Page 27 of The Sinner's Bargain

“What’s your name?”

My hesitation was long even to my own ears. Twenty years of being Naya Blackwell only to have all that thrown into the trash with a new name was going to take a lot of getting used to, but Malcolm had been clear not to tell anyone who I was. This mountain of a man may have saved me from Taylen, but I didn’t know him.

“Did you forget?” he teased.

I snaked a tongue over my lips nervously; it would be the first time I would be saying my new name out loud. I wasn’t ready.

“Katie Smith.”

A long stretch of silence followed where my lie hung in the still night like a beacon.

“Katie Smith,” my companion repeated slowly. Weighing the syllables as if testing their merit. “Where are you from, Katie Smith?”

The way he said it, I had a feeling he didn’t believe me, but was waiting to see how long I would keep up the pretenses.

I had a bigger problem.

I hadn’t read beyond my new name on the file, and I didn’t know how to answer the rest of his questions.

“Never let them see your true face,” Mother’s caution filtered through the white noise of panic building in my throat.

I doubted she had this exact situation in mind, but it would have to apply. I couldn’t let the giant see me falter. I had to play the unfamiliar role until I knew what I was dealing with. If I slipped, he could kill me or he could know Jarrett. The Brixton’s owned half the diamond empire in the world. If my host didn’t know Jarrett in person, he would know the name and he could take me back in exchange for whatever he wanted. That was one of the lessons of marrying into a family like Jarrett’s; people will use you, but I couldn’t go back to him.

The decision was clear — I had to become Katie Smith, whoever she was. I had to keep my head down and my eyes open for the first chance at escape.

“May I use your washroom?”

The wood beneath him creaked with the shift of his weight. One arm extended in the direction of the wall on the far right, cloaked in darkness.

Carefully, I nudged back the sheets with a tremor in my fingers and slid my bare legs over the side of the mattress. I was painfully aware of the eyes watching me plant my feet to the cool hardwood and brush the hem of what I guessed was his top down around my knees. I padded quietly across the unfamiliar space to the thick, black void at the center and reached in to pat the inner wall.

The man behind me said nothing as I searched. He’d all but become a ghost lost somewhere behind me.

I didn’t glance back to check as I located the switch and quickly slipped inside.

The lock cracked.

It defied the laws of sound. It altered everyone within a thousand miles radius that I was locking myself in the bathroom to avoid facing the man waiting for me on the other side.

A much calmer part of me was certain I was over thinking the noise. Plus, who wouldn’t lock the door when using the bathroom in a strange place? It was normal, yet I knew deep in my core that he knew I was hiding.

“Oh God,” I whimpered under my breath as I turned to survey my new surroundings. And froze.

Rich, dark mahogany unfolded in a tapestry of beauty, unlike anything I had ever looked upon. Columns of handcrafted carvings extended from walls lined with shelves and glass surrounding a stunning, marble counter and sink in glossy black. An ornate mirror was mounted over a claw foot tub made entirely of black ceramic and trimmed with gold. The floors were checkered titles that reflected a ceiling I immediately gasped at the sight of.

Icicles of clear crystal danced from a wrought iron chandelier, casting a cool halo of light across the domed glass cut into the ceiling, overlooking an endless night sky.

The entire room was something out of a book. I could have stayed there for the rest of my life and marveled at its sheer magnificence if there wasn’t a strange man in the next room, expecting me to return.

Shaking myself, I hurried to the wide windows overlooking a ... a sudden and painful drop to my death. I couldn’t even see the ground or where the ledge ended, and night began. Escaping through the window was not an option.

Desperate and choking back my fears, I shut the glass and took a step back.

“Stay calm. Remember you are a Blackwell. You will figure this out,” I reminded myself with far more resolve than I felt as I turned to the room once more.

I caught sight of my reflection in the broad mirror over the sink and escape took a momentary backseat.

I was a thing of nightmares. Pale strands hung in wild tangles around a stark face streaked with jagged lines of mascara and twin haloes of black. I resembled a corpse.

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