“This is Sophie Pierce. You have heard of plastic surgery, haven’t you, Christo? Well, Sophie here has, and she used it to reinvent herself, with the help of a billionaire friend…”
“Alex…” Christo hissed the name. “He’s been against me all this time. Plotting. Scheming…”
“Maybe yes, and maybe no, and to be honest, I don't care. Alex Roth is a problem for another time. And I've just blown Sophie’s cover, haven’t I.”
Sophie nodded. He had just blown her cover. He’d taken every sacrifice she’d made and made them irrelevant. The pain of surgery. The pain of recovery. The pain of having to learn an entire language, or at least, most of it.
She very much hated this man who called himself a color. Indigo. Fucking ridiculous.
“Thanks very much for that, by the way," she said, her tone dripping with all the sarcasm she could muster.
“You’re welcome. You see, no matter how much you may look like a queen currently, the problem is you’re essentially, at your core, nothing more than a pawn. Or maybe a rook. Regardless, I’m taking you off the board. Come. Now.”
Chapter 22
It had been a mistake to let Christo take Sophie out of his sight, but the moment they went to get a drink, Alex had been accosted by a string of people needing his attention. Precious seconds had been lost.
He had no intention of letting Christo get his hands on Sophie, but how much trouble could they really get into inside five minutes?
“Where's Christo?”
"Where's Christo!?”
“Where's Christo!”
He asked the question until someone pointed him to one of the private tete-a-tete rooms down the hall. Alan burst through each one of the doors one by one, interrupting multiple tawdry interludes, until he found the right one.
“There you are!”
He would have beat the hell out of Christo, but someone had gotten to it first. Christo was bloodied, bound, and gagged on the bed. There was no sign of Sophie whatsoever.
Alex yanked the gag out of Christo’s mouth and backhanded him across the face, just in case Christo thought they were still friends and he was being rescued.
“Where the fuck did she go?”
“Indigo took her.”
“INDIGO!? Why the fuck would Indigo take her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he plans to give her extensive plastic surgery and hide her in plain sight,” Christo said with narrowed eyes and a tone dripping with poisonous sarcasm. “You fucked me, Alex.”
So she had been abducted, and her cover had been blown. Jesus Christ. What a complete and utter clusterfuck. He had no idea how things had gone so wrong the second she was out of his sight, but he knew it was his fault for letting it happen. He’d put social graces over keeping her on a short leash.
“I saved her. Or at least, I tried to.”
“If you wanted to save her, you should have kept her as far away from us as possible. I don’t know what the fuck you were thinking, Alex. But she’s gone. And when Indigo takes something, he doesn’t give it back.”
Alex called Indigo.
He didn't expect the man to answer.
But he did.
“Alex! How are you?” Indigo’s tone was casual and friendly, as if nothing of note had happened.
“Give her back.”
“No. I’m not going to do that.”
“She’s useless. She doesn’t know anything.”
“She’s not useless. You care about her, Alex. And because you care about her, she has several billion dollars’ worth of obvious value, and much more secondary value as well. I intend to keep her. And if you want her back, you will do as I say. In many, many things. Don’t worry. She’ll be well cared for. As long as you do as you’re told.”
The call disconnected. Alex was left seething with furious rage. Fucking Indigo. That fucking asshole. He’d gone too far this time.
“Alex,” Christo said, wiping blood from his chin. “You’re fired.”
Chapter 23
“So you’re using me like a tradable item,” Sophie said as Alex disconnected the call. He was sitting next to her in the back of a vehicle which was speeding through the streets of NYC. She got flashes of neon through the tinted windows from time to time.
“I am,” he replied without shame.
“But Mr. Indigo…”
“Not Mr. Indigo. Just Indigo.”
“That’s a weird name. What color is Indigo? Is it red? It sounds red.”
“It’s a blue color which can be mistaken for purple.”
“There’s probably some significance there I’m missing, I bet.”
“I bet too,” Indigo agreed, a slight smirk on his face.
“So you might kill me, though?” She was trying to keep calm. So far, the conversation was proceeding without obvious malice, so she had some reason to survive it.
“I wouldn’t like to have to do that. Frankly, it would be a waste. You’re much, much more useful to me alive. I understand you’ve developed a taste for punishment and pain, two things I am very capable of providing myself if the need should arise.”