Chapter 214

“Goodbye, Charla.”

He hung up. He tapped the screen three times.

Block Caller.

The elevator doors slid shut, sealing him in. He felt a grim, hard-edged satisfaction. He had finally cut the cord. He was not going to let her manipulate him away from Cailin again.

He looked at his reflection in the polished metal doors. A man on a mission stared back.

He did not know that miles away, in a dark and damp shipping container, the woman he had just hung up on was screaming for her life — and no one was listening.

The air inside the shipping container tasted of rust and brine. A damp cold seeped into the marrow of Charla’s bones.

She was huddled in the corner, her expensive white dress smeared with grease and grime. Her hands were zip-tied behind her back so tightly her fingers had gone numb. Her broken leg throbbed with a sickening, rhythmic pulse.

“Please,” she whimpered. “My father will pay you. Whatever you want.”

Stone sat on a wooden crate across from her, cleaning his fingernails with a tactical knife. He didn’t look like a thug. He looked like a soldier — efficient and bored.

“Money,” Stone said, without looking up. “That’s all you people understand. You think you can buy your way out of consequences.”

“I didn’t do anything!” Charla sobbed. “Cailin is the crazy one! She attacked me!”

Stone stopped. He looked at her. His eyes were flat, dead things.

“We saw the video,” he said. “Thermal imaging from the helicopter. You jumped, princess. You tried to frame the Mistress.”

Mistress.

Charla blinked, confusion cutting through her terror. “Mistress? You mean — Cailin?”

“That’s her title,” Stone said. He stood and walked toward her. “And you tried to kill her. Twice.”

He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back. Charla screamed.

“The Boss isn’t happy,” Stone whispered. “He wants to send a message. Not to you — you’re irrelevant. To Hilliard.”

He pulled a phone from his pocket. Charla’s phone. He dialed Hilliard’s number.

“He won’t answer,” Charla cried. “He blocked me. He thinks I’m lying!”

“Let’s see.”

Stone put it on speaker. It rang. And rang. Then clicked over to voicemail.

“You have reached Hilliard Holloway. Leave a message.”

Stone chuckled — a dry, humorless sound. “Cold. Ice cold.”

He dialed again, this time from his own phone with the number masked. Hilliard picked up on the second ring.

“Who is this?” His voice was impatient. Angry.

“Your fiancée has something to tell you,” Stone said. He pressed the phone against Charla’s cheek.

“Hilliard!” Charla screamed. “It’s real! They’re going to kill me! Please!”

“If this is about a ransom,” Hilliard said, his voice thin and distant through the speaker, “tell Gregg to pay it out of his legal defense fund. I don’t care.”

“Hilliard, look at the video! They sent you a video!”

“I’m not watching your production, Charla. I’m busy looking for my wife. My real wife.”