“Tomorrow’s the future,” he said. “The future is the only thing we should be concerned with. Anything could change before then.”
The future, she wasn’t sure she had one of those. She was relying on catching a ride with a stranger, but if what Bella had said was right, the men around here were Exile’s puppets. Except that didn’t mean she was safe around them.
Whether it was right or not, Exile had shown real commitment to his ex by staffing her crusade. “Are you in love with her?” Rora asked, terrified of what the answer might be.
Yes, it turned out that she did have one fear when she was with him. But it wasn’t fear for her life, it was fear of what he might do to her heart.
“No,” he murmured. “No, Kero, I’m not in love with her.”
“You never told me why,” she said, opening her hands to press them against him, but the pressure of her palms only tightened the grip of his arm around her neck. He kept her like this, her knees buckled, her head tipped back, her lips just a breath beneath his. “Why did you call me Kero?”
“You called me your flame the night you first tried threatening me,” he said. “The first time I tasted your lips.”
For all the fraction of a second that lasted. “So? I—”
“It’s short for kerosene. Kerosene ignites a flame,” he murmured, letting his lips sink a fraction lower so that they moved on hers as he spoke. “Seeing you on the ground behind that gas station… You’ve never been afraid of me, but you were afraid of them… I don’t get it. What do you want me to be, Aurora? What is it that you think you see?”
“I don’t think it, Strike. I know I see it.”
“You’re naïve,” he whispered, but closed his eyes to kiss her again.
“And you’re stubborn,” she said, scrunching his tee-shirt and giving him a tug though there was nowhere he could go, he was as close to her as he could get. “If I get on that plane tomorrow, will I ever see you again?”
“No,” he said. “But you are getting on that plane tomorrow, whether you like it or not. Conscious or not.”
Knowing that their association was coming to an end was probably the only reason that he was being this open with her. Not that she could be sure that any of this was true.
“You remember how I asked who’d come for you if you were in trouble?” she asked, and he brushed his lips over hers without responding. “I’d come for you.”
“You won’t.”
There was no sorrow in his words, but his doubt strengthened her. “I’m your homing pigeon, remember? If hell is your home, then it’s mine too. I’m drawn to you, Flame.”
“Just the right amount of corruptible,” he grumbled.
“I’ve broken another,” she admitted and smiled, rising onto her tiptoes. “I worship a new idol. You, Strike, are my one and only Lord.”
Opening her mouth, for the first time, she was allowed to kiss him. He didn’t push her away, didn’t refuse her tongue when it slid over his lip to meet his. He smudged the warmth of his own against hers. She hummed with pleasure, keeping her squashed bent elbows close together against his chest while she fingered his jaw to tempt his mouth lower, begging it to stay longer.
“Will you pray for me, baby?” he asked, tracing his lips up over her nose. “Pray for my eternal soul?” She shook her head and he blinked. “No?”
Grabbing her lower lip between his teeth, he growled at her, making her laugh.
“Because I don’t want anyone else to take it or judge it,” she said. “I want it, Strike. I want your soul and I’m not beyond stealing it if I have to.”
“Naughty,” he said. “But you don’t have to break any of your commandments for me, Cupcake. My soul, my spirit, my conscience, my decency, they’ve been dormant so long, I don’t need ‘em. You can have them all.”
“For a price?”
“Yeah,” he said. She arched a questioning brow. “Don’t ever stop fighting. You keep that chin up.”
Elevating her chin now meant kissing him again, but there was no time to enjoy it or to wonder where this new side of Strike might lead them because a sound at the other end of the hallway made him turn away, taking his lips from hers.
Following his line of sight, she saw Benjamin at the other end of the hallway. With the flanking pillars in the way, it didn’t look like he’d seen the couple. Benjamin went into a different room without acknowledging them in any way.
She didn’t expect Strike to back off, but he took her hand and tugged her away from the wall. “Go,” he said, looking at the door Benjamin had used. “Bella will be about done; I’ll hold her off if I have to.”
“Done with what?” she asked.
“The guy with his pants down, she was fucking him,” he said. “She can’t see a cock without riding it.”
Of course he knew her habits, and how long it would take her to reach climax. “Oh… ok.”
Strike nudged her down the hallway. “Hurry, if you want to talk to him, this might be your only chance.”
“Strike…”
Taking her hips, he spun her around and swatted her ass to get her moving. “Go,” he said and turned his back on her to walk the opposite way down the hallway.
She hoped his way of holding Bella off didn’t include doing what the pants dropster did. Grabbing her lip in her teeth, she spun around and made a beeline for the door Benjamin had used. She had no idea what kind of room she was walking into or if there might be anyone in there. But Strike had implied—if he was the type of guy to imply things—that Bella was the only one they had to worry about. With her in the breakfast room, Rora had a clear shot.
Entering before she could psyche herself out of taking the risk, Rora found herself in a large room much like the one on the floor above that she’d woken in yesterday. This room had darker décor, more furniture, and was homelier, but there was no sign of Benjamin, or anyone.
The terrace doors were open and she went to them to find Benjamin seated at a table in the middle of the curved space that had to be twenty-five feet across.
“Benjamin,” she said and went outside.
Leaping to his feet, he didn’t seem as jovial today as he had last night. “Aurora,” he said, looking left then right. “What are you doing out here?”
“We don’t have a lot of time,” she said, glancing over her shoulder to check that no one had followed her.
“No, you have to go,” he said, rushing to her to grab her elbow. “Go back to wherever you’re supposed to be.”
“No,” she said, pulling her arm away from his grip. “We have a few minutes alone. We have to take advantage of that.”
“If they catch us talking without Jewel’s authority—”
“She’s with Exile,” Rora said.
Benjamin was already shaking his head. He grabbed both her elbows. “I’m sorry I got you into this, Rora, I really am,” he said. “For weeks, I was kept in a hole, and they kept asking over and over, the same question.”
“What’s the point?” she said.
His expression slackened. “Yes,” he breathed out and grabbed her tighter. “Yes. Exactly. She asked you too?”
Rora nodded. “She’s not the only one.”
“You can’t tell her,” he said. “You can’t tell the Black Jewel anything. You can’t tell anyone.”
Pulling away from his grip, she went past him, heading across the terrace toward the snow. “You should’ve destroyed it when you had the chance.”
“I tried,” he said. Turning to lean on the wooden railing at the edge of the terrace, Rora folded her arms. He ran a hand over his hair. “I did.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
Coming to her, he opened his hands, beseeching her. “You don’t understand, Ro. Asking me to destroy every trace would be like asking me to murder my child. It’s my magnum opus.”
“It doesn’t work to its full potential.”
He seized her shoulder. “And that’s why she needs Exile. He’ll fix it if he
gets his hands on it.”
Benjamin seemed to be clinging to optimism, but Rora was more realistic. “He wouldn’t give it to her.”
“You don’t know that,” he said. “You can’t trust him. We can’t trust either of them.”
If Benjamin knew what kind of woman Bella was, it made no sense to her why he’d choose to share himself with her. “You slept with her,” she said, though why she had blurted that out, Rora had no idea.
Who he slept with was his business. But to sleep with the person responsible for your capture and torture was fathomless.
“You slept with him.”
Looking to the decking just behind Benjamin, Rora warred with herself. Confessing the truth that she hadn’t actually had sex with Strike would contradict what Strike had led the others to believe. Because she wasn’t exactly sure why he was doing that, she didn’t want to betray him by correcting Benjamin.
She also couldn’t deny her feelings for Strike or her willingness to be intimate with him. It might never happen, they may never have the opportunity to consummate their feelings, but if she did get the chance, she’d take it.
Not that Strike had directly admitted to having any desire to be with her. But it seemed pedantic for her to reject the accusation of sleeping with the man when she had every intention of doing it if they found themselves alone.
“Exile isn’t like her,” she murmured.
“You don’t know what either of them are like,” he said. “They manipulate people, that’s what they do, all of them. This is… it’s a world without morals or loyalty. She tortured me, had her men do horrific things to me, for weeks. I begged for death, Rora, begged for it. She chained me up, whipped me, starved me…”
Her chin wobbled, she’d been right about his pain, about his horrific treatment. “Oh, Benjamin,” she said, looping her arms around him to hold him. “I’m so sorry.”
“All the time, always, over and over she asked me the same question.”
“What’s the point?” she said, burying her face against him though she couldn’t stop the tears. “Why didn’t you tell her? You could’ve told her and saved yourself.”
He held her close. “No, she would’ve killed me as soon as she had it. I couldn’t re-write it, it’s been months, and you know what my memory is like, especially under pressure. I’ve been trying to hold her off. I couldn’t tell her what, or where, it was, but she wants it… She wants it bad and as she got more frustrated with me, the torture got worse.”
“What changed?” she asked, looking up at him. “Why did she let you free?”
“She wanted Exile; I overheard her talking about it. I’d already told her that my work wasn’t enough, so she knew we needed him. I convinced her we could get him here… that you could get him here. All you would need was a crumb and you’d find a way to track him down… and I was right, you did it… I’m amazed.”
Anger tensed her. Benjamin had a heart of gold—she couldn’t believe that he’d changed so much in six months, no matter what he’d endured.
“We’re not trading his life for ours,” she said.
His next statement shocked her. “Why not? Who cares about him?” Benjamin asked, cupping her face and crouching to her eye level. “We need to get away from here. You don’t know what it’s like, what she’s like.”
“I care,” she said, pulling his hands from her face. “And you can’t think she’ll let us leave here. The Black Jewel won’t allow us to leave without answering her question.”
“We can’t,” he said. “I prayed that Exile would come here and she’d see that he could do so much for her that she might be satisfied. I had no idea they had a previous relationship. You have to believe me. I thought he would be enough, that maybe she’d forget everything else. You can’t tell her. Do you hear me? You can’t tell her, him, no one… You haven’t… said anything about it, have you?”
Thinking about the hallway, just a few minutes ago where she had almost told Strike, Rora couldn’t deny that she would have told him if he hadn’t cut her off with that kiss. When they’d been fighting in the motel he’d broken her heart by asking the question. He might just have mended it by preventing her from making a mistake he’d somehow known she’d regret.
“No,” she said, but didn’t exactly feel proud of that right now. “But how do you expect us to get out of this if we won’t give them something? The Black Jewel holds all the cards. You were desperate when you told her I’d find Exile. You bought yourself time, I understand that. But now we’re all here, she’ll want the truth, and if we don’t give it to her…”
As sorrowful as he looked, Benjamin didn’t retreat from his position. “We can’t, Aurora. You and I are the only two people in the world who can answer their questions. You have access to everything, absolutely everything. Whether I brought you here or not, you’d always have been at risk because… I will sacrifice myself for this secret. You have to make your decision, be willing to sacrifice yourself or endure their torture. The third option is unimaginable. If either one of us gives them what they want, they will own the world.” Her gaze was drifting again and to get it back, he captured her face in both hands again. “You remember what I told you. Don’t you?”
She nodded, recalling every conversation they’d ever had. But that didn’t mean she was ready to give up. There was another option.
“I can destroy it,” she said.
Frustrated, he exhaled, and shook his head. “You can’t. You don’t understand. There’s no way that they won’t be able to retrieve it. They have skills, technology. Exile has access to resources you can’t even imagine. He has skills that you wouldn’t believe… Their eyes will be on you now. Wherever you go, they’ll find you. They’ll follow you. You’ll lead them right to it.”
She knew something about Exile’s skills, and about his connections, she’d met the NSA for goodness sake. “I can talk to him,” she said to herself, but Benjamin gave her a shake.
“You can’t trust him.”
“I know,” she said. “He told me not to. But I don’t see what else we can do.”
“For now, we play along,” he said. “You promise me you’ll never breathe a word. Promise me, Ro.” She nodded. “Until she asks for it, we have time to think of something else. But if we don’t come up with a plan B, you know what we have to do, right?”
The resolve in his eyes was humbling and terrifying at the same time. She nodded once and he reciprocated. Without a plan B, there was only one course of action to ensure success and to save the world.
fifteen
The lodge wasn’t large, two floors with some additional space in the attic and basement. Rora imagined it would be a beautiful place to spend some time, if the company was better.
Before sneaking off the terrace, Benjamin told her how to get to the library, explaining that it was one of the few rooms he was allowed in. Working on the assumption that if he was allowed in there, she would be too, Rora used the space to regroup.
There were no phones lying around anywhere or computers outside the office he was required to work in. While telling her that, Benjamin didn’t reference Opal, but he probably assumed Exile was exempt from Bella’s rules, which may be why Benjamin assumed he couldn’t be trusted.
Lunch was brought to her in the library, but she ignored it and spent most of the day gazing out of the window at the falling snow, trying to come up with a strategy.
Plan B.
She understood Benjamin’s desire to protect the secret at any cost. It just wasn’t one she’d considered paying. Strike had told her that he took risks based on assumptions. Until now, she hadn’t realized that was what she’d done too. Rora had assumed that Benjamin would do nothing to hurt her and that Strike’s role in this was as facilitator to get her to where she needed to be. Turned out, neither of those things were true.
Benjamin hadn’t meant to hurt her by revealing the secret to her. She’d worked with him for a long time and knew a lot about his work. She did
n’t understand much about it, and some of it was gobbledygook, but Strike would understand it. Except Benjamin was sure the hacker was untrustworthy, and Strike himself had told her not to trust him.
Bella loved games. Maybe that’s what this was, a game. Rora didn’t know what to believe of Strike or what was in his heart. If he cared for her, her perspective on trusting him would be clearer. But he could spin on a dime. One minute, she was sure he saw her, and the next, she felt like nothing more than a tool for him to wield.
Benjamin had been in such pain that he’d been willing to do anything to save himself. Some part of him believed she’d be his saving grace, even if it was just to offer him some comfort for a while, and she had. But now she was here, the timer was back on and the onus was on her to figure a way out.
Without any clear idea of what they could do to get out of here and protect the secret, she was still considering options when she went upstairs to the bedroom she’d shared with Bella and Strike the previous night.
Strike had always made it clear that survival was everyone’s primary mission and no one should focus on the past. Benjamin had told her that any sacrifice was worth it to protect the secret. Both men, in their own way, had told her what she needed to do.
Knowing that Bella would want to change her clothes before their main meal like she had last night when she’d gone to some effort to dress for dinner, Rora had chosen this position to intercept the hostess.
When the bedroom door opened and Bella came gliding into the room, Rora was resolved. “Aurora!” Bella declared, closing the door and opening her arms. “My duckie!”
Rora rose from the seat at the end of the bed and smiled. “Hello,” she said. “I haven’t seen you all day.”
Bella pouted. “No, I’m sorry, I had men to keep in line. You know what they’re like, dirty animals who’d be lost without their mistress.”
Crossing to her, Bella gathered her into her arms and held her close. “You… you feel good.”
Bella seemed to freeze and then she relaxed to draw Rora back down onto the seat. “Duckie,” she said, stroking her face. “How could I forget… we were interrupted at breakfast.” Pushing out her lower lip, she simpered. “My darling, have I neglected you today?”
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