Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 109878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Before I can answer, my phone buzzes with a text from Wren: She’s awake.
Chapter Eight
Saylor
Someone is humming Beethoven, and it’s pissing me off.
The melody drifts through my skull like smoke, each note stabbing directly into the base of my brain, where a headache is throwing its own personal rave. My mouth tastes like I’ve been licking the inside of a chemistry lab, and every inch of my body feels like it’s been wrung out and hung up to dry.
I’m folded into something that smells of lavender and old leather, my knees pressed against my chest in what I slowly realize is the same steamer chest from the safe house. Except now it’s sitting in a room that looks like Versailles had a baby with a haunted mansion.
Everything screams wealth and old-world elegance. Deep sapphire velvet curtains hang from ceiling to floor, their fabric so rich it seems to absorb light. The walls are covered in damask wallpaper the color of dried blood, interrupted by oil paintings in heavy gold frames—aristocratic faces with pinched expressions that look like they’re judging my life choices. A four-poster bed dominates the space, its carved mahogany posts twisted into spirals that reach toward a ceiling painted with cherubs and clouds.
“There we are, honey. Easy now.”
A plump woman is helping me unfold from the chest as if this isn’t her first time extracting a confused person from antique luggage. She’s maybe sixty, with steel-gray hair pulled back in a bun so tight it could cut glass. Her black dress is perfectly pressed, her white apron spotless, and her bearing carries a maternal authority that makes you want to confess sins you haven’t even committed yet.
“Wren,” she introduces herself, steadying me as I try to climb out of what I’m now thinking of as my temporary coffin. “Welcome to Maison Rouge.”
I step onto the marble floor, my heels clicking against the polished stone. I’m still wearing the same green dress I wore while singing, now wrinkled and reeking of chemicals, lavender, and the rank smell of that filthy couch from the last house.
“Where am I?” I sound like I’ve been gargling with broken glass.
“Blue’s estate in Grimlock. You’re safe here.” Wren moves to a massive mahogany armoire and pulls out a simple sundress. “Let’s get you out of those clothes and into something more comfortable.”
“Safe?” The word comes out strangled. My brain is still catching up, memories filtering through the chemical haze. Years of hiding, and then they found me. Blue rescuing me from the safe house. Men with dead eyes in Crowshaven. Blood splattered across the walls. “He drugged me. He put me in a trunk.”
“Yes. The travel arrangements were rather unconventional.” Wren speaks with the same tone she might use to comment on the weather. “But you’re here now, and that’s what matters.”
The casual way she dismisses my kidnapping makes my stomach lurch. Either this woman is completely insane, or this sort of thing happens here on a regular basis.
“I need to leave. Right now.” I push past her toward what I hope is a door leading out, but the room tilts sideways and I have to grab the bedpost to keep from falling.
“I’m afraid that’s not advisable in your current condition. The chloroform needs time to clear your system completely.” Wren sets the dress on the bed with infuriating calm. “Blue has instructed me to ensure you’re properly cared for.”
“Blue can go fuck himself.”
Wren’s eyebrows rise slightly, but her face doesn’t change. “I’ll be sure to pass along your sentiments.”
Anger cuts through the remaining fog in my brain with startling clarity. This isn’t just about being kidnapped—although that’s bad enough. It’s the presumption, the casual dismissal of my choices, the way everyone seems to think they know what’s best for me better than I do.
I straighten up, ignoring the way the room sways. “I’m leaving.”
“Are you?”
The condescending tone in her question makes me want to scream. Instead, I head for the door—massive and made of dark wood with iron hinges that look like they belong in a medieval castle.
Wren doesn’t try to stop me. She just watches with the patience of someone who’s seen this movie before and knows exactly how it ends.
The door opens into a hallway that stretches in both directions, its length disappearing into shadows. The walls are paneled in dark wood, broken up by alcoves holding marble statues and ornate candelabras. The ceiling arches high overhead, supported by carved beams that create pockets of darkness between pools of warm light.
I choose left arbitrarily and start walking on the Persian runner that stretches down the center of the hall. Every few feet, I pass doorways—some open to reveal rooms draped in dust covers, others closed with heavy doors that could hide anything.
The hallway ends at a balcony overlooking what has to be the most dramatic staircase I’ve ever seen. It spirals down through the center of the house in a graceful curve, its wrought-iron banister twisted into patterns of thorns and roses. The steps are white marble veined with gold, and they seem to go down forever.