“My sister…” I knew I couldn’t ask him for anything, not after everything he’d already done for me. I should just be grateful I’d escaped. Melanie got us into this mess in the first place, so it was entirely her fault. But her mistake didn’t deserve an eternal punishment. She didn’t deserve to belong to someone else, to be an animal in a cage. “Please.”
“How dare you ask me that, after everything I sacrificed for you.” He stared me down coldly, no longer looking at me the way he used to, like there was always a subtle hint of affection behind his cold stare. But that whisper of warmth was nowhere to be found.
“She’s my sister. I can’t just go back to life and forget about her.”
“You’re going to have to.”
“Please—”
“No.” He raised his voice, the sound reverberating off the walls. “Don’t ask me again.”
20
Paris
We left the chateau on horseback.
I sat behind him on Rose, and we made the trek down the path, moving through the countryside in a direction only he seemed to know. We hadn’t said much to each other after our contentious conversation the night before.
My feelings toward him were conflicted. On the one hand, he was the man who saved me, he was the man who risked everything to get me out of there, who had goodness inside his soul when the others didn’t. But on the other hand, he wouldn’t do more than that. He would return to that cabin like nothing happened.
After a few hours in the countryside, we approached a small house. It was a single story, almost like a shack, and it had a small stable there. There was a garage, where his car must be hidden. He put Rose in the stable then grabbed his backpack.
I stared at her, knowing I would never see her again. “Thanks for everything, Rose…” I stood in front of her and rubbed her snout, let her lick my face like she knew this was goodbye. It was hard to turn away, but I managed to do it.
How did I become so attached to something I barely knew?
Magnus watched me, his eyes kind, his human side coming out for the first time since he’d arrived at the chateau. “She’s in good hands.”
I looked up at him and gave a slight nod.
He walked ahead, passed the front of the house, and then opened the garage.
Inside was a black Bugatti.
I stilled at the sight of it.
He wasn’t just some guard at the camp.
This guy had money—lots of it.
He pulled out a piece of fabric from his backpack then walked toward me while holding it up.
I stepped back. “Whoa, what are you doing?”
“Blindfolding you.”
“Why?”
His eyes narrowed in annoyance. “You can’t know the way.”
I didn’t want to sit in the car for hours without seeing anything, but he was right. That was exactly what I would do.
“It’s nonnegotiable.”
I didn’t want to return to the camp, so I stepped closer to him and sighed.
He secured it around my face, making the material fall all the way to my nose so there was no chance I could get a peek of anything. Then he guided me to the passenger door.
“You don’t think people are gonna call the police when these see a woman in the passenger seat blindfolded?” I reached for my safety belt and struggled to lock it into place. It took a couple tries before it clicked.
“Tinted windows.” He shut the door.
After the car came on, he pulled out of the driveway and then headed to the main road. Then we started the drive, the car smooth, like we were flying instead of driving down a country road. I was excited to go back home, but I also felt empty at the same time.
Hours passed, and nothing was said.
He didn’t turn on the radio or make conversation.
I couldn’t believe I was sitting in a car with my former guard, taking a drive. The car didn’t make a single stop in that amount of time, so I knew we were far in the middle of nowhere, taking backroads through vast amounts of nothingness.
“Is that chateau yours?”
“Did you see anyone else there?”
I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see me. I felt my eyelashes rub against the material covering my face. “It just looks like it’s fallen into ruin. A lot of things don’t work, and a whole exterior of it doesn’t seem to be cared for. So, did you just decide to squat in it?”
“Squat?”
“When you move in to an abandoned residence and make it yours.”
“No…not a squatter.”
“Then why did you buy it? You own a Bugatti, so you can afford something up to date.”
“I didn’t buy it.”
“Then…you stole it?”
“Family heirloom.”
“You inherited it?”
He didn’t say anything.
“How do you inherit something like that? Isn’t that something that belongs to old, aristocratic families?” There was no way he fit the bill, because he wouldn’t work at a labor camp processing and distributing drugs if that were the case.