Scar doesn’t speak as he slips the hood over my head and picks me up again. Up, down, around and around.

Is it a spiral staircase?

I feel the cool breeze of outside air for only a moment before he settles me in the backseat of the car. Immediately, my hands go to the hood, but his thick fingers grab them and squeeze. It’s a clear indication that I’m not to remove it.

“I have to leave it on for the ride home? Are you joking?”

The only response he gives is a grunt.

My fingers itch to rip the hood off, but if keeping it on gets me home faster, then I’ll leave the damn thing alone.

He backs out of the garage, and the muted street noises barely breach the interior of the luxury car. Again, I lose track of which way we turn and instead stay silent, ready for this nightmare of an evening to be over. When the car finally stops again, I sit on my hands, expecting him to take the hood off, but he doesn’t.

“Someone is going to see and think you’re—”

Grunt.

I shut up and let him lift me out of the car and carry me up to my apartment.

Except something feels off. Keys jingle, but I swear they sound different from mine.

Scar hauls me up the stairs and stands me on my feet while he unlocks dead bolts. He gives me a small shove into the room, and the door shuts behind me before I can yank off the hood.

I rip it over my head and spin around, my brain racing to process something that makes absolutely no sense at all.

This isn’t my apartment.

Where the hell am I?

Mount. He did this.

He never intended to let me go.

“Where are you, you fucking bastard?”

I jerk my head from side to side, taking in the walls papered in a sophisticated black-and-white brocade pattern, looking for the telltale globe in the corners of the thick crown molding that would give away the presence of a camera.

I don’t see any evidence of a camera, but that doesn’t mean there’s not one here. But Mount’s not here either.

That’s something.

Barely.

All the relief I felt on my ride “home” drains from me as I investigate my new cage. I heard the locks. I know I’m not leaving until he lets me. My body trembles, and it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m naked under my coat.

I wrap my arms around myself and chafe them in an attempt to stop the shaking.

Don’t think about it. Gather information. Be a general, not a prisoner.

I swallow the fear and focus on my surroundings. There must be something that will help me either figure out where I am or aid me in my escape. I turn, surveying what is probably the most beautiful sitting room I’ve ever seen. The phrase gilded cage has never been so fitting.

There are only three colors in the whole room. Black, white, and gold.

A shiny black door leads off to the right and I rush toward it, hoping like an idiot that it could possibly be an exit, but knowing it won’t be at the same time.

It’s a bedroom.

Not the overblown bordello of a room I expected before, but one that’s sophisticated and feminine. Again, there are only three colors in the decor—black, white, and gold.

The black four-poster bed dominates the room, taking up an entire third, with sheer white fabric leading from post to post. The spread matches the black-and-white brocade from the sitting room walls, and the black satin sheets are already pulled back as if nightly turndown service has already been performed.

He never planned to let me leave. Ever.

The whole production in the library was exactly what Magnolia warned me about—Mount’s ability to fuck with my head.

I push the fear away. It’s a useless waste of energy.

Another door leads off the bedroom to a luxurious bathroom nicer than in any hotel room I’ve seen, again done in black, white, and gold.

What is it with these colors?

The bathroom has another door that leads to a walk-in closet that could serve as a decent-sized bedroom itself, but the bars are completely empty. I check the drawers in the center island, and they’re empty too.

Does he expect to keep me here naked? At least I have my trusty trench coat.

I think about the dress I was supposed to wear tonight, and for the first time, I wish I’d worn it. I leave the closet behind to inspect the contents of the bathroom drawers. Instead of being bare, they’re filled with expensive toiletries of every kind.

I make my way back through the series of rooms to the sitting area and stare at the locked door. Two dead bolts, but instead of knobs to turn on the inside, there are keyholes without the accompanying keys.

Even though I know it’s pointless because I heard the bolts slide home, I walk over to it and test the handle.

It pisses me off all over again, though.

“You asshole! You can’t keep me like a fucking pet!” I kick at the door with the delicate stilettos and succeed in leaving a tiny mark and stubbing my toe.

After limping to the center of the room, I spin in a circle with my arms outstretched. I can feel, down to the very marrow of my bones, that he is watching me from somewhere.

“Is this what you wanted? A pet? If I don’t show up for work tomorrow, everyone will notice. They’ll call the police. I don’t care how many cops you have on your payroll, there has to be someone you don’t own. They’ll find me and you’ll pay! You wanted me willing? Well, fuck you, Mount! This wasn’t part of the deal!”

My next instinct is to return to the door and beat on it until my fists are bruised and bloodied and my voice is raw from screaming for someone to let me out.

But I don’t. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing me break down. I’m stronger than this. Mount will not win. I harness the anger instead.

In a loud, clear voice, I tell the empty room, “You might get my body willingly, but that’s all you’ll ever get from me. I swear I will hate you through every single moment of this.”

After my speech, my brain slows, exhausted from the events of the last week, and all I want to do is slide between the decadent sheets and go to sleep. But something about that feels like I’m letting him win, and that’s one thing I won’t do without putting up a fight.

I faced the devil in his lair and came out unscathed. That’s something, right? A small victory.

Or mostly unscathed. My still-hard nipples and the heat between my legs remind me all too vividly of the fire he stoked within me.

“Lie to yourself all you want, Keira. But tell me the truth about one thing. When was the last time you were fucked by a real man? Someone who knows what you need. Someone who’ll take control from you and give you what you’ve been dying for. How many times did you have to fuck yourself with your fingers after your limp-dick husband rolled over, just so you would get to come too?”

He’s fucking with my head. That’s all. He can’t know how right he is.

My eyes go to the bed as his final warning replays in my mind.

“Your orgasms belong to me. If you ever touch yourself without my permission, I will spank that pussy of yours until you’re begging to come.”

With the same defiance that carried me into a henna shop, and then on these extravagantly expensive stilettos into the presence of the most feared man in this city tonight, I make a decision. I may be almost out of ammunition, but I can still fire a parting shot. I stroll into the bedroom and unbelt my trench coat, dropping it on the bedroom floor.

I rip back the spread and study the black sheets. Black like the soul of the man who put me here. I sit and remove each of the exquisite heels and drop them carelessly on the floor before sliding to the center of the bed and spreading my legs.

“This pussy doesn’t belong to you yet, Mount.”

I reach between my legs, hating that I’m already wet, but grateful at the same time because this won’t take long at all.

Am I daring the devil to come bolting through the door to make good on his threat?

No. I’m calling his bluff.

When I come tonight, it’ll be a fuck you to the man who thinks he owns me. I’ll even make sure to use my middle finger.