“Pierce your belly button?” I stare at her.

She elbows Knox, cheeks flushing.

“Uh-Oh. You didn’t know that?” He grins at me. “Forget I said anything.”

“Piercing your skin is off the table, Teal,” I tell her in my stern voice.

They still suffer trauma from sharp objects, Teal more than Knox. She puts on a brave façade, but I won’t let her go on with that idea.

“Screw you, Knox.” She glares at him and he merely lifts a shoulder.

“Where’s Elsa?” I ask her. “We need to tell her about your decision.”

“Ah, she went out yesterday evening.” Knox offers.

“Went out?” I thought she was in her room all this time. That’s why I didn’t want to disturb her.

“Aiden King took her away in his car.” Knox waggles his brows. “I saw them when I was flirting with the neighbour. Eh, I mean greeting the neighbour.”

Aiden King took her.

My muscles tense. Where could he have taken her for the entire night?

I call her. No answer.

Fuck.

“Do you have his friends’ numbers?” I ask Knox.

“One second.” He takes out his phone and types something in it then puts it to his ear. “Hey Ro, have you seen Aiden?”

Silence.

“I see, I see. Hide well. Talk to you later, mate.” He hangs up and faces me. “None of them have seen him. He’s not picking up either. Ronan said he’s hiding in his home because Aiden will come for his head any second now.”

This is bad.

If Aiden is not picking up either, this could mean two things.

They ran away.

Or they were taken.

I scratch my chin, thinking about the possibilities. Despite the fact that Aiden’s character is too infuriatingly similar to Jonathan’s, he wouldn’t hurt Elsa. Not with the amount of care and possessiveness I’ve seen in his eyes in my office.

And Elsa wouldn’t leave without informing me first.

This leaves one option: something happened to them. With or without consent.

Bloody hell.

I scroll through my phone and find the one name I didn’t want to contact until the day I die.

Our friendship morphed into a rivalry for a reason. Both of us hate losing and do everything in our power to become number one.

But fate has a funny way of messing with our lives.

I hit his number. He answers after two rings, “Are you ready to admit defeat?”

“We have a problem, Jonathan.”

35

Elsa

We sit in here for what seems like days.

According to Aiden’s watch, it’s only been one day.

We’ve been here for exactly thirty-five hours and counting.

We did all. We tried the door, we screamed — or more like, I screamed. However, there was no sign anyone would come to help.

There was a reason why Ma chose this place. It’s on the far eastern side, no one wanders here, and I’m pretty sure it conceals sounds somehow.

My energy has been waning over the past hours. We have nothing aside from water from the tap.

No food. No blankets. Just like ten years ago.

It’s not cold per se, but a slight tremor has been going through my limbs since the door closed behind Agnus.

There’s a tightness in my chest, suffocating and bruising. Now that I think about it, I flew out of the house without taking my meds the moment Aiden texted me.

Please don’t act up now, heart. It’s super bad timing.

Aiden’s sitting, his back against the wall as I nestle between his long, powerful legs. My back rests against his chest and my head lies on his hard shoulder.

It’s weird how such a hard muscle can be so comforting.

“Maybe he won’t come back for us,” I whisper into the silence. “Maybe he decided it’s better if I’m out of the way?”

“He will.”

“How do you know that? What if he has an accident and dies and no one will come for us?”

“Now you’re being dramatic, sweetheart.”

“It’s a possibility.”

I lift my head and watch him closely; his neutral expression and undisturbed eyes. How can he be so calm about this? While I’ve been losing hope, shaking, and pacing, he’s been sitting here as if we’re on a picnic or something.

Granted, he’s more cool-headed than me, but this is a life or death situation. My head’s crowding with horrific images about how they’ll find our corpses months from now, decayed and stinking.

Tears fill my eyes. I don’t want to die. Not now.

Not when I’m ready to overcome my trauma. Not when I’m finally getting control over my life.

“Hey.” Aiden’s lean fingers cradle my face and stroke my trembling chin.

“I can’t stop thinking about dying.”

“Then let’s occupy that head of yours with something else.” He grins, and my aching heart flutters with sparks.

“Like what?”

“Since you’re a curious little kitten, I’ll let you ask me any question you like.”

My eyes widen. “Any question?”

He nods.

Whoa. That’s some commitment for the devil.

I straighten so my back is propped up against his bent knee. “And you’ll answer them all.”

We need to get that straight, because ‘you can ask me any question’ in Aiden’s manipulative words can also mean he’ll choose not to answer.

His grin widens as if he can read my mind. “And I’ll answer them on one condition.”

Of course.

I huff. “What?”

“You’ll remove a piece of clothing for every question I answer.”

“Hey! That’s not fair.”

He lifts a shoulder. “Take it or leave it.”

I should’ve known the deal would end up playing in his favour.

My jacket lies on his lap. I try to retrieve it. I need all the clothes I can get.

Aiden snatches it away. “This was already off. It doesn’t count.”

Dickhead.

Since my underwear is already somewhere in his pocket from the earlier sixty-nine, that only leaves me with three pieces of clothing; my shirt, my skirt, and my bra.

Three items, three questions.

I glare at him.

The arsehole must’ve thought this through.

Still, I’ll play. He’s right. I need to get my head off the dark thoughts swirling inside it.

My mind crowds with all the questions I wanted to ask, but he always deflected his way out of them. The first one is easy.

“Do you miss Alicia?” I ask.

He appears deep in thought for a second. “Sometimes, I walk inside the house and wonder how it would feel if she was there, but then I recall she’d still be married to Jonathan because she was so helplessly in love with him, and I stop wondering.”

That’s interesting.

Aiden’s lack of empathy is like being in a logical, emotionless state of mind twenty-four seven. That state of mind even forbids him from missing his mother properly because he thinks she would’ve suffered if she lived her life as Jonathan’s wife.

“Take the shirt off,” he orders in that delicious deep tone. “And make it sexy.”