Surrender (Careless Whispers #3)(24)

My gaze lands on the mirror in front of me, and my reflection blinks into view. What was I thinking? I don’t have to wait and see who this woman is. I know her, and I don’t want to be any other version of her but the one I am here and now with Kayden. I’ve even come to like my now dark brown hair, when I’ve often craved my natural red shade. I need to tell him all of this, and I will. I’ll scream it loud and clear if I have to, but right now I need to search the security feed. Fully intending to leave, I start to turn, but my gaze lands on the mirror again, and I am suddenly, abruptly even, transported to another time, to the point that I sway and lean on the closet door. Images race through my mind, my lashes lowering with the force with which they are thrust upon me.



I stand in the closet, his closet, staring at myself in the full-length mirror, trying to see what he will see when I go downstairs. No. Trying to control what he will see. I’m dressed in an elegant cream pantsuit, my red hair draping my shoulders, the strap of a Chanel purse resting across my chest and at my hip. I see my familiar image, but not a woman I know or understand. Not the woman my father trained to be strong and fierce. Because that woman would not have allowed herself to be tied to a bed last night. And when she was released, she would have forcefully fled. My lashes lower and I inhale, sitting down on a bench in the corner against the wall, beside a row of fancy shoes Garner bought for me yesterday. I could leave, but where would I go? I still have no passport. I still have no money. And the more I’ve thought about this, the greater the odds of me randomly falling into the middle of whatever this is, it just doesn’t make sense. I’m hiding with a monster, but that monster is necessary to my survival.

Inhaling again, I force myself to turn on my heel and march out of the closet, and never stop walking. I exit the bathroom into the bedroom and make the mistake of looking at the bed where I’d been tied up last night, swallowing the disgrace and anger I feel, the dread at knowing he’s about to touch me again. I keep moving, and I exit into the hallway and start the walk down the windowless, red-carpeted stairwell. I’m just about to round a corner when I hear Neuville’s voice speaking in French, followed by another familiar voice I know to be Bastile, his personal bodyguard. I freeze on the word collier, or in English, necklace, icy cold reality hitting me. That monster I’m hiding with is the same one I’m hiding from.

“I searched her hotel room again top to bottom,” Bastile says, speaking in the French I pretend not to know. “There is no necklace. How do you want to proceed?”

“Search the property she brought with her when we’re at lunch today.”

“I’ve searched her property.”

“Do it again,” Neuville snaps.

“And if I don’t find it?”

He won’t find it, I think. I made sure of it.

“A man is dead and we got rid of the body for her. As far as she knows, we’re hiding her from the murderer and the police. She’ll give me the necklace.”

Nothing he can do to me will make me give him that necklace. But somehow, some way, I have to figure out what makes it so sought after, and decide what to do with it.

“And if she doesn’t? At what point do I torture her into talking and get rid of her?”

“You don’t. I’ve decided to keep her.”



I jolt back to the present, sucking in air, disoriented by my equally sudden return to reality. I’m still here and I’m still alone, but Neuville’s words are now living and breathing here as well: I’ve decided to keep her.

“Fuck you, Garner,” I spit. “That didn’t go so well, now did it?” I swallow bile in my throat, anger burning in my belly at the things he did to me, but I survived. And I will beat him.

Shoving off the door, I am more focused than ever on answers and an endgame, a motivation that has me hurrying into the bedroom and crossing to the security room in the corner next to the fireplace. Once I’m inside the tiny rectangular room, I sit at the small desk against the wall and key the computer to life. Clicking past the live feed now on the front of the castle, I struggle a bit but find the store security feed and the right date. With surprising ease, I’m watching myself chat with Marabella and Giada in the living area of the store in the Center Tower. I fast-forward and find the part where I left my journal in that room to inspect the delivery Kayden had sent to me that night. I watch Giada and Adriel interact in the living area, having some sort of heated words, but neither touches the journal.

I fast-forward again and find the moment Adriel’s foot hits something and he bends down and grabs the journal from the floor by the couch, where it’s obviously been knocked. He picks it up, but never opens it. He looks a little irritated, like I shouldn’t be so careless, or maybe I’m just remembering his attitude when he handed it to me. He simply stands, leaves the TV room, and finds me in the main store, where he returns it to me.

He didn’t take the pages out of the journal, but neither did Giada or Marabella. I sit back and stare at the computer screen without really seeing it. That day was the only time I’ve had my journal outside of this tower. And the only person who can get in here is Marabella. Sweet, loyal, wonderful Marabella. No. It’s not her. I reject that idea. But . . . if it is, who is she working for? Niccolo, Alessandro, or the worst possibility of all: Garner Neuville?