. But rather than giving in to my mounting panic, I coasted backwards toward another open display. This one held a coin collection of some kind. They looked frighteningly old. I picked one up. “I’ll ignore the obvious breach of human rights inherent in that sentence and point out that even if you ‘bought’ me,” I held up the coin, “you can’t keep a person. Not if they don’t want to be kept.”
Jonathon’s gaze went feline and sharp. “Can’t I?”
The metal of the coin bit into my palm as I closed my fingers around it. “Not this one.”
He reached me again, and this time, he crowded my personal space until my back pressed against the icy glass of a display. He reached out and took my wrist in his hand, lifting it and squeezing hard. His eyes bored into me, triumphant, furious, and full of something crazed that I couldn’t name. I couldn’t name it because it wasn’t human.
It wasn’t an emotion normal people felt. Jonathon Cohen wasn’t a normal person. He was a monster. And it wasn’t only that he knew it or had accepted it. He liked it.
Jonathon squeezed hard until I had no choice but to release the coin. It clattered to the floor, and I swallowed down a cry of pain. He didn’t loosen his grip, and fire spread from his crushing fingertips up to my elbow. “I know we as a culture don’t make a habit of keeping people, Matilda,” he said with quiet venom. “Not anymore, anyway.”
I gritted my teeth, pressing my back into the glass and forcing myself not to retaliate. It would only make him worse. And I had to stay calm. I had to stay rational. Kael would come. He would come, and then this would be nothing but another nightmare.
