Diamonds in the Dust (Diamonds are Forever Trilogy 1)

“Coffee?” Maxime asks, pulling my attention to him after the waiter has cleared our dessert plates. “Or maybe tea?”

“No, thank you.”

“Did you like the tiramisu?”

I look at him. I don’t answer, because I really don’t know.

His mouth tightens. “Zoe.”

“Yes.”

He smiles. “Good.” Getting up, he holds out a hand. “Come.”

Outside, he stops at the flower market to buy a huge bouquet of pink roses. They really are pretty and smell divine. I expect him to take more photos with the flowers as another one of his props, but he seems to be done with the photos. Benoit carries the flowers while Maxime helps me into a gondola. The oarsman speaks to Maxime in Italian. I’m not sure what they say, but Maxime is fluent in the language.

The oarsman steers us down the canal, under bridges and archways, singing passionate songs of love while I sit next to Maxime with a blanket draped over our legs. He’s holding my hand as if we are lovers and not as if he has a gun tucked in his waistband under his jacket and his two guards aren’t following in their own gondola a short distance behind.

Around the bend, the oarsman stops for us to admire the sunset. It’s chilly, and I’m grateful when we finally get off and start making our way back to the hotel. My legs are tired, and I want to crawl into bed and curl into a ball, hiding from him, from myself, and most of all from the next four years.

We stop on the square. It’s not until Maxime frames my face between his broad palms that I notice Gautier and Benoit have fallen slightly behind, giving us space.

“Zoe.” Just from the way my name is a sigh on his lips I know what’s to follow is going to be heavy. “Did you have fun today?”

I return from whatever spell I’d been in, my consciousness being thrown back into the moment. Like when he grabbed me in the lobby of my apartment block, my senses become heightened and my awareness sharp. Instinctively, I sense this is important, that the moment has detrimental effects on my wellbeing.

I nod, because I don’t want to displease him.

“Good.” He smiles, rubbing his thumbs over my cheeks. “Now use your words.”

“Yes.” Belatedly, I add, “Thank you.”

“I want you to listen very carefully to me,” he continues. “Remember what I said about choices?”

I nod again, my anxiety mounting.

“I’m going to give you one, maybe the most important one you’ll ever make, and I want you to think carefully. I want you to make it wisely. Understand?” He shakes me a little when I don’t answer. “Do you understand?”

I don’t, but the word he expects slips from my lips. “Yes.”

Letting me go, he takes a step back. For a moment, he hesitates, but then he takes my hand and leads me toward an alley. He’s walking so fast I have to run to keep up, and by the time we enter a dark, narrow, passageway, he’s almost dragging me behind him.

“Maxime.” I pull on his hand, trying to get him to slow down, but he won’t look at me.

We follow another passageway, this one even narrower, that cuts toward the canal. Under a bridge, we take a staircase that descends to a level below the buildings. The staircase is cold and moldy, the stone walls wet. It leads to a room that seems to be under the water level, maybe an old part of a house before the foundations of the city sank below the sea.

“What is this?” I ask, blinking for my eyes to adjust.

The only light comes from a ventilation hole with an iron grid high up on the wall, just below the ceiling.

Maxime turns to look at me, his eyes flat and emotionless in the dusky interior. He pulls me closer, flush against his body, and folds my arms behind my back. Something clips around my wrists.

“Maxime,” I cry out on a whisper.

He slams my back against the wall and takes something from his pocket. I watch in horror as he peels away the backing of a piece of duct tape.

“Maxime! What are you—?”

He seals my lips with the tape, pressing so hard my head knocks against one of the stone bricks. Stars explode behind my eyelids. I shake my head, trying to clear my vision, and when I open my eyes again, I’m just in time to see him fling an iron gate shut, and then a heavy wooden door.

Chapter 5

Zoe

Semi-darkness folds around me with the turn of the key. Running to the door, I slam a shoulder against it. The only noises I can get out are panicked mm’s. All I get in return is Maxime’s retreating footsteps. His heels clack on the stairs, then farther overhead, and finally nothing.

Silence.

I sag against the wall, shaking from head to toe. I can’t believe he did this. I can’t believe he left me here. Alone. But why is that so hard to believe? He’s cruel, not kind.