This was perfect. I didn’t have to find a way to sneak her out with them around.
"Of course," I replied, masking the thought that their absence made my job ten times easier.
Olivia floated down the stairs, looking like a manicured doll in a lavender suit. "And I have a signing at the downtown boutique at noon. My fans have been clamoring for a preview of the new collection." She leaned in, pressing a dry kiss to my cheek. "What would you like for dinner?"
"Anything’s good. I might not be back in time—I have some business of my own to attend to," I said. I caught her gaze, resisting the urge to wipe her mouth from my skin. "Cartier is already in the city handling some logistics for me. I'll be tied up with him for most of the day. What time should I expect everyone back if I can make it?"
"Six at the earliest. The staff arrives at six on the dot to prepare dinner," Arthur answered as he removed a key from his chain. "You can use this to leave and enter."
The staff wasn't here? They were leaving Chloe alone, with the door locked from the outside. What would she eat? Howoften did they do this? She had told me Mary only came a couple of days a week. How was she surviving?
This family was rotten. Polished on the outside, decaying underneath. I gritted my teeth as they exited.
I watched them leave. I watched the black SUVs roll down the long, moss-draped driveway until the iron gates clicked shut. It was 8:15 AM. I waited ten minutes, then I moved.
I headed to her. The steps groaned under my weight. At the top, the door was locked, and the key was nowhere to be found. Of course it wasn't.
I pulled out my knife—lock picking was a useful skill the military had taught me never to forget. A few seconds of work, and the lock clicked open.
"They're gone," I said, reaching a hand inside. "Come with me."
She hesitated, her eyes darting to the hallway. "I didn't think you would come. Maybe this isn't a good idea. Killian, if they find out—"
"They won't. I know their schedule. You're spending the day with me. I told you I had something fun for you to do."
I pulled her out of the attic. We walked out of the front door. In the full light of morning, I realized just how small her clothes were. The frilly, childish dress she was wearing was dangerously short, the seams straining against her curves.
I put her in the passenger seat of my SUV and drove. At first, she just sat there. Quiet. Looking at everything like it might disappear. Then, she rolled the window down. The wind hit her face, lifting her hair, and she leaned into it—eyes closing, lips parting as if she were breathing for the first time in years.
"I only go out for doctor's appointments," she said softly. "They keep me in the back of the van." My grip tightened on the wheel. "They don't open the windows."
I glanced at her. Her family was making me hate them, fueling the need to save her. "Why is that, Chloe?"
She pulled her head back into the car, turned to me, and chuckled. "Because I'm crazy."
“You said nothing was wrong with you.”
“Semantics. I said I wasn’t whattheysaid I was.” She turned back and held her head out of the window for the next fifteen minutes.
We ended up at a high-end boutique three towns over, somewhere we wouldn't run into her family. I watched her walk through the aisles, her fingers brushing the fabrics. She wasn't shy. She didn't throw fits. She spoke to the women and smiled at the men who couldn't stop staring as she passed. Everything I had been told about her made less sense now.
I bought her a wrap dress the color of midnight and a pair of soft leather flats. When she changed, she emerged from the dressing room looking like the queen she was born to be.
"Better?" I asked.
She looked at herself in the mirror, her hand trembling as she touched the silk. "So much better."
We had lunch at a restaurant on the coast. Over fish tacos and the sound of distant gulls, she talked about random things—nothing heavy.
"I would like to go to places like this if I was free. If I could drive," she said, looking at the keys on the table. "My momma was going to teach me when I turned sixteen. But by then... she was already a ghost."
On the way back, I pulled over onto a deserted stretch of marshland. I put her in the driver's seat. I sat close, my hand over hers on the wheel, guiding her through the turns. She was a natural, her mind working through the mechanics with a speed that made Arthur's "incompetent" label look like a joke.
As she reached for the gear shift, her hand brushed the holster at my hip. She froze. "Is that a gun?"
I nodded.
"Is it loaded?" she whispered.