Page 41 of The Beast's Betrayed Mate
“Right.” Cora shook her head. “You just saw what it means to do it the easy way. Now we do it the hard way.”
“Wait,” Peter said, raising one hand to slow the oncoming of the guards.
Cora gave a nod, and they stopped. She kneeled down to get eye-level with him. “Yes?” she asked.
“What the hell are you?” Olive murmured. Cora’s eyes lifted to hers for a moment before she focused back on Peter.
“We just want answers,” Peter said. “If you give them to us, we’ll give you what you want.”
“Answers?” Cora asked as though it was the silliest thing she’d ever heard. “But I can just torture and kill you to get what I want.”
“No, you can’t,” Peter said. “Because I just sent an email with the information to an anonymous email account and, if anything happens to us, that information will be released to the press, sent to the FBI, anything you can think of. It’ll happen. So, just answer a few rudimentary questions, and we’ll hand over what you’re asking for.”
Cora eyed him for another moment, then gave a low huff, straightening back up again. She nodded at one of the guards who gave a huff as well, then signaled to the guards to fall back.
“We don’t want eyes and ears listening that have no business hearing whatever information you’re about to beg me for, now, do we?” Cora asked, smiling in such a way that Olive wouldn’t have been surprised to see her mouth elongating and her jaw dislocating.
Like a snake getting ready to strike prey.
“Well, come on then,” Cora said. “Off your feet. Let’s go somewhere a little more comfortable for a chat. Oh, and by the way, you didn’t believe that I’d actually torture and kill you? Did you? Because that’s just too funny.”
She was wearing that huge, strange grin and making Olive feel all sorts of unsettled.
Cora led the way down the corridor. The stark whiteness had always bothered Olive. It felt too clean, as though it was scrubbed regularly to make sure there were no visible stains. She supposed that gut observation had been right.
For the hundredth time she asked herself how she could have been so blind? But then she figured that Peter was right when he told her it wasn’t her fault. How could she have seen what was really going on when there was thick wool in front of her eyes? How could she have removed it when she had no way of knowing it was there?
Except, if I’d questioned Cora’s motives sooner, I might have noticed the wool, she muttered in her head.
But self-flagellation would get her nowhere.
The past was done and dusted.
She had to focus on the present.
She had amission.
A self-assigned and shakily undefined mission, but a mission nonetheless.
They turned a corner and stepped into a waiting elevator. Instead of going down, it brought them up to the third and highest level of the building. Olive had never even contemplated going there. As with the original MRM building, there was no going up unless you had been invited. Supposedly, this was their invitation. Or was it a warning?
If they were brought into the inner sanctum, would they ever be able to leave it?
The corridors of the third floor were a more muted cream than the stark white of the lower levels. It was like walking into a Crème Brulé, with soft caramel and muted browns to act as contrasts to the soft yellow of the walls. Out of all things, Olive realized how hungry she was. She hadn’t eaten anything since those pancakes.
She was thirsty, too. And her scalp was itchy with sweat and fear.
What was going to happen to them?
She kept her fingers from checking that the USB was still in her belt. It was their only bargaining chip. A ripple of worry ran through her at the thought that it might be the difference between life and death. Sure, Peter knew the Maynard sons, but that didn’t mean he was protected.
The way he had looked at her when he’d promised her; he wouldn’t let anything happen to her, though.
That had really been something.
Cora had stayed quiet until now, stopping in front of a door at the end of the corridor they had been walking down and putting her finger to a small, black pad next to it. Her fingerprint made it slide open. She offered them another small smile before leading the way back into the space beyond.
It was a hexagon shaped room with doors all around. Each door was more like a window into the room beyond. Each room was comfortably decorated, looking more like regular bedrooms than anything else. Each had one huge window overlooking the surrounding landscape, making the rooms look deceptively inviting especially since Olive immediately knew what they were—holding cells.
