Page 29 of Broken Surrender
Once Desmond left, I cleaned up the bag and moved it out of the way. I didn’t want the house staff to know what had happened, though they likely already knew. Desmond was over all the time, and it must have seemed suspicious that Mr. Dalton disappeared exactly when Desmond started coming around.
After showering, I stared up at that fairytale painting. What was happening to me? Between the sedatives and mood balancers that John fed me, I hadn’t been myself in months, and now, I was alive. I moved my hips, letting the pain in my ass course through me. His scent wafted from my bedspread. I was still there. I didn’t understand the heat that burned through me whenever he was near, but I wanted to engrave it in my mind.
The next day passed in a blur. Since he had left so abruptly the day before, I kept waiting for him to show up, but he never did. But we had our arrangement. He was blackmailing me, and I was his sacrifice to the Marked Blooms Syndicate. We had to stick to that.
In the evening, despite knowing that he might not come, I wore my silk robe over my lace lingerie and went to the balcony, the door clicking closed behind me. Once again, I waited for that moment when Desmond would show, his dark eyes smoldering at me from across our separate properties, but as the milky clouds stretched across the sky, I knew he wasn’t coming. I walked inside, keeping my chin high. There was no reason to be upset. He was my blackmailer, and yes, it was a bonus that he was a fun way to pass the time, but that was all.
The door to the bedroom was open; I always left it closed. I stopped in my tracks. The bedroom door was loud; it creaked if the house staff didn’t maintain it on a regular basis, and since John was gone, I had forgotten to ask them, and would have heard it squeak—shouldhave heard it through the balcony doors, but I hadn’t heard a thing. The air was still, like there was another person in the room, holding their breath. The hairs on my arms stood up. I closed the balcony door behind me.
“Desmond?” I asked, my blood pounding. “Where are you?” I flicked the light switch, but it didn’t turn on. The stupid smart lights must have been out of sync again. I reset the system on my phone, then tried again, but nothing happened. “All right. Come out,” I said. “I get it. You messed with the power. Stop playing—”
“Where is John Dalton?” a sullen voice called from the darkness. My stomach clenched. I turned toward the voice; a man in a gray suit leaned back on the accent chair, the light from the balcony crossing in a long dash across his sharp chin, the rest of his face obscured.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Your husband,” the man said again. His voice crept across the room: “Where is he?”
“Who are you?” I stepped closer, closing my fists. He was in my house;Ihad the advantage. But my stomach twisted and I knew that no matter who had the upper hand, this was going to end badly. “Why are you in my house?”
“Tsk, tsk, Mrs. Dalton. Calling it ‘your house’ already?” He shifted, the shadows dancing on his body. “Convenient, isn’t it?” He rested his boney hands on his knees. “Your husband disappears, and suddenly, you have some strange authority over his property. When we both know you didn’t have a single cent invested in this place.” He waved a hand, his fingers swaying. “You have to be more careful than that.”
“My husband is on a business trip,” I said. “His company can verify that.”
“Can they?” his voice raised in pitch. “And what if I told youI knowhe never left Fairview? That he’s buried somewhere beneath us?”
My throat ached. He chuckled in the darkness. How did he know? Who was he?
We know what you did.
“You left me that note,” I said. “That was you, wasn’t it?”
“So glad you found it.” The lit side of his lips twisted into a grin. He motioned to the side, and two large men emerged from the darkness, one with blond hair and one with black hair, both were dressed from head to toe in black. They seized my arms. My body tensed. I screamed, thrashing my legs, the adrenaline rocking through me, but the black-haired one punched me in the stomach, and I coughed hard.
“Where is the Eros?” the man in the chair asked, his voice muted and mellow. “We know you have it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said hoarsely.
“Surely, John trusted you with at leastthatinformation? Eros. Our latest product.”
“I don’t know anything!”
The man wiggled his fingers in the air. “Gentlemen, please show Mrs. Dalton our hospitality.”
The two guards punched me in the stomach. I grunted and spit at the blond-haired one, and he socked me in the eye. My eyes burned and I cried out, but they kept hitting, and soon, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make a sound.The panic button—where had I put it? It was under Desmond’s bag! I kicked and thrashed until they dropped me.
The bag. I had to get to the closet, but their leader in the gray suit was seated beside the door.
“Mrs. Dalton,” he said. He stood up, his body long and lean, then he came forward, each step shrinking me. He stepped on my fingers and I howled. “Your husband had the last vial of Eros. And if we can’t find it, we’ll have to continue searching your house. Maybe we’ll even have to probe you for it.” He snickered, his nose scrunched. “But I want to make this easy for everyone. Find out where it is, deliver it to us, and we won’t defile you.”
I gritted my teeth at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hissed.
He tilted his head to the side, his eyes still covered in darkness. “Spread your legs.”
“No,” I said.
The black-haired guard yanked my legs open, my knees sliding on the floor. The leader glanced down at me.
“I know where he put it. Clever man,” he said, amusement in his tone. “We’ll be back for you, Mrs. Dalton.”
