Page 30 of Golden Burn

It’s my call.

I return my attention to our captive. “What were your instructions?”

He stutters before speaking. “To—to keep tabs on you. To report back to him every four hours. Don’t get caught otherwise Flora dies.” Harriet wilts beside me, clearly upset for this young man’s predicament.

I nod. Besides the grossly inappropriate choice of people to work for, this man has done nothing overtly wrong. Still, he needs to learn a lesson.

“Tie him to a tree outside,” I instruct Ford.

“What?” Harriet bellows. “Are you crazy? It’s freezing. It could kill him.”

To Harriet I say, “He was out there, watching you, for a significant amount of time before you noticed him. I’m sure he can withstand the cold a bit more.” My voice has an edge, my temper beginning to fray. I move away from her. She’s not thinking logically, just with pure unfiltered emotion. And to the boy, “Once you’ve freed yourself. Give Cerbera the documents found on the desk in the office. It’ll be penance for falling asleep on the job and missing our departure. Yes?”

The boy nods frantically, his tears soaking into the collar of his shirt.

Ford carries him out of the house, while Harriet stalks after me, her displeased footsteps slapping on the tiles. I ignore her easily enough until she grabs my wrist. The impressive grip of her fingers grinds my bones. “Don’t you dare hurt him,” she orders. “He’s a child.”

I pause in my tracks and peer back at her. Her jaw is impossibly tight. Furious. I imagine she’s thinking of ways to calve up my balls like she threatened to do only a few days ago.

My chest lifts and falls with a deep breath. “Here’s the thing, Dr. Lewis. I will not be told what to do by Cerbera. And I especially won’t be told what to do by you. You think you know this world and its cruelty, but you don’t. You can’t even conceive of the brutality that happens every minute of every day. He will live because he wants to. He will live because he has something to live for.”

Her nostrils flare. An argument poised on the tip of her viperous tongue.

“Now. Get your hand off me.” Her eyes narrow, but she drops her wrist to her side. Her fingers leave an indent on my skin that feels permanent.

Dom enters through the doorway, and we make eye contact immediately. He must see the crackling tension between us like smoke, charred earth at our feet, left behind by lightning strikes. “I hear everything is in order.”

I adjust the watch on my wrist and turn my back on my seething fiancé. “I’ll be in my office. Organize a flight out of here immediately.”

Dom nods. “Where to?”

“The Lodge.”

12

Etta

‘Hip Bones’- MØ

My mind is on autopilot as I pack up all my things with staggering speed, uncaring of order and folding. We are heading to the airport to fly somewhere else. The thought of leaving again in such a short amount of time is exhausting. The fact that we are leaving behind a human tied to a tree honestly makes my stomach hurt.

Ford is my chauffeur and manages to keep me awake for a total of ten minutes before I lean my head on the car window and drift off to sleep. The adrenaline that had blazed throughout my body last night leaves me feeling like an empty plastic bag.

We make it to a separate section of the airport tarmac in under an hour, and board the private jet waiting. It’s sleek like a bullet on the outside and designed like a Texas mansion on the inside. The captain and the single hostess greet us with warm, expensive smiles. I wonder if they know about me. If they know not to say anything. Enough money canbuy the right type of silence. Unfortunately, I have nothing to offer them in return.

Ford and Dom set themselves up in the chairs on the other side of the aisle to mine, whilst Odin picks a seat near the back of the plane, away from us. It irks me how easily he closes himself off.

He gives me whiplash, how quickly he flips from being present to fortifying himself behind a wall of impenetrable steel.

I’m stewing for the first half an hour of the trip, ripping back the skin around my nails, wondering if it would be appropriate to go and sit myself down in front of my future husband and slap him around for being so rude.

Something stops me.

It’s the memory of when he told me how best to hide in order to hurt him, the slight grin he wore as he left the room, the fact he cooked for me and the way he positioned himself in front of me as we moved through the snow in the middle of the night. I know I’m his asset, more than I am his fiancée, but even I could tell he was being overly protective.

Also, the clear battle in his mind over what to do with the spy reporting our every move to his enemy, and his decision to provide consequence without real harm, when any other man from Cerbera’s crew—like my father, I’m guessing—would have slaughtered him without a thought.

What goes on in his brain, I’m desperate to know.

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