VELVET TRAP: A Dark Romance Thriller

CHAPTER 3: TRUTH BEHIND BARS

POV: Sloane

The air in the prison smelled of bleach and sweat.

Not the metaphorical kind. The chemical burn reached Sloane's nostrils before she made it through the first checkpoint.

Or perhaps it was just to see her father in such a way.

The guard set them up at security. Metal detector. Pat down. Door's clanging shut.

"Have you done this before?" she asked. "Visited a prison."

Adrian didn't answer. Which was an answer.

He walked beside her. Calm.

"You didn't have to come," she said.

"Yes, I did."

"Why?"

"Because your father won't speak with you. Adrian's eyes stayed forward. Scanning. "Not about what I need."

"And you think he's going to talk to you?"

"I don't think he has any options."

"He's not going to talk to you. Why would he?

His smile was cold. "Because of me, he's in here."

She stopped walking.

The guard kept going. Didn't notice.

"What?"

"Keep moving." Adrian's hand came to rest at the bottom of her back, and she arched a little into it. "I'll explain after."

"Explain now."

"Not here."

"Adrian..."

"Move, Sloane." His voice dropped. "Or I will tell you here in a voice that isn't fit to be heard by any."

"Fine."

She moved.

Her legs started working at his command in his voice.

She hated that.

Hated him.

Hated that she was here at all in the first place, walking towards her father with the man who'd put him here.

The visitation room was gray. Everything is gray. Tables bolted to the floor. Chairs bolted to the tables. The fluorescent light buzzing above, that same unyielding buzz she'd heard in Nathan's office.

Her father was on the other side of the partition. Thinner than she remembered. Grayer. Older. Sometime ago, prison had sucked the color out of him like water leaching pigment from cloth.

He picked up the phone. She did the same.

Cold plastic against her ear. The cord snaked between them, as if it were alive. His voice sounded pinched and distorted, as if he was calling from a place farther distant than six feet away.

"Sloane." His voice cracked. "You shouldn't be here."

"I had to see you."

"Did Nathan send you?"

"No."

Relief flickered across his face. Then confusion. Then fear. It all happened in a matter of three seconds, but Sloan saw it frame by frame.

"Then how did you..."

I found another way to get money." She glanced at Adrian. He stood by the door. Watching. Always watching. "For investigators. For..."

"Stop." Her father's eyes hardened. The softness disappeared as if smoke were being pulled from a room. "Everything that you did to earn this money, return it.

"Dad..."

"I mean it." He meandered up to the glass. Close enough to fog it with his breath. "You have no idea what you're getting into."

"Then tell me."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because if I do..." He stopped. He looked over her shoulder. To Adrian.

His face went white.

Not pale. White. As if they'd cut something out of him.

"No."

"Hello, Michael."

Adrian stepped behind Sloane. A hand settled on her shoulder. Light. Possessive. The touch that was not incidental.

She wanted to shrug it off.

Didn't.

Her father's eyes rested on that hand. Adrian's fingers curled around the curve of her neck as they maneuvered. His face passed through a change which was more than mere fear. Something older. Territorial.

"Get away from my daughter."

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"Sloane, then listen to me carefully. Her father's voice came to her raw through the warped plastic." That guy isn't there to help you. He's here to complete what he started.

"What are you talking about?"

"Ask him why I am here for real.

She turned. Looked up at Adrian.

His expression hadn't changed. "Tell her the truth, Michael. Or I will."

"Go to hell."

"Already there." Adrian's smile was thin. "Your turn."

Her father's fists pounded against the glass. His knuckles whitened against the scratched plastic.

"I used to work at Haley Industries five years ago. Finance department." He looked at Adrian. Stared right through him, the way you do at something you're no longer afraid of. "I discovered money coursing through accounts that ought not to exist. Millions."

"That's not illegal," Adrian said. Calm.

"How you were doing it was. Her father's voice hardened. "Stock manipulation. Insider trading. Fraud on a scale I had never seen before."

"And you reported it."

"I tried to." He laughed. Bitter. Dry. "But you got to them first. Made it seem as if I was the one who was defrauding. Planted evidence. Paid off witnesses."

"You committed fraud, Michael." Adrian's hand gripped a little harder on Sloane's shoulder. She could feel each finger. The pressure. The deliberate weight of it. "Just not the one you're in here for."

Her father's eyes widened.

"What?"

"The $50,000 you lifted out of the Jennings account. The falsified reports. The offshore transfers." Adrian leaned forward slightly. His voice dropped. Quieter. That was worse, somehow. "All real. All you."

"That's not..."

"I have proof." Adrian reached for his phone with the only free hand he had. Bank statements. Transaction logs. Her father's mark on every page. Red numbers that said nothing except guilty. "Want to see it? Should I email it to Sloane so she can read it herself?"

Silence.

The silence that fills a room the way water fills a sinking ship.

Sloane looked at the papers on his screen. And at her father's signature, repeatedly. She knew that signature. Had seen him sign birthday cards with it. Tax returns.

The man behind that glass. Thin. Gray. They'd been broken by five years of concrete and fluorescent light.

He wouldn't steal.

Would he?

"Dad," her voice came out small. "Is that true?"

Her father's face crumpled. I mean crumpled, literally: in the way that paper crumples when you crush it in your fist. "I didn't have a choice."

"There's always a choice," Adrian insisted. Quiet. Almost gentle. Almost.

"Not when he said he would kill my family!" Her father banged against the glass. Pow! The sound burst across the room, just like a gunshot. Guards looked over. Hands moved toward batons. "Not when he said if I didn't, he would make Sloane disappear..."

He stopped.

Looked at her.

Really looked at her. As though he had never seen her before. Or the last.

"I did it to protect you."

"From what?"

"From him."

Adrian's voice cut through. "Tell her the rest."

"There is no the rest."

"Liar." He held up the phone again. Showed the screen to Michael. "Inform her of the actual fraud. The one that you indeed came in here for."

Her father went still.

Too still.

"What's he talking about?" Sloane looked between them. "Dad?"

"I can't."

"Yes, you can." Adrian's tone dropped further. Colder. If you don't comply, I'll make sure Sloan hears about this, just as I was treated. And trust me, you don't want her having that conversation with Marcus Craine's widow.

Something shattered behind her father's eyes. Something that had held for so long.

"You wouldn't."

"Try me."

Three seconds of silence.

Then:

"Yeah, I assisted Marcus Craine in embezzling two hundred million dollars from his own company."

The words landed like a slap.

"What?"

"Five years ago. Before I worked for Adrian. I was Marcus's accountant." His father was refusing to lay eyes on him. Couldn't. "He wanted to hide money. From his investors. From his wife. I helped him do it."

"Why?"

"Because he paid me a quarter of a million dollars." He choked up on the number. "Because your mother's hospital bills were killing us! Because I thought..." he stopped. Swallowed. "Because I could."

"But you didn't."

"No." They made eye contact. "Adrian found out. I whispered it aloud. He threatened that unless I helped them take Marcus down, they were going to blow the whole thing.

"So you turned on Marcus."

"Yes."

"And then Marcus found out what you did..."

"He tried to kill me." Her father's hands shook as he gripped the glass. "Adrian stopped him. But the damage was done. Marcus's company collapsed. He killed himself. And everyone blamed Adrian."

"When really..."

"It was me." The tears streamed down his cheeks, one at a time. He didn't wipe it. "I destroyed Marcus Craine. I just let everybody think it was Adrian."

Sloane turned to Adrian. "You let him take the fall."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I needed a villain." His eyes were cold. Clean. "And your father volunteered."

"That's not..." she started.

"It is." Her father's words were soft now. Hollowed out. "He made me a deal. He'd either take the fall for my actual embezzlement, or he would reveal what I did to be complicit in Marcus's death. I chose prison."

"To protect me."

"Yes."

"From Adrian."

"No." Her father glanced at Adrian.

Adrian's phone buzzed. He glanced at it. Something shifted in his expression. Small. Quick. Pretend you are giving it a name before Sloan does.

"We need to go."

"Not yet."

"Now, Sloane."

"One more question." She looked again at her father. "Dad, I..."

"Listen to me." He laid his hand flat on the glass. "Nathan Cross is not what you perceive him to be.

"I know. Adrian said he took the money..."

He mentioned Nathan had been engaging in that exact behavior with you. Her father's eyes were insistent now. The fear was back. Bigger than before. "It's not. He's been working for someone. Someone who wants Adrian dead. And if you're with Adrian..."

"Then I'm a target too."

"Yes."

Adrian grabbed her wrist in his hand. "Time's up."

"Wait..." She looked at her father. "Who's Nathan working for?"

"I don't know his name." Her father's voice grew louder as the guard came closer, boots stretching file clods against caulking. "But he's the one who actually killed Marcus Craine. And he's after Adrian next."

The guard yanked her father back from the glass.

Sloane stood. Numb.

Adrian led her out. He had never removed his hand from her wrist. She could feel his pulse under her skin. Fast. More quickly than she'd expected from a man who had just demolished her world without batting an eye.

It was not until they were in the parking lot that he said anything. "Your father's lying."

"About what?"

"On not knowing who Nathan's working with."

"How do you know that?"

"Because..." He stopped. Pulled her close. His other hand gripped her face, tipped it up so that there was no avoiding looking at him. The glint of silver in his eyes, illuminated by the afternoon sun, made her momentarily lose track of their surroundings. Forgot the bleach smell and the drone of buzzing fluorescent lights and the plastic handset still cold against her ear's shrug of its ghost. "I know exactly who it is."

"Then tell me."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because you will not believe me.

"Try me."

His thumb brushed her cheek. Something moved behind his eyes. A sense of hesitation seemed to grip her, a moment of uncertainty. As if he were about to say something that could not be unsaid.

"Your dad's not the only one in your family who was lying to you."

Her blood went cold. "What does that mean?"

"It means..." His phone buzzed again. He checked it. Swore under his breath. His whole body shifted. All muscles tensed, as if a man who'd just heard a gun c**k behind him. "We need to move. Now."

"Adrian..."

"Car. Now."

There was command in his voice, and she moved.

They were 10 feet from his car when the first shot erupted.

Glass exploded.

Adrian's body slammed into hers. They landed on the street simultaneously; his weight knocking the wind out of her lungs, his hand closing over the back of her head and forcing her face into the paving. She could feel his pulsating heart against her back. Could hear his breath, raspy and hot against her ear.

"I've got you," he breathed.

Then it was gunfire in the dead of night.

END OF CHAPTER 3