Collared By Four Ruthless Men

Chapter 6

My worst night yet.

Della's words looped on repeat—a broken record scratching at my skull. I couldn't shut them off. Couldn't scrub them out. My body betrayed me, skin crawling with an itch that refused to stop. I scratched until my nails ached. Until I drew blood somewhere I couldn't see.

Still. It. Burned.

I shot up in the middle of the night, fumbling for the napkin tucked beneath my mattress. The one with every escape route mapped in shaky pen. Simple. Detailed. Foolproof.

My cheeks ached from the smile that spread across my face.

I couldn't wait to leave these four men behind.

Morning slammed into me with a knock.

Before I could sit up, the door twisted open. My hands flew to my face, scrubbing the sleep off, trying to look presentable—trying to look normal.

Della filled the doorway. Same blank mask. Same dead eyes that never gave anything away.

"Dax needs you. Dining area."

My heart dropped to my stomach.

"What—wait—"

"I passed the message." She turned. "I have breakfast to prepare."

The door clicked shut.

And I sat there, napkin still crushed in my palm, counting down the minutes until I could disappear.

I jolted up with one thing in mind. It was just a meeting with him nothing else could possibly happen.

My sweaty hands twisted the knob, my chest kept racing fast by the passing second. I hated the anxiety feeling.

I walked down the empty narrow hallway, my pace dropped, my feet kept on pulling like iron chains were clipped into it.

I good smell his cologne from a distance, my chest clinged hard together like it was blocking itself from a barrier.

I pulled my feet to the sitting area.

"You came out?"

"How did you know I was here." My pace dropped, I was standing behind him already, my pulse moving fast and sharp.

"My smelling sense are working perfectly well" he paused, "Come sit in front of me!"

It felt like a dagger was plugged into my chest. Him! No!

My legs moved before my brain could send signals.

Everything felt like it was blur day, my mind still couldn't roll over his call.

"So, why did you call me down here." The words sounded like a sharp knife oitveing through my tongue.

"You know why I called, let us both don't waste each other time."

My chest tightened at his words. I meet up with his gaze, everything wasn't sitting right with me. My emotions started twriling around.

"I swear, I don't know why you called me over here."

He chuckled.

He pressed firm against the chair. He stood, looking at me like I was a hired assassin called to deal with him.

My gaze and instinct sharpened.

His feet dragged more closer to me, filling up the space between us both.

"Your plans to escape are as weak as the bone of a new born."

I turned to him almost immediately, he looked a me with a smile that didn't settle well with me.

"What are you talking about?"

He chuckled, but this time with an extra expression that I couldn't understand.

A wave of discomfort crashed on to me.

The plans I made was a secret one, which I hid to myself and never spoke of to anyone, not even to the house keeper.

"Bring out the handkerchief, let me help reconstruct something much better for you." I looked at him.

My blood ran cold.

The napkin.

My eyes flew to my hand before I could stop myself. Empty. It had to be. I had stuck it in my waistband when I'd gone to the room, I was positive of it. Positive enough that my hand fisted against my hip searching for the familiar feeling of paper against my palm.

"Looking for this?"

He held it up between two fingers as if it were filth he was just giving me the courtesy of removing. Same careless smirk he always wore. As if everything moved at the pace he set.

I wanted to snatch the thing from his grip. Stole my hands back to my lap instead.

"You went through my room."

"I was in your room," he drawled, "different things entirely."

"It is not-"

He tilted his head, that infuriating look on his face as if he found me amusing. As if he was studying an interesting bit of fluff that would blow away at the first breath of wind. He put the napkin on the table between us and smoothed it out with two fingers. All the routes I'd drawn. All the timings scrawled along the edges. The safe point he'd mentioned I'd noted down with a tiny star in the corner as if I'd somehow bested him.

I was going to be sick.

"East gate," he said tapping the edge of the paper. "Not bad. Could've done without the faulty timing though. Again."

"You said it was at midnight."

His laugh was sharp, sudden. "No, no. I said midnight. You wrote it down. Must be pretty clear then, considering you were staring right at it."

I stayed silent. He narrowed his eyes at me before sliding the napkin back towards him. Leaning forward he picked up a pen from some unseen pocket and began to write. He'd been watching me, I was sure of it. Studying all the mistakes I'd made and now he was correcting them as if it were something he wanted me to see.

"Stop," I said, "what are you doing?"

"Fixing it."

"Stop. Please."

"You want to escape or not duchess?"

The title was spat out like it was poison, which, I was beginning to think, it was. I stared at his hand as he worked, the neat lines of the escape plan nothing like my own lousy scrawl. He was being genuine, I could tell. He really was just trying to help me, just trying to fix this-

Like it was a personal service.

"Why?" I said suddenly. His hand stilled but he didn't look up.

"Why are you helping me?"

"You keep asking me that."

"You keep not telling me."

He capped the pen and looked up at me. For the first time the mask slipped, if only for a second, and something else flickered behind his green eyes before he schooled his features again. Something sharp and bitter and... sad perhaps? Before he slid the paper back to me, smoothing it out, he looked at me again. As if he was measuring me. As if he was deciding something.

"Because a cage you choose to stay in, is different from one someone else locks you in."

I looked down at the napkin, at the neat corrections he'd made. At the route I'd take when I left. It looked good. It would work. My throat tightened.

"You want me to leave," I said slowly, "don't you?"

"I want you to have the option," he replied, leaning back and picking up his coffee. He was back to smirking, all lazy confidence as if he hadn't just bared his heart to me. "There's a difference. You should know that by now."

I looked at the napkin again. Folded it once before tucking it back against my hip where it was meant to be.

He looked at me. For a long moment we said nothing. The smells of the kitchen began to waft through the compound, Della beginning her morning rituals, onions sizzling in a pan perhaps? The usual sounds of morning life began to trickle in around the two of us sitting in silence.

"Dax."

"Mmm?"

"If I used this," I said, pressing my hand against the napkin through the waistband of my dressing gown, "if I actually left. What happens?"

He didn't say anything for a long moment. I almost thought he was going to change the subject entirely but eventually he replied.

"Nothing," he said quietly, "from me."

"The others?"

He picked up his coffee again, took a slow sip before setting the cup back down on the table between us.

"That," he said simply, "is a question you should ask them."

He stood up before I could pry him for more, tucking his hands into his pocket rolling his shoulders back before looking down at me with that infuriating expression again. Only this time there was something else there. Something knowing perhaps?

"Eat something," he said, "Della made that egg thing you like."

And he walked out. Leaving me alone with the corrected napkin and the sinking realisation that I hadn't even considered escaping in the last ten minutes.

I hated him. For that. I hated how little it actually hurt.