We were down the stairs and across the house to the den in what felt like seconds. It was too fast. I needed more time. Except, looking around, there was no one here. Where was the man?

“I left him in the garage,” Derek said with a sexy grin, and my cheeks grew warm thinking what the man would have heard if Derek had brought him in the house when I was still tied to the bed and writhing in rapturous misery.

What difference would it have made? I thought glumly. That man had heard and seen everything in that dungeon.

“Ready, Scar?”

I nodded because I didn’t have any choice but to be ready.

Derek left me with a kiss while I stood, staring at the floor. The hardwood was dark, so dark I had to look closely to see the grain in the rich stain. Mahogany, I thought, but it was only a guess. The planks were narrow. Thousands of them ran together to cover the floor space, though the stairs to the sunken den broke up their continuity. I wasn’t sure when I had become so fascinated with flooring. I suppose after spending a great deal of time with my head lowered, there wasn’t much else to notice down here but the floors.

I heard two sets of footsteps returning. They moved almost in tandem, but just slightly out of sync. As they came closer, both sets slowed as if they were nearing a frightened animal and they were afraid of spooking it.

I was the frightened animal, I realized, and that was precisely what they were doing.

I saw Derek’s shoes first, and I felt the urge to kneel, but I didn’t. I wasn’t supposed to here. Besides, I somehow had to convince the other man I wasn’t a basket case. I took deep breaths and exhaled slowly, trying to ignore the way my heart pounded harder with every step the unfamiliar shoes took toward me. Thankfully, he stopped at least ten feet away. Derek kept coming though and I felt a little calmer when he was in front of me.

“Scar, this is Michael Ramos,” he said. He tilted my chin up, but to look at him, not the other man.

“Hello, Michael,” I said, still looking at Derek. That made it easier. But I couldn’t care about easy. Strong. Competent. That’s what I needed this man to see.

So, I forced my gaze across the room to where he was standing. He looked the same as he had that day. His short, messy-styled hair with just a few strands of grey at his temples, his handsome features and cautious expression. The same. Is that how he always looked? When he watched me on the monitors, is that how he’d looked?

I didn’t realize how badly I was shaking until Derek urged me to sit down with a gentle hand at my back. A tear trickled down my cheek as I lowered myself onto the sofa, and I brushed it away, angry with myself for being so weak. I had to pull myself together—fast.

“You knew my aunt?” I said, voicing the first thought that came to mind. Anything had to be better than sitting here crying, right?

“Yes.” His lips curved up into a small smile.

I think my aunt—whoever she was—probably liked his smile. It was nice. It wasn’t powerful enough to ripple through me like Derek’s smile, but it was pleasant. I hoped he smiled at her a lot.

“I never knew her. My mother didn’t talk about her often. Maybe you wouldn’t mind telling me about her sometime?”

His smile grew a little bigger. “I would like that, Scarlett.”

Derek went and retrieved a bottle of something and three glasses while Michael and I remained a frozen tableau. When he returned, he filled two glasses. Then he splashed a small amount in the third one and handed it to me before giving Michael one of the fuller glasses. Both men quickly downed the liquid—scotch, according to the bottle. I sat staring at my glass. I’d never had scotch before. I’d never had any alcohol before, actually. And something about it made me think I didn’t want to start now. Maybe I was just offended I was getting a kid-sized drink in comparison to theirs. Either way, I just held the glass, staring at the golden yellow scotch that covered the bottom.

“Michael is going to be driving you to Phoenix in three days. He’ll make sure you get on the plane safely the next morning,” Derek explained what I’d already suspected, but Phoenix? Was he driving me back to the U.S.?

It didn’t matter. There was still no way in hell I was going to Arizona or getting on any plane. I nodded but kept my head down though so he couldn’t read what I was thinking.

“You’ll be safe, Scarlett. I promise you,” Michael said, and though he spoke with well-meaning vehemence in his voice, I wanted to tell him not to make promises he couldn’t keep.

“Thank you,” I said instead.

I must have been convincing them both because Derek sat down and started going into detail about the plan—the part where he gets me out of here, not the part where he goes to face Mateo alone. I didn’t even know where he would be meeting him. I needed to find out without raising his suspicions.

“Why can’t I stay with you? How far could it possibly be to the airport? And then you and I could go together—safe.” It sounded kind of lame once the words were out, but it was too late to take them back.

“Scarlett, it’s an eight-hour drive from where Lopez is expecting Derek,” Michael replied—unknowingly helpful.

Derek growled and slammed his glass down on the coffee table. “Can I have a word with you, Michael?” It might have been phrased as a question, but it wasn’t a question.

“I only meant that it would be a long distance for the two of you to travel—possibly with his men after you the whole time,” Michael continued, thinking he was on the right track.

“A word. Now,” Derek barked, and the two of them left the den, but the damage had already been done.

Sure, it wasn’t a hand-drawn map to the meeting spot, but I also knew from what Derek had told me that the meeting would take place at a landing strip. All I needed to do was figure out what landing strip near here was eight hours from Phoenix.

When they returned, Michael looked appropriately contrite, and I felt a pang of guilt for getting him into trouble. He couldn’t have known I had no intention of going along with Derek’s plan.

Derek’s eyes were on me as he crossed the room and sat down next to me.

“Scar, get it out of your head. I know you want to help, but I need you to live. Do you understand? There isn’t anything in this world more important. Not Mateo Lopez, not me. Nothing. I’d walk away from this and fly with you to the other side of the world if I could, but I can’t. I have to end this. No matter the cost, you have to be safe.”

I looked at Michael, then back to Derek. They wore the same determined expressions. Damn it, Michael wasn’t going to help me. Maybe neither of them cared if Derek died, but I did. And it looked like I was going to have to do this on my own.

We stayed in the den for another two hours, though there was no more talk of escape plans. After a few minutes of tense silence, Michael had turned the conversation to his wife, telling me about how they met, how she spoke of my mother often—their childhood together and my mother getting caught up with the wrong people. I told him what I could about my mother, how she spoke of her family on occasion, how we’d moved a lot, though I didn’t know why until recently. Whether it was James or Marcos she’d been trying to hide from, I’d never know for sure though—probably both of them.

I didn’t want to talk to Michael. I still wanted him to leave, especially since this man who knew too much about me wasn’t going to help me. But I couldn’t make myself get up and leave the room. He knew about my family—family I had never met. He knew my mother had taken ballet classes when she was six years old and that she’d fallen out of a tree when she was nine and broken her arm—things I’d never known. Things nobody else in the world could tell me. I shouldn’t care. What difference did it make? My mother was dead, and so was the aunt who I’d never met. But I was hungry for it anyways.

Two hours through though, I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. After hours of Derek’s torture device, it was a wonder I’d stayed awake this long. Apparently, though, I did end up drifting off because the next thing I knew, I was in Derek’s arms and he was laying me down on the bed. He stripped off my sweater, t-shirt and pants, then tucked the covers up over my bra-clad breasts. I felt his heat beside me, and then his arms around me, but I was going under fast.

“I love you,” I whispered. I don’t know why I said it. We didn’t say things like that often because it was unnecessary. It was intrinsic in everything we were, everything we said and everything we did. But it seemed important now. It was the reason I was going to defy him, and he needed to know that. I could only hope he’d understand that when it came time to dole out my punishment for it.

I had no choice, and in this, that didn’t bother me one bit.