Which was when everything snapped into place. “It wasyouridea, wasn’t it? You lost him, so you decided to break him. To get his own fiancé to break him.”
“It doesn’t matter where the notion came from. What matters is what happens to Caspian afterwards.” He stopped contemplating his fingers and returned his attention to me, his gaze oddly—disturbingly—intent. “Neither of them will be able to forgive themselves, which will render it impossible for them to stay together. Which means he will need you. He will need us both.”
“Look,” I said, ignoring theDarth Vader, rule the galaxy as abuser and accompliceshit, “if Nathaniel’s really going to do this, you have to stop it.”
He just smiled. “You seem confused, Arden. Am I Caspian’s abuser or his savior?”
“Right now”—I made a wild gesture—“I don’t give a fuck. Just tell me where they are.”
“Think about it a moment.” Another of those too-hungry looks. “We both care for Caspian, we both have his interests at heart. We could do him so much good if we worked together.”
Nope nope nope nope nope. With extra nope. And a nope salad on the side. “After we deliberately let something awful happen to him.”
Steyne shrugged. “I wish it weren’t necessary, but sometimes Caspian needs to be reminded who is he and who he belongs to. It’s time for him to come home.”
“And it’s time for you to get the fuck out of mine.” I was yelling. Possibly waving my arms about. “You’re a fucking monster, I’m never helping you, and I’m through listening to you.”
“That is a pity.” He rose languidly from the sofa. “You know”—why wasn’t he reaching for his coat, he should have been reaching for his coat—“I would have been perfectly willing to share him, if you were.” Steyne wasn’t as tall as Caspian but he was still tall enough to be intimidating, broad across the shoulders and strongly built in atwo plates of foie gras from heavykind of way. “I even”—he took a few steps forward—“think I might rather have enjoyed it. But now, alas, you have become a problem.”
Okay, so I’d seen this movie. I mean, maybe I was overreacting, but fuck it, I wasn’t taking the chance. I had my mobile out of my pocket and had hit 99 when Lancaster’s hand closed around my wrist. He gave it what felt like a practiced twist—pain shooting up my forearm until my fingers opened and my phone clunked to the floor.
“The difficulty I’m having here,” he murmured, “is that I will not allow Caspian to believe that there is anything in his life that I cannot touch. Even you.”
“Are…you fucking serious?” It seemed, in those few seconds, a lot easier to disbelieve. Because the alternative involved being fucking terrified. “Let me go.”
The thing is—and under normal circumstances this would have been a massive positive—I had very little experience of being threatened, either physically or verbally. So while Steyne seemed way too at ease with both, I had no idea what to do. I tried to pull away, which didn’t work because he had my arm at such a nasty angle, and then to…I don’t know…strike at him with my free hand, anything to make him release me, but he just caught my wrist again.
And everything after that was a mess. Disjointed stock motion. Of kicking out at him. Of being dragged, lifted, spun. The sofa knocking me breathless. And his body covering mine until there was nothing but him. His heat all over me like tar. His eyes a dirty metal gleam. The pinpricks of sweat on his upper lip, bright as broken diamonds. I could hear myself screaming in the distance. From some other place I’d lived once, where I’d danced and painted my toenails and worn a scarf the colour of the rainbow. Not this world. Where there was only a man. And the weight of him holding me down. And the smell of his skin in my mouth.
Then. New sounds, half-drowned in his breath. A door. Footsteps. And Ellery saying, “Hello, Uncle Lancaster.” And me, blank with fright, an animal hiding in my own flesh, still frantically trying to get free of him. “Get off me get the fuck off me.”
Steyne rose—apparently in no fucking rush—adjusting his disarranged suit, and smoothing his hair back into place. “Ellery, my dear. How lovely to see you.”
And the worst of it was, it sounded like he meant it. When she must have known what she’d interrupted. Wait. Surely she didn’t think I was up for this?
“He…he…” I gasped. But I was blood and breath and fear. Couldn’t get words out.
And Ellery cut over me anyway. “I know, right? Guess we should hug or something.”
At this point, I was just glad Steyne was moving away from me. I wanted to run—even if it was only to flee into the bathroom and lock the door—but I couldn’t move. I felt…shattered, literally shattered. Just pieces of myself I had no idea how to reassemble.
While Ellery, who was not a fan of hugging at the best of times, was stepping voluntarily into Lancaster Steyne’s outstretched arms. Whatever happened next, I couldn’t see. But I heard it: a grisly crunch of cartilage, followed by a low cry, and a curse, from Steyne.
He reared back, hands clasped over his nose, blood gushing from between his fingers and dripping onto the floor. “That,” he said, in a slightly burbly voice, “was uncalled for.”
“Yeah?” Ellery rubbed her brow, which was also slightly bloodstained—though, thankfully, none of it hers. “I think it was very fucking called for. And if you ever come near my family again, including Arden, I’ll kill you myself.”
“You’ll learn in time, my child, not to make threats you have no capacity to carry out.”
Very slowly, she grinned—this crooked, gleeful grin, somewhere between the Cheshire Cat and the Joker. “I’m a poor little rich girl with a history of drug abuse and mental illness, and I’ve got one of the best lawyers in London. Not even I know what I’m capable of. And you”—her eyes raked contemptuously over him—“you haven’t got a fucking clue.”
“Well, aren’t you something.” Steyne had liberated his pocket square and was now holding it against his face. Of course, it didn’t stop him talking. I’m not sure anything would. “You almost make me wish I had a better appreciation for the fairer sex.”
Ellery rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
That earned her a cold look—well, as cold as could be managed when your face had gone all Phantom of the Opera. And then he was stepping past her. Leaving.
I let out a choked breath. The relief so intense it felt like nausea. Which was when a thought crawled out of the wreckage. Lurched through my brain and out of my mouth. “Tell me where Caspian is.”
