Faith
But again, God wasn’t listening. Only I don’t realize it until it’s too late.
Mellow from my awesome night with Killian and fully steeped in the belief that we can overcome our challenges, I sail into Fallhurst the next morning with a spring in my step and tolerance in my attitude. Lisa Channing can bring it on. And she attempts to.
I stop shy of telling her Killian and I fucked our brains out the night before and then twice this morning before we left the house. I may be feeling smug and confident, but I’m above rubbing the poor woman’s face in it. With any luck, after today, I won’t need to see her again, and neither will Killian.
It occurs to me then that my future, after this nightmare is behind us, is wide open. Unless Killian wants to relocate to New York, I’m most likely done with the Punishment Club. Axel won’t be happy, but what the hell…
Which means I have to find another vocation. I have enough money to open another nightclub here in LA. Or if not…
“Miss Carson…”
The job of wife sounds great.
“Miss Carson?”
Except I haven’t been asked yet. But…Killian loves me. Right?
“Miss Carson!”
I blink and focus on Lisa. “Please,” I say with a smile, “call me Faith.”
A bolt of shock charges through me. It’s the first time I’ve said my own name in years. It’s the first time I’ve acknowledged it without feeling a little sick inside. I’m not the same person I used to be. But, through Killian’s eyes, I’m beginning to accept that I’m not the total monster I thought myself to be either.
Sure, I’ve done things that I’ll have to live with. Taking a life, no matter how vile that life was, has eroded a part of my soul I’ll never get back. As for Matt, I’ve accepted that he threw me away long before I met Killian. That I lusted after Killian before I was technically free is something else I’ll have to live with. The only hurdle to face that fills me with fear is confessing my carelessness with the one precious life I should’ve protected with everything I had.
“…So unless there’s anything else you want to talk about, I think we’re done here.”
I swallow, grab my purse, and rise from the chair. I need to find Killian and tell him every last secret in my soul. No time like the present. “No, I can’t think of a single thing.”
Lisa Channing nods and closes her file. “I’ll make my final report and hand it in next week. You’ll be contacted after that.”
I’m sure I won’t be, but who cares. “Great. Thanks.”
“Would you like me to get someone to take you back upstairs, or is Mr. Knight coming to get you?” She says his name without the interest I’ve heard previously.
Either she’s accepted that she has no chance with Killian, or the come-on I witnessed was all in my head when I was feeling on less stable ground.
Whatever. I can’t wait to put everyone and everything to do with the Fallhurst Institute behind me.
I glance at the clock in Lisa’s office and notice I’ve only been here an hour. Killian and I thought I would be longer, so we made plans to meet at midday. I can’t call him because cell phones aren’t allowed past reception.
“No need. I’ll see myself out,” I say to Lisa.
She walks me to the door but hangs back when I pull it open. “Goodbye, Miss Carson.”
I nod and leave the room.
The man walking toward me isn’t Scot Scarsdale. But he’s a clone from the same army of analysts. His badge clearly says so, as does his pasty smile and wire-rimmed glasses.
“Miss Carson, Mr. Knight asked me to come check on you. He wants you to know he’ll be a while.”
“Well, I’m done now.”
“Okay, I can either escort you to the seventeenth floor or you can go up and wait in reception for him.”
“Can you take me to him, please?”
“Of course. If you’d like to come with me?”
I smile, my impending freedom suffusing me with happiness. “Sure, lead the way.” We enter the elevator, and he slides his keycard through the slot. We ride for a few floors in silence. “Are you allowed to tell me what goes on on the seventeenth floor, or will you have to kill me?”
His head snaps to me, and his eyes widen for a moment. “Oh. No, it’s nothing like that. I mean…it is…Well, what I’m saying is, level seventeen requires top clearance, of course, but—”
I reach out and lay a hand on his sleeve. “Hey, it’s okay. I was just messing with you.”
“Oh.” He looks down at my hand for a second, a hint of a frown creasing his brows. When I drop my hand, he shrugs. “Well, I’m used to that.”
The bitter snap to the words prickles my skin with cold disquiet. It’s enough for me to hurry out of the elevator when we jolt to a stop.
I haven’t been to level seventeen before, so I don’t know what to expect. But I’m sure it shouldn’t look like an underground garage with industrial-size steel pipes twisting and turning in a maze of metal. I take a few more steps into the large space and then turn around.
My blood goes cold.
He’s pointing a gun at me, the black muzzle gleaming pure menace. Shock holds me still long enough for him to punch a couple of buttons on the elevator panel before stepping out. I rush forward when the doors start to shut.
“Stop,” he commands coldly. “I may be just an analyst, but I went through some training to get this job. Six feet, I believe, is the space I need to keep between us to stop you from attempting to disarm me before I shoot. I’m not ashamed to admit that I know you can kick my ass, but trust me, if you come any closer than the requisite six feet, I’ll shoot. Now turn around and let’s go.”
Heart shaking, I swivel back to the maze of pipes. “Where are we going?”
“For now, straight ahead of you.”
I force my feet to move. After about two hundred feet, I glance over my shoulder. He’s maintaining the six feet that keeps him out of my reach. “What’s your name?
He shakes his head. “Don’t bother trying to establish rapport. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now.”
The finality in his voice sends another cold shiver down my spine. “You’re the mole.”
His pale skin goes even paler. “You know.”
“Yes, but whatever you’ve done, it’s not too late to make things right.”
He makes a creaky sound that is a poor imitation of laughter. “You know what they do to people like me in jail?”
“Why? What did you do?”
His head bows for a moment. I slow my steps but then his head snaps up, and he slows down too, keeping the exact distance between us as before.
His fingers grip the gun tighter. “I really don’t want to shoot you, Miss Carson. Turn left, please.”
I follow another set of steel pipes. “Where are we going? At least you can tell me that?”
“I don’t know. I just have to deliver you to him, that’s all.”
My heart drops to my feet. “Him? Paul Galveston?” I ask over my shoulder.
He nods.
“You don’t have to do what he says. Help Killian…Mr. Knight and me instead. We’ll—”
“Look at me. Tell me what you see,” he says.
I stop and take a closer look at my captor. Everything about him reeks of despair. The no-hope, finite kind. I don’t have the courage to voice that because that will also seal my fate.
“Exactly,” he says softly.
He jerks the gun, and I start moving again. Toward the dark green door a hundred feet in front of me.
Nothing good lies on the other side of it. I know that in my bones. Ten feet from it, I stop.
“You need to open the door, Miss Carson.”
I shake my head. “No.”
“I’m sorry.”
I glance over my shoulder and see he’s much closer now. And his hand is already raised. I kick him in the gut, and he flies backward. The gun is knocked from his hand, and he wheezes as he struggles for air. But he doesn’t stay down for long. My heart drops when he scrambles for his gun. I stumble backward as he stands. He’s still breathless, but there’s a desperation about him that chills every cell in my body.
Whatever Galveston is holding over him is powerful enough for him to want to see this through. I don’t wait to see if he’ll shoot me so I take the only choice I have. I grasp the door handle and yank it open.
A shadow looms in front of me, blocking out the sunlight.
“Hello, beautiful.”
Fear smashes through me. Galveston.
I don’t see the Taser coming, but I feel it jam into my ribs and hear its sickening sizzle as it electrifies my nerves.
Blinding pain explodes stars across my vision. I’m falling. Falling. Then I sink into nothing.