Page 67 of The Tallest Tower (Underbelly Enchanted)

“The problem is, you’re trying to decide ifyouwant to be that jackass. She’s not part of our world, Lix. And you won’t get much more than another day or two before the authorities declare her missing and the bullshit ‘sick’ excuse is tossed aside. You made an impulsive decision when you took her, and now you have no fucking clue how to make itbetter again. But even if she turns soft on you, even if sheoohsandaahsand tells you the things you want to hear, I hope you’ll remember it’s all a lie. She wants out, and the longer she’s in our hold, the more ruthless she’ll become in her attempts to leave.”

He reaches into his pocket when his own phone rings, and checks the screen, his face hard as he reads whoever’s name flashes up at him.

“She’s in your blind spot,” he presses on, his voice lower. Serious. “You won’t see her when she swings out and flattens you. But youwillbe the idiot left standing there, wondering what the fuck happened.”

He swipes his phone screen and accepts his call. “This is Micah.”

16

CHRISTABELLE

DINNER WITH THE DON… AND OTHER FUN THINGS

I’m not putting a gown on for him.

I refuse.

I will not dress up and make myself pretty for a man whose entire existence centers on killing the innocent and destroying lives.

I will not pander to his whims and allow butterflies to flap in my stomach, bringing nausea and nerves together until I can’t quite figure where one starts and the other ends.

“Ms. Cannon?” Mary flutters around the large closet, bringing dresses closer for my perusal and taking no hints when I continue to say no. “This one?” she asks, presenting a gown of silver that mysteriously matches the color of my eyes. She moves the dress so the fabric glistens in the light. “It’s beautiful.”

“No.” I walk to the window overlooking the Malone gardens and peer out in an attempt to see what I can see. More guards. More trees. More captivity.And no clear exit.“I’m not going to that dinner, Mary.” Then I look down at my body and catalogue the jeans wrapped around my thighs. The shirt that smells of me now, and not of Felix. “I’m comfortable as I am.”

“Please, Ms. Cannon.” She tosses the silver gown away and selects another, charging into the room and striding up on my right until I seegold. Shimmering. Expensive. Glamorous in all the best ways. “Mr. Malone would like you to join him for dinner. To stand him up would be a grave mistake.”

“Will he kill me?” I turn from the window, but I lean back and rest against the sill. “If I defy him, do you think he’ll slit my throat and end my life?”

Yes! Yes!she wants to scream. I don’t have to be inside her mind to know what her eyes so clearly express.

“How many women have died in the time you’ve worked for this family, Mary?”

She presses her lips shut. Determined and unshakable.

“How many others have you dressed? How many have you tried desperately to convince to obey Felix’s whims, only to lose the battle? She goes missing,” I speculate, “you know what happened to her… But before you have time to process the trauma, he has a new woman in his home, a new pet for you to mold and beautify.”

“I will not speak ill of my employer.” She lifts her chin and looks down her nose at me. A concerted effort, I think, considering her life of beingthe help. “You might consider him a beast, Ms. Cannon, but I see beneath the hard exterior and know he’s so much more.”

I breathe out a soft sigh and shake my head. “Ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome?”

Maybe I can’t save the women who’ve come before me. And I sure as hell can’t save the mothers of the five Malone children. But if there’s a chance I can help Mary out of this hell and into a world where she can spend her twilight years in safety, then perhaps that is something positive I could achieve from this experience.

I bring my gaze up and meet hers. “I can help you.” I reach out, my fingers extended, palm turned up. “I can get you out of here and taken care of.”

She studies me, her eyes as sharp as any others I’ve seen in this home. Her stare, shrewd and cautious. “I do not need your help. It is you who needs mine.” She gives the gown another shake. “Put it on and save yourself the grief of?—”

“Of what?” I drop my hand and shove away from the windowsill. “The grief of losing my life? Of never going home? The grief of havingmet a man who, in another time, another world, might’ve been a really,reallygood man?”

“Heisgood,” she growls, broadening her shoulders in defiance. “His heart is purer than any other I know.”

“He is the mafia, Mary! He sells drugs to people who eventually overdose. He gives loans to men who can’t afford to pay them back. He launders money, brings guns into a country already overflowing with them, and ki—” I choke on the last item. The worst. “And kills innocent women. Innocentgirls. That is not the reputation of a pure heart, no matter how you’d like to spin it.”

“He was a boy handed a life he never wanted,” she grits out. “A child born into a world he is not allowed to leave.”

“He is a rotten apple,” I retort. “A seed planted in a woman too naïve to stay away. But the moment he left her womb, he began to bruise and rot, rolling toward a world of darkness.”

“A world he was forced to endure.”

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