VELVET TRAP: A Dark Romance Thriller

CHAPTER 2: SILK AND CONSEQUENCES

POV: Sloane

She woke up to silk.

Not her sheets. Not her bed. Not her life.

Sloane's eyes snapped open. White walls. Floor-to-ceiling glass. The city spread out below, forty stories down, as if it belonged to someone else.

"You're awake."

She bolted upright.

Adrian sat by the window. Coffee in hand. Sleeves rolled. He watches her, the way a man watches something he's already figured out.

"What the hell." Not a question. More of an accusation.

"You fell asleep."

"Where am I? What is happening?"

She looked down. Still in the red dress. Wrinkled but intact.

Her heels sat by the bed. Side by side. Perfectly aligned.

She hadn't taken them off.

"Did you take my shoes off?"

He didn't deny it. "You were unconscious. I wasn't about to let you pass out in heels."

"You drugged me?"

"You had three whiskey glasses with nothing in your stomach." He set his coffee down. "You passed out in the car."

"What car? I didn't get in any car."

"You did. You said, "Where are we going?" I said, somewhere safe. You said okay."

"I can't remember that."

"You would." He nodded toward the nightstand. "Check your phone."

She grabbed it.

11:47 PM. A text. To herself. Her own number.

Going with him. If I died, that man with eyes grayer than those of the black tie in the Velvet Room was just there, beside me.

Her words. Auto-corrected into sterile typeface. She didn't remember sending it. Did not remember anything after I left the club.

Nothing. A memory-place where a black hole should be.

"I want to leave."

"You will."

"Now."

"After breakfast."

She lifted her legs off the bed. Too fast. The room tilted. She gripped the nightstand.

"I didn't agree to breakfast."

"You didn't agree with so many things." He stood. "But you're here anyway."

"Because you kidnapped me."

Cause you passed out drunk in my car. He moved toward her. Calm. "There's a difference."

"Not from where I'm standing."

"Then sit down." He gestured to his chair. "We need to talk."

"No," she grabbed her heels. The leather was cold.

"You're going to like this."

"I doubt that."

"It's about the money."

She stopped. Didn't turn. But she stopped.

"What about it?"

It did something to it last night. While you were sleeping."

"What do you mean something went wrong?

"Sit down, Sloane. This isn't something I'd mention to someone who's about to leave.

She turned. Looked at him. At the coffee. From the penthouse, worth more than she could earn in ten lifetimes. The man who'd tossed her fifty thousand in cash last night as if it were pocket change.

"Fine." She set the heels down. "Talk."

His hand caught her wrist.

Easy. Just strong enough to keep her from extracting herself without a scene.

"Sit down."

His voice dropped. The voice she'd heard last night. The one that did not ask twice. One that made something in her chest grow quiet in a way that had nothing to do with obedience.

She sat.

Hated that she sat.

"Sit." He released her wrist. Moved back to the window. Hip against the windowsill. Coffee in hand.

"The money that I gave you last night."

"What about it?"

"It's gone."

Her stomach dropped. "What do you mean, gone?"

"Someone moved it. Three hours ago." He set his coffee down. "All fifty thousand. It got sent to an offshore account that I can't trace."

"I didn't touch it."

"I know you didn't."

"Then who..."

"That's what I have to figure out. He leaned forward. "Who knew that you were at the Velvet Room?"

"No one."

"Think harder."

"I said no one. I didn't tell anyone."

"Then how did they know?" He held her gaze. Patient. Waiting. "Somebody had to know you were there. "Somebody must have known how much you would want to bank."

"I don't know how."

"Yes, you do." He stood. Moved toward her. "Consider who first told you about the Velvet Room.

She stared at him.

The silence stretched.

"Your father's lawyer."

All the muscles in her body froze.

"What?"

"Nathan Cross." He pulled out his phone. Turned the screen toward her. "And he is the one who sent you here."

The temperature dropped. She could feel it right at the bottom of her neck.

"How do you know?"

"Because I looked into it." He kept the phone steady. Nathan's been transferring money for months. Small amounts at first. Then bigger."

"How do you know that?"

"Since I watch everyone who owns my money." He showed her the phone and the photograph. "Every transaction. Every person."

"Then you knew somebody would try to take it."

"I suspected Nathan might."

"Nathan outside the courthouse." He swiped. "Same tired suit. Same broken briefcase."

She looked. I recognized it immediately.

"Nathan at dinner." Another swipe. "White tablecloths. Wine that is more expensive than your rent.

"That doesn't prove..."

"And this." One more swipe. A signature of his on a fifty-thousand-dollar transfer. Time stamped three hours ago."

Sloane's hands went numb.

"He stole the money." Adrian's voice was flat. Quiet. "All of it. "And he's had it in the works, like since then right when he told you about the Velvet Room."

"No."

"Yes."

"He wouldn't do that."

"He did." Adrian held the phone up to her face. "Nathan Cross stole from me. And he used you to do it."

"You're lying."

"Am I?" He moved closer. Squatting before their chair. Eye level. His knees brushed hers. Close enough that she could smell the coffee in his breath and something else underneath. Cedar again. The same smell as last night. "Tell me something. When Nathan told you about the Velvet Room, did he hint at it? Or did you ask?"

She tried to think back.

Couldn't.

Everything was blurring together. Nathan's office. The conversation. His concerned expression. His helpful tone.

If you're desperate enough...

"I don't remember."

"Yes, you do." His hand covered hers. Warm against her cold skin. The contact was grounding in the way it should not have been. "Think, Sloane. Close your eyes and think."

She closed her eyes.

Nathan's office. Two weeks ago. The fluorescent light that buzzed above regardless of how many times the building manager said he would repair it.

"Your father is running out of appeals. We need money for investigators."

"How much?"

"Fifty thousand. Minimum."

"I don't have that."

"I know." A pause. The sort that dragged on. "But there are places ... if you're desperate enough."

"What kind of places?"

"The kind where people pay for discretion."

Her eyes snapped open.

"He set me up."

"Yes."

"He knew I'd go there. Knew I'd want just fifty thousand." Her voice shook. "Knew someone would get it for me."

"Not just someone." Adrian stroked his thumb over her knuckles. Slow. Almost unconscious. "Me."

She jerked her hand back. So quick the chair scraped backward. "You knew."

"I suspected."

"You let me..." She was unable to complete the sentence. The words tasted like bile. It was all. You let me walk in there thinking I had to sell myself when you knew it was all..."

"I didn't until what you said about your father." He stood too. Close. Still close. "And you'd already spilled more than Nathan would likely have preferred."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. I guess Nathan thought you were just going to take the money and run." His eyes held hers. "Instead, you told me everything. Your father's name. The fraud charges. The appeals. Everything that I would need to work out what Nathan was playing at."

"So what now?" Her voice barely held. "You take the money back? Turn me in?"

"No."

"Then what?"

"I'm the one who'll get your father out.

She stared at him. "Why would you do that?"

"Because Nathan stole from me." His smile was cold. Clean. "And I don't allow people to steal from me."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you'll get for a long time." He moved past her. Opened a door she hadn't seen. The bathroom behind it was the size of her studio apartment. "Shower's through there. Clothes in the closet. We leave in thirty minutes."

"To where?"

"To see your father."

Her heart seized. "What?"

"You wanted him out, right?" He glanced back. "Then we begin with what he actually knows about the fraud indictment itself. The real ones. Not the one Nathan's been spoon-feeding you."

"How do you?"

"Thirty minutes, Sloane."

She counted. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Her father's trick. You want to give your brain something else to do other than spiral.

Ten Mississippi.

"What's your name?"

He paused at the door. Turned slightly. "You don't know?"

"You know mine. Seems unfair."

"Adrian Hale."

The name struck her like stepping off a curb into thin air.

"The Adrian Hale."

"Is there another one?"

"The one who took out Marcus Craine." Her voice came out strangled. "Drove him to bankruptcy. To his death."

"Marcus deserved what happened."

"He killed himself."

"That was his choice."

"You made that the only choice he had." Her voice rose. "Everyone knows that."

"I gave him the same choice I gave everyone. Adrian's eyes darkened. "Adapt or burn."

Silence sat between them.

"And if I don't help you?"

"Then Nathan keeps the money. Your father stays in prison." He opened the door wider. "And six months from now, when he's exhausted his appeals..."

He didn't finish. Didn't have to.

"That's blackmail."

"That's reality." He checked his watch. "Twenty-nine minutes."

"Wait," she stepped forward. "Why me? You're Adrian Hale. My father, you could've saved him over a phone call. Why the Velvet Room? Why this?"

His eyes held hers. Three heartbeats. Four.

"I did it for you," Adrian responded. "Because I wanted to see if you were worth saving."

"And?"

"I haven't decided yet."

The door closed.

Sloane found herself in a bedroom that was worth more than her lifetime.

Her hands were shaking. She smoothed them down into her thighs. Forced them still.

Twenty-eight minutes.

He hasn't lied to you yet.

The thought came quietly. Underneath everything else.

She looked at the closet. Clothes hanging there. Her size. Already picked out.

He'd known she'd say yes. Had known before she did.

She reached and yanked them off each hanger. Held them up. Professional. Simple. The type of outfit that revealed nothing about the person who wore it.

"He chose these," she said to the empty room.

No one answered.

She got dressed.

END OF CHAPTER 2