37. Luna

37

All night, I'd been trying to convince myself that things would be okay. That I could survive this. But at the sound of a car crunching on gravel outside, my bowels turned watery. Kacie bit her lip, and Michelle muttered, "Here comes the psycho."

We were sitting in the living area, waiting, and I had to concede that there were worse prisons. I mean, probably. It wasn't as if I'd ever been in one, but I had stayed in worse hotel rooms. This place had comfy couches, a TV but no Netflix, a huge shelf of super boring books, and a coffee machine. The closet was full of not-entirely-ugly dresses and strappy leather sandals, woollen shawls and basic cotton panties. I mean, at least he expected me to put on underwear. That had to be a good thing, right?

And we'd come up with a plan. Well, I'd come up with a plan, and Michelle told me it was dumb and would never work. I didn't like her much. Kacie had shrugged and said that maybe it would work.

I still wasn't sure about Kacie. She tried to be friendly, and she was nervous as heck, but when Michelle was complaining that the sandwiches Mark Antony had left for us were too dry, Kacie had told her to be quiet because at least we didn't need to find the money to buy groceries here. What was that thing hostages got when they felt weirdly okay about their captors? Copenhagen syndrome?

Footsteps sounded outside the door.

A key rattled in the lock.

Rocky must have sensed my fear because he positioned himself in front of me, and a low growl rumbled from his throat.

"It's okay, boy. It'll be okay."

Ryder would rescue us.

He would.

The door opened.

And I got my first look at Mark Antony.

Or was it?

There was something vaguely familiar about him. I was seventy percent sure I'd seen him somewhere before, but I was eighty percent certain he hadn't been in the horde of paparazzi who'd been following me around Vegas recently. I'd paid special attention to those jerks after Ryder voiced his suspicions.

Michelle had been right about his size. He was big, maybe even bigger than Ryder. Tall, dark, and average looking. Maybe better than average. Which made this abduction even more baffling—he wasn't some hideous loser a woman would automatically swipe left on. He was clean-shaven, his hair neatly trimmed.

I'd half expected him to show up in a toga, but he was wearing faded jeans and a white T-shirt with a green plaid shirt over the top. His worn leather boots channelled last season's lumberjack trend, and the only nod to impracticality was the chunky gold ring on his left hand.

I took a deep breath, rose to my feet, and willed myself to stop shaking.

"Marcus Antonius! Why have you chained me up like an ox?"

The man was delusional. And if Ryder was right, he needed some kind of medication. This whole Roman general thing was no passing fancy. The bathing chamber had a sunken tub with a golden faucet, and the room was tiled in mosaic. It must have taken him years.

Which meant that trying to convince him this was all a big mistake wouldn't work. At best, he'd ignore my protests, and at worst, he'd get angry. Maybe he'd even think I was disposable? Which meant I had to approach things differently. Lean into the fantasy and keep him happy until Ryder arrived. I'd spent my whole life playing a character, pretending to be someone I wasn't, so this was nothing new for me. I just had a different audience.

"Ita me paenitet, mea." He stopped six feet away from me and sort of…bowed? "Tu animae dimidium meae. Ego fui sine te amissa."

What the heck did that mean? It wasn't Spanish, I knew that much.

"Can't we speak English? I didn't get a chance to relearn Roman."

"You mean Latin?"

"Right, Latin."

"Yes, of course we can speak English. Now that we're together again, there will be plenty of time for you to learn, although perhaps we should start with Ancient Greek? Of course, it was just Greek when we first met."

Phew. "So what was all that you said?"

Also, Greek? I'd been to Greece a bunch of times, and most everybody spoke English.

"I said, ‘I'm so sorry, my love. You're my better half, and I've been lost without you.'"

"I've missed you too, but why have you chained me to the wall? It's uncomfortable. I couldn't sleep properly last night because every time I rolled over, the padlock dug into my hip."

"Again, I'm sorry. Sorry I couldn't be here to explain things when you awoke. I used the chain because I didn't want you to panic and run. Let me take it off."

Huh. That was easier than I thought.

Mark Antony took a step toward me, fishing in his pocket, only for Rocky to dart forward and bite his ankle. Hard. There was blood and everything. It spread over the leg of his jeans as he hopped around, cursing. When he aimed a foot in Rocky's direction, I dropped to my knees and wrapped my arms around my sweet little furball.

"Don't you dare hurt him!"

Mark Antony gritted his teeth, but then his glare softened. "You need to stop him from biting. It's rude."

Rude? Said the man who'd kidnapped me from my hotel suite.

"Strangers make him nervous. You should have brought him treats. Mr. Munch's Gourmet Doggie Delights are his favourite kind."

"I don't have any dog treats, but I did pick up a bag of kibble. His arrival was…unexpected."

Huh? So Mark Antony hadn't snatched me himself? Then how had I gotten here? He had a partner? There were two kidnappers? And why hadn't Rocky been left behind?

"I hope it's the hypoallergenic kind."

"Is that important?"

"He itches otherwise."

"I'll look the next time I go to the store."

"When will that be?"

"In a week or two."

"Can't you go sooner?" Because if Mark Antony was out getting dog food, he wouldn't be here with me.

"The nearest town is a forty-minute drive away."

Great. So we really were in the middle of freaking nowhere. Even if I could get out of this house, I'd still be stuck in the wilderness. How long did it take to die of exposure?

"Forty minutes? That's barely any time at all."

Mark Antony sighed. "Maybe once you've settled in, I could go in a couple of days."

I hoped Ryder would be here by then, but I smiled prettily. "We'd appreciate that. Can I come with you? I always like to choose my own produce."

"I think it's best that you write a grocery list instead."

"Could you bring a pen and paper?" Was it possible to stab someone with a pen? Like, in an emergency? "And that blood is making me queasy."

"Yes. Yes, of course." He waved a hand at Kacie and Michelle. "Ladies, you need to clean the floor while I'm gone."

He made me lunch. Not the others, just me, and he insisted Rocky stay behind in the weird bedchamber. Kacie promised to give him some kibble. Michelle was still annoyed at me because of the blood thing, but I'd cleaned up the vomit, and the blood wasn't even mine. Plus I was doing all the heavy lifting here. The least they could do was act supportive while I kept our abductor busy.

He'd let me off my leash, but the other women were still chained in what he called the "Egyptian wing." I knew now the place was much bigger than I'd ever imagined. A mansion in the woods. The fancy barn was joined to a giant log cabin, and that was where he was busy taking dishes out of the oven while I watched from a twelve-seat table in a dining nook at the side of the great room. Did he ever have that many guests? Or was he planning to kidnap more women as entertainment?

Michelle probably wouldn't have minded that. When Mark Antony was fiddling with the padlock around my waist, I'd asked him to release the other women too, but he'd shaken his head.

"Not at the moment." He'd nodded toward Michelle. "That one is trouble."

"If I'm trouble, let me go," she said. "You can pick out a new girl."

Yikes, that was self-centred. She thought it was fine for other people to suffer as long as she didn't? Or was she just saying that and really she'd go for help? From what I'd seen of her, it could be either option.

But Mark Antony didn't bite. "I believe in the power of redemption."

And in reincarnation, clearly.

So now here I was, eating dinner with a jerk who spoke several languages, most of them totally useless in the modern world. But at least I knew he kept a bunch of keys in his pocket.

"Do you want beer or wine?" he asked.

"I don't like beer."

"Really? You always used to. It was an Egyptian staple."

"Well, I don't like it now." And I also didn't want to get drunk. "Can't I just have water? Is it even safe to drink the water out here?"

"Of course. There's a stream nearby."

Like, open water? "What if an animal poops in there? Or dies in it?"

"We use a filtration system, dimidium."

We. As if I was a willing participant in this clown show. And he kept calling me that dimidium thing. His better half. At least he had one part right. I was better than him. Sure, I'd made mistakes, but I'd never arranged for a woman to be kidnapped from her hotel. Who was his accomplice, anyway? It had to be the woman who brought my breakfast. She'd put something in my coffee because one minute I'd been fine, and the next, I couldn't keep my eyes open.

No, not the coffee, the pastries. Those delicious pastries sprinkled with powdered sugar. Rocky must have been asleep too—he'd have whisper-barked like crazy otherwise and possibly even bitten her—and he'd begged so sweetly that I'd given him half a croissant. Heck. Ryder had warned me of that. Warned me that Mark Antony might slip a sedative into my meal, but he'd been talking about the takeout deliveries. I'd never imagined he would tamper with my food in the hotel.

"Hopefully nobody will get sick then," I said. "Is there a hospital nearby?"

"Most ailments can be treated without medical intervention, which is just as well when you look at the healthcare system in this country. The Ancient Greeks were ahead of their time when it came to natural remedies. And it was Hippocrates who came up with the concept of ‘healthy mind, healthy body.'"

Fascinating. Still, I'd rather take my chances in the hospital. And if Mark Antony avoided them, then that might explain the whole deep-seated psychosis thing.

"So you use Ancient Greek first aid?"

"I also gained some medical knowledge during my time in the Army."

Mark Antony was a soldier? Hurrah. When Ryder showed up, he'd better remember his big gun.

"Great, I feel so much safer now."

He didn't pick up on the sarcasm. No, he just poured me a glass of water from a clay jug and took a seat opposite.

"I want you to feel safe. I realise the way we met was a little unorthodox, but I care deeply for you."

At those words, I relaxed infinitesimally. If I could only stay safe, then Ryder would find me and everything would be fine.

"Why didn't you just introduce yourself like a regular person?"

"You always had people around you. I thought I'd send you a few little gifts so that when we did speak, you'd understand how much you meant to me, but then that new bodyguard showed up." Mark Antony scowled, but only for a moment. Probably because he'd gotten what he wanted in the end. "He seemed more competent than most, even slightly paranoid about keeping people away, and then Mr. Serafini implemented special security protocols. At one point, I feared we'd never meet in person."

"What made you think I was Cleopatra?"

"There was a picture of you on the TV. The name was right there in front of you."

"Huh?"

"On the yacht."

"The yacht?" But then I realised. Kory's father's yacht. The Cleopatra. Named after his fourth wife, or rather, renamed. This time last year, it had been called Mitzi. "You mean in the Caribbean?"

"Yes, the Caribbean. Exactly." Mark Antony seemed pleased that I understood. "And there was a close-up, and that was where I saw the second sign."

"The sign? What sign?"

"On your chest. You have two marks, yes?" He pointed to himself. "Here."

"Marks? You mean…moles?" Two flat little moles. Mom had considered having them removed, but the doctor said it might scar. In the end, I'd convinced her to leave them alone.

"Think of them as relics from a past life. An asp sank its fangs into you, while I have a mark on my chest from the sword I used on myself. Our love is so powerful it can never die, not completely."

In my head, the Looney Tunes theme song began to play.

"Right."

"And once I began to look, I saw so many other little hints. You look like Cleopatra. You're smart and driven, just the way she was. You had close ties with a man named Julius, and he died."

I let out a long breath. "He died less than a week ago."

"Yes, I know. But you weren't on good terms, were you? Your bodyguard insisted Julius be banned from the hotel. He said you didn't want the man anywhere near you."

"You didn't kill him, did you?"

"Of course not. Karma did the job for me. And when fate decided to act, you came back into my life at the Nile Palace. The Nile. Cleopatra's old stomping ground."

"What if I'd taken a job at the Black Diamond or the Nebula?"

"But you didn't, did you? Don't you understand? This was meant to be. Tell me you don't feel it too?"

I could easily tell him that if I thought it wouldn't make him angry.

"I guess I always felt kinda lost, but I didn't know what to do about it until you started sending me notes."

And then I'd known precisely what to do—call Ryder and cry on his voicemail. But it had all worked out perfectly in the end, at least until this schmuck hired someone to feed me poisoned pastries.

"I understand how that feels. Even though the signs were there in my life too, I didn't know how to interpret them at first." He gave a sudden smile. "The woman who raised me used to call me her little Mark Antony, but I didn't realise for years that she meant it literally. I'm not sure even she did."

"Then why did she call you that?"

"Because Mark Antony was quite the charmer with the ladies, and so am I."

He looked at me expectantly.

"Yes, absolutely."

Absolutely not. Thanks to the knot of fear in my stomach, I hadn't touched the bread, oil, and olives set out between us, but I was still chewing over his words. Earlier, he'd told me I looked like Cleopatra, and every ancient essayist—the gossip columnists of their time—said that she was ugly. Okay, not in those exact words, but they said she was smart and charismatic and glossed over the actual physical part. Mark Antony definitely wasn't charming.

Although I had to admit he had good taste. I mean, not only had he chosen me as his victim, but this ski chalet of a prison was actually pretty nice. Had he picked out the decor himself? A stone fireplace was the focal point of the great room, with a cluster of brown leather couches set around a glass coffee table in front. Every surface seemed to have some kind of antiquity on it, and there were more on the walls. Masks, paintings… Someone had either travelled a lot or bought half of eBay.

"Why do you think I look like Cleopatra? I saw pictures of coins with her face on them, and…well, I don't think we look alike."

He popped an olive into his mouth and fished a phone out of his pocket. After a moment of scrolling, he slid it over to me. The urge to call 911 was almost irresistible, but would they understand what was happening? Ryder would cotton on in an instant—he'd hear me talking and trace the call—but I didn't know his number by heart. He'd typed it into my phone months ago, and whenever I wanted to call him, I just went to my recents and tapped his name. Perhaps I should try— Oh. There was no signal, so it didn't matter anyway. How did he live like this?

"That's us as we once were," he said.

It was a picture of two gleaming gold busts on stone pillars, one male, one female, in front of a wall covered in hieroglyphics. Antony and Cleopatra? I hadn't seen this photo in any of my googling.

"Is this photoshopped?"

He chuckled softly. "No, it's our tomb."

"Huh? But nobody ever found that. I looked it up."

"You won't find the details in any history book. A few hours after it was discovered, it was sealed up again."

"Why? Why would somebody do that?"

"Because our former earthly forms are guarded by the gods. Anubis, Isis, Nephthys. The four sons of Horus. The entrance was marked with a curse. Any man who enters into this tomb will be judged by the Great God. He will lose his earthly wealth, his flesh will be seized by fire, and his bones will become dust."

"Isn't that just hokum?"

"Two people entered the tomb. One of them died there."

I shuddered. "And the other?"

"She died in a fire three years later. It was so intense that her bones crumbled when the emergency services tried to recover them."

"Wow. I mean, how do you know that?"

"Because she was the closest thing I had to a mother."