Chapter 40

Chapter Forty

Charlotte Mitchell

W hat the fuck is he talking about? Better yet, who is he talking to?

I try to swivel to get a look behind me, but the way I’m chained leaves no room for movement.

“Leave,” a familiar timbered voice says.

All this time, someone was behind me? But that’s not what makes my heart stop. It’s the voice, one I haven’t heard in a few weeks. One I believed dead.

Miles gives me a sympathetic expression, and Anya smiles at me, and together, they stand. The side of a man comes into view, and Miles passes him a knife I hadn’t seen him bring in. And then they’re gone, the door shutting softly behind them.

That cologne? The one I smelled before I was knocked out? It stuffs its way up my nose, the very same cologne I used to give him for Christmas. The very same brand that is sitting in a box on Nix’s counter.

For a second, all I hear is our breathing, mine fast and his even. And then he fully turns to face me. It feels like an eternity for him to squat before me. That brown hair, that smattering of freckles, and those glasses? “Nathan.” I choke on the word.

Gently, he moves a piece of hair that I hadn’t realized had been stuck to my eyelashes. “Hey.”

“You’re –” I gulp the emotion bubbling up in my chest because what I now believe can’t be true. “You’re not dead?”

He shakes his head and then finally meets my gaze. “I’m not dead.”

“But – wait – how?”

“I have friends in high places. They helped me stage my death.”

“Why?” I force out as a tear travels from my eye and gathers at my eyebrow.

He lifts his shoulders and lets them fall. “The old boss was going out, and he asked me to take his place.”

My heart skips a beat. My sweet Nathan? He . . . he’s the boss? He runs this bullshit, sick, and sadistic show? “Who the fuck are you?” I whisper angrily.

“It wasn’t that hard,” he whispers back but in a kinder way. He reaches to touch me, and I growl hard enough that he drops his hand. “When I first found out what was going on, I was forced to keep it a secret or I’d die.” He scowls and casts a far-away look in his eyes. “Sometime over the course of me being their accountant, it became a normal thing, knowing what was happening. And then the more I got into the business, the more I learned about it, the better I was paid. And then it became my life.”

“You kept this from me? ”

His far-away look sharpens as he brings me back into focus. “I tried to keep you away from it. I put distance between us so that you’d never know what was going on. So that you’d never be pulled into it.”

“And now you’re the asshole that has men and women raped on the daily, dead or alive.”

He shrugs. “It’s just business. It pays well, so I’m happy. Besides, you can’t be that heartbroken about it since you’ve been fucking Feenix Blaylock.”

“Fuck you,” I spit.

He shakes his head slowly. “It appears that neither one of us really knew the other, now, doesn’t it, Charlie? Or should I call you Her now?”

“If you wanted to keep me from this life, why didn’t you pull the plug when you first saw me on screen?”

“Everything is about money.”

“Of course.”

“You brought in quite a bit of it, and call me curious; I wanted to see where this would go.”

“No, you wanted to see how much I’d make you.”

He chews on the inside of his lip for a moment, and for that split second, I see the old Nathan. “I think, on some level, I knew this day would come. That someone would be willing to pay more than I’d ever imagined. And then you got too close. You’re too smart, and with the offer and the fact that you’re about to blow this business to pieces, you left me with no choice.”

“So now what?” I hiss. “I die?”

He leans a little to his right and points a thumb behind him. I look and find a camera there, angled at me. “Yes, and they want to watch you die first.”

“Before they fuck me.”

“Precisely. All I have to do is turn on the camera. ”

“God, I hate you,” I growl out, fighting against my chains. “I hate you so much!”

He twists his lips to the side and says, “Funny how you became a cop to save people, and now you’re the one who needs saving.”

And then he brings the knife to one of my wrists and cuts. I scream out at the fresh pain, and before I can gasp my next breath, he’s slitting the other.