Page 38 of Fear Me, Love Me

Miss Stone’s fearful breaths come a little faster. “Fine. Just don’t hurt Barlow. I’ll trade places with him.”

My gaze slips down her body. So reckless for one so young and pretty. “It doesn’t seem like a fair trade. You for a precious baby? Do Mommy and Daddy love you as much as him?”

Miss Stone flinches. “They’ll be…motivated to get the money for you if they have Barlow back.”

I laugh softly. “You’re saying they don’t give a shit about you? Then I’ll never get my money.”

“Barlow is just a baby, and as much as you’re laughing, it’s not funny. Don’t treat this like a stupid game.”

Fury sweeps over me. She snuck in here and now she’s getting mouthy? If she’s so desperate to die, then I’ll throw her into the labyrinth of paths and hedges around my house and watch her run herself to exhaustion. With the moving walls and locking and unlocking gates, it’s impossible for anyone to make it in or out without my say-so.

“A game, you say?” I ask coldly. “I love games. You can have your brother back if you manage to discover where he’s hidden. I’ll give you a fair chance. I’ll even tell you that he’s up at my house. Reach him, and you can both go home.”

Miss Stone’s tongue plays with the corner of her lip as she considers this. “The house on this property? What’s the catch?”

“No catch. I’ll leave the front door unlocked for you.”

“That should be easy enough,” she says uncertainly, letting go of my knife.

I snicker softly. She fucking thinks. I lower the knife, get my phone out, and call my head of security. “Close gates one, three, four, seven, nine, and ten. Open two, five, six, eight, eleven, twelve, and thirteen. Set them to randomize every fifteen minutes.”

A moment later, a mechanical sound fills the air. The grounds leading up to my house are a series of walled gardens within walled gardens. A labyrinth that I can change with the opening and closing of thirteen gates. When you’re the most hated man in Henson, you need to take a creative approach to security. It’s a good thing I did, otherwise, this pretty little stowaway might have skipped off to wherever she pleased.

“You have forty-eight hours.” I glance at my watch. “Starting now.”

“But you gave Dad and Samantha a week,” she exclaims.

I pull out my phone and press the screen. The garage door rolls up, and the gate at the end of the drive opens. There’s a tantalizing glimpse of the street beyond. “Don’t like it? Leave. This is your only chance to get out of here alive, and you’d be wise to take it. Once that gate closes…” I give her a cold smile. “You’re mine. You and your brother.”

Miss Stone glances longingly toward freedom, tendrils of her dark hair blowing across her face.

She shakes her head and turns back to me. “I’m not leaving without Barlow. We’re not yours if I manage to find him, and I don’t care what happens to me. Do your worst.”

I lean down until my lips are tantalizingly close to hers and murmur, “I plan to. Tick-tock, Miss Stone.”

Leaving her standing by my car with blood on her throat, I enter the code into the locked door, and leave via the shortcut up to the house, closing it firmly behind me.

As I walk along the passage, I examine the ruby beads of blood on the tip of my knife. Then I lick them off.

Miss Stone is a pretty girl, and she tastes delicious. Such a pity that she won’t live beyond the next two sunrises.

13

Vivienne

Forty-eight hours to get my brother back, and the clock is ticking.

I emerge from the garage and look up toward the house. It stands on a hill with ornamental gardens sloping upward toward it. Complicated gardens with densely packed hedges and walls. The man who’s holding Barlow captive holds all the power, and he isn’t going to play fair. I try not to think about the fact that Barlow is in danger right this second. If he cries too much or screams too loudly, what’s to stop Tyrant Mercer from losing his patience and hurting my brother?

There are footsteps behind me, and I whirl around, expecting to see Tyrant marching toward me with that knife in his hand.

It’s not Tyrant. Instead, a man in his fifties with a dark beard and a neat white shirt emerges into the garage and closes the pin-code door firmly behind him. He ignores me as he gets into the black Cullinan, drives it out of the garage, and parks it by a hedge. Still ignoring my presence, he gathers a bucket, a sponge, and a bottle of wash and wax, and sets about cleaning Tyrant’s scrupulously clean car.

I suppose it’s not unusual for bleeding young women to appear in the grounds of Tyrant’s estate. I don’t warrant a first glance, let alone a second one. Fine by me. I don’t want anyone getting in my way while I’m trying to reach Barlow.

I walk around the garage and into the garden. A pristine lawn runs up to a high stone wall covered here and there with ivy and evergreen shrubs growing in the flower beds. I’m not actually in the labyrinth yet, so there must be a door somewhere, and if it’s closed, I’ll wait for it to open. I’ll only be waiting fifteen minutes at the most.

Only there isn’t a door. Not where I’m looking, at any rate. The stone wall is uninterrupted. No obvious door, and no concealed one, either. Just stone. Even hunting among the ivy gets me nowhere.

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