In the corner, a glint of silver caught my eye. Heart pounding, I reached in and dragged out a vacuum-sealed canister of liquid nitrogen with a spray nozzle—and a ten-pound sledgehammer.
I took back everything I’d decided about Langer and his trickery. Deliberate or not, it seemed the guy had just made me a victim of the world’s sickest chemistry joke.
Whatever. I could get revenge later if needed. My minutes were ticking down to zero. The original plan had been for Arlo and Felix to take Langer’s car service straight here to the office, and I needed to head them off before they did. Thanks to the internet, I knew what they looked like, and though the assistants might be curious as to why they didn’t arrive, I was counting on them not being curious enough to call Langer. Or if they were, that Langer wouldn’t be curious enough to care. But first, I needed to even getthere, and there was rush hour traffic to account for.
I took several deep breaths and, hands already shaking, grasped the cold canister, moving to the center of the room and spreading my fingers flat on the steel table. Palm up? Palm down? Down, I decided. It took me a couple of pumps of the nozzle before I succeeded in sweeping a heavy fog of the liquid over the entire chain. I only needed to break one link, really, but best to be thorough.
Then I turned to the hammer.
I noticed two problems immediately. One, there was very little give between my skin and the chain, I only had two hands, and one of them was obviously useless. Two, my free hand was attached to my bad shoulder, giving me less force and less chance of a clean strike. I’d have to aim precisely, with just enough force to break the link—the steel alloy’s chemical bonds weakened by the nitrogen—without shattering my wrist into a million pieces if I missed. Easy, right? Well, that wrist was already scarred to hell, anyway, reminding me that I’d endured worse, for worse reasons.
I blew some stray strands of hair out of my eyes, spread my fingers wider, and choked up on the wooden handle, fingerstrembling as I lifted the sledgehammer: a tool designed for no higher purpose than to destroy things. Should I close my eyes? Yes? No? I half-closed them, and before I could waste another second talking myself out of it, I struck, unleashing a clang that must have echoed through the entire building, loud enough to stifle a scream as the block of dead solid iron collided with the side of my wrist.
I took a second before opening my eyes, almost afraid to see the violet-colored bruise blooming and swelling where the hammer had landed. The pain was right on cue, and I hunched over against the throbbing, gasping for breath, fiercely blinking back tears before they could dare to fall. I’d known this was coming. But, like always, knowing pain was coming made it no easier to take.
I managed to weakly move my wrist back and forth. So it wasn’t fractured—at least not entirely. Brilliant.
What wasn’t brilliant was that the blow had only partially hit its mark. One of the links was not so much smashed as severely dented, which was no surprise. This thing hadnotbeen made to come off.
Again, then. If I got lucky, it would only take one more to shatter it, assuming I didn’t pass out from the pain first.
My hands, weaker and shakier now, gripped the hammer as tightly as I could and took aim. An even louder clang and an even better hit had the entire table vibrating.
And the linkstillheld. I resisted the urge to pound the table and scream something in Luxembourgish. The storage room had very little air circulation, and sweat was already dampening my hair and forehead. I angrily reached up to swipe it all away with my good hand. Retook my grip with quivering wrists. Brought it down.
Last one. Please.
I opened my eyes.
If I had been either of the two guys waiting impatiently on the curb outside the domestic arrivals terminal, I’d like to think I would have looked up from my phone to see an all-American golden boy in a pair of shiny aviators and sliding confidently out of a blindingly shiny silver Porsche convertible, only a minute off schedule and impeccably styled in a gray pinstriped suit, gold and lapis necklace, and a casual mauve shirt printed with a weird duck-feather pattern that still somehow worked—thank you very much, Lemaya. On the wrist of a hand adorned with thick gold signet rings on the middle fingers, a stunning Rolex watch peeked out from under the cuff of a tailored jacket. But it was the other hand I extended.
“On behalf of Langer Enterprises, welcome to Phoenix,” I said, with a steady gaze and a luminous smile as confident as my grip. “I’m Corey Killeen.”
4
HER
Iscreamed. I didn’t care who heard.
The bedposts were carved with women and griffins, the women’s hands held up in surrender as the griffins’ teeth sank into their flesh. Over my head, an ornate gold mirror was mounted, in which was reflected a beautiful girl, hair tumbling down her back, head bent as if in prayer, eyes cast down. A perfect submissive posture.
This wasn’t part of the plan.
I jerked my left arm away from its cuff, then the right one, testing how tight it held, only succeeding in painfully scraping the inside of my wrist. The metal pinched something awful, a constant irritation that grated no matter which way I twisted. I stopped. I lay back, gulping for air, panting from panic and exertion.
Breathe, dammit,said another, blessedly familiar voice.Don’t die before you’re killed.
But he wasn’t here, and neither was anyone else. It was just me, alone, fucking up as usual. I wasn’t sure Iwantedhim here to see that. He’d seen it.
“This wasn’t part of the plan,” I whispered to the hot, silent, stifling room.
Of course, if I were smart—if I werehim—I’d come up with a new plan. But I wasn’t, and I couldn’t, so all I could do was cry, the injury of rivulets running down my cheeks. The insult of being unable to swipe them away. Helplessness and humiliation. A slave’s insult.
I’d seen the scars onhiswrists, but I never fully understood them until now. I’d never understood a thing.
HIM
“What the fuck, bruh?” Felix exclaimed, prompting me to practically jump out of the driver’s seat, nearly lose my grip on the steering wheel, and narrowly miss crashing the Porsche head-on into a light pole. Well, so far so good. “Arlo says Langer isn’t even here?”
