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Just who was this man?
No daredevil swagger this night.
Gait stiff, body taut, he braced his forearm on the marble mantel and stared into the lifeless grate.
‘We were taken from a private club in Singapore after our drinks were drugged. Out cold for about twelve hours. We woke up in an old wartime holding cell near the port.’
‘You were...’ Breathe, Serena, breathe. ‘Taken? Like, for ransom?’
‘Thirty million was the starting bid.’
Down she went, collapsing onto the nearest chair, while her thoughts tripped over one another. But when his meaning hit and collided with the imagery of his horrific scars the juxtaposition struck like a bolt of lightning and she began to shake. All over.
‘Was...was Tom beaten like that?’
The hand at his hip balled into a tight fist and his legs flexed as he forced himself into the ground. For a split second she allowed herself the fantasy that he wanted to come to her, hold her.
‘No,’ he said, as black and hard as the mound of coal he was fixated on. ‘He didn’t suffer in that way.’ Glancing up, he met her eyes, and for the first time she saw a frisson of emotion warm those ice-blue depths—sincerity. ‘That’s the absolute truth. So don’t even picture it in your head. Didn’t happen. Promise me you will remember that.’
She frowned, unsure what to believe. ‘I don’t understand. How come he wasn’t touched when you were? It doesn’t make sense.’
He held still, willing her to trust him—at least in this. It was important to him, she realised.
‘Let’s just say they had far more interest in me.’
What? Even that failed to compute. Why would criminals be partial to Finn—?
Air hit the back of her throat, where a great lump began to swell, and she bit down on her lips.
Panic flitted across his face. ‘Hey, Serena, are you listening to me? Did you hear what I said?’
She swallowed thickly. ‘You made them more interested in you.’ He had an astonishing flair for it after all. ‘You took the brunt of it, didn’t you?’ she asked, a little bit shocked, a whole lot awed.
Yet he merely hitched one shoulder in blatant insouciance as if it were nothing. Nothing? What? Did he think he’d deserved it, or something?
Switzerland... Sick...
‘You were beaten so brutally that you spent months recovering in Switzerland, didn’t you?’ In hiding. ‘And that is why you didn’t come to Tom’s funeral.’ While she’d cursed and berated him, blind to it all.
‘Yes,’ he admitted.
Curse her throbbing heart, because the thought of him being alone, broken and torn, all that time in such pain...
His cerulean-blue eyes darkened dangerously as they narrowed on her face. ‘Do not look at me with pity, Serena. I took your brother into that club. A club I knew was notorious. He trusted me.’ Anger spewed from him, driven by the self-loathing that contorted his face. ‘I led him into that hellhole and don’t you forget it!’
Slapped with his fury, she rocked where she sat. Then she prompted her lungs to function properly as she sieved and scrutinised his way of thinking, only to recall their conversation on a harbour many moons ago.
‘You didn’t lead him, Finn. It was his choice. His choice. Back at Monaco you told me I wasn’t responsible for the decisions he made. That I shouldn’t feel guilt because he wouldn’t want that. Are you going to tell me you lied about that too?’
Please don’t. Because I’m already confused, wondering what has been real, and I’m afraid that every word from your mouth has been a lie.
‘No, but—’ His brow crunched for a beat. ‘This is different.’ Pushing off the mantel, he swung away and began to pace. ‘I came out alive. He didn’t.’
Now, that was a fact she couldn’t dispute. To think that all this time she’d never known, had been kept in the dark—
‘My God, Finn, did he even drown at all? What happened to him?’
Flinging himself down onto the opposite chair, he let the clasped ball of his white-knuckled hands dangle in the space between his open legs and met her gaze.
‘Long story short: it was a get-rich-quick scheme run by some highly intelligent brains who had a perverted opinion of hospitality.’
He grimaced, as if the memories tasted vile on his tongue, and her heart thrashed for him.
‘After about four days the bartering began, and on the fifth day they brought Tom in. Threatened him. Gave me the choice to do him over or they would.’ A mirthless huff burst past his lips. ‘The kid always looked at me like I was some kind of hero and there I was, inclined to knock him unconscious rather than allow the guards to maul him.’
