The next thing Rora remembered was blinking open her eyes, fighting darkness that wanted to take her back, and a sickening moment of panic. For that breath, she feared she was back in Bella’s basement, attached to the wall.

Except the scent of clean wood and warmth erased those fears fast. Orienting herself, she recalled that she was in Leandra’s hiding place. Her wrists were bound by rope above her head. She was attached to one of the bannister spindles, with the empty space under the ascending stairs behind her.

Strike was holding one weapon and had another in his waistband. He and Bella were standing at the back of the couch, discussing what to do with Junker.

“I’ll take him out, they’ll never find the body,” Strike said.

“We have to find out what they did with Leandra first,” Bella said, her hands on Strike’s hips. “Our duckie was naughty stealing that woman away from us…”

“You don’t need her,” Junker spoke up.

Strike’s back was to her, but Rora didn’t need to see his face to know he was angry. “Fuck you, Square. You’re a walking corpse, don’t push me to make any rash decisions. They won’t work out for you.”

“Bella,” Junker beseeched the woman. “I have the Point. We have everything we need.”

One of Bella’s hands fell from Strike’s hip and her chin rose. “We? What do ‘we’ need?”

“I’m on your side,” Junker said, smiling.

More interest grew in Bella’s expression. “So, I have all the men… that’s good to know. Why should I believe you?”

“Maybe because men are groveling, pathetic idiots, just like you always said,” Rora said, feeling nothing but disgust.

Everyone turned to her. “Ah, she’s back with us,” Bella said, turning to her, though there was a good twenty feet between Rora and them. “We were just discussing how you’d been naughty… Do you want to tell us where Leandra is? I’d hate to mar that beautiful body with the scars of torture, but my prince does have a way with a blade.”

“Junker’s wrong,” Rora said. “He doesn’t have the Point.” Junker’s optimism faded. “But if you give me your word that you won’t harm Leandra, or even approach her, I’ll give you what you want.”

“Ah,” Bella said, tapping a fingertip on her lip and then drawing the digit down the center of Strike’s chest. “Do we believe their sudden change of heart? Weren’t they the ones concerned with our decency?”

“I don’t care about that,” Junker said, a new kind of cynicism in his voice. Maybe her lie had been the final straw for him or maybe he was just reprioritizing fast. “All I care about is him.”

Bella’s surprise probably matched Strike’s. Rora’s heart began to race again. “I don’t go that way,” Strike said.

Bella laughed and threw her arms around Strike. “I love a man who’s willing to experiment. But if you’re implying an exchange, a sample of our prince in exchange for what I want, we will have to subdue him first. He’s less open-minded than me and my duckie… You can have her too, she’s already incapacitated… though she does have a habit of being rebellious… sometimes that makes it more fun.” Bella turned to the side to lean on Strike who looked over his shoulder in her direction as Bella walked her fingers up Junker’s chest. “And if you’re not spent after—”

“He’s her half-brother,” Rora blurted out, her eyes matched to Strike’s. Her love had to know, and she didn’t care that Junker wasn’t ready for the big reveal, telling Strike the truth was most prominent in her mind. “He knows you killed his father.”

It wasn’t exactly gratitude on Strike’s face, but he did get a look of understanding. In a fraction of a second, she saw the flicker of a thousand calculations sprint across his gaze.

Bella and Junker seemed to be busy staring at each other. So Rora took another risk to mouth, ‘I love you’ though she had no idea if Strike saw it or not, he was too busy trying to figure out how this changed the plan.

“That we killed his father,” Strike said, and for a second Rora thought he was talking to her, but his eyes slowly slid around to Bella. “Right, Belladonna? I killed him because you begged me to…”

“Oh my God,” Rora exhaled, trying to play along with Strike’s plan. “He’s right. I… Oh my God, Junker, I’m sorry… I forgot, she… she did. She told me she did.”

“No,” Junker said. “You’ve got it wrong, Aurora.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Bella said. Rora hadn’t expected her endorsement. “I begged him to kill Daddy and my disgusting brothers.” Pushing away from Strike and from Junker, Bella backed away a few steps. “And I might have my prince kill you too.”

Strike raised his gun, adjusting his position to aim at Junker’s head. “No!” Junker said. “No, you don’t know… you don’t know what he’s like! He’s bewitched you!”

“My prince loves me,” Bella said. “He always has… You’re a stranger to me, why should I trust your word?”

“Because I can get you what you want,” he said, glancing at Rora. “Aurora will tell you everything you want to know…”

Bella turned to her. “Will you, Rora? And what’s your price?”

“Leave Leandra alone,” Rora said.

“And…”

“Let me kill Exile.” Junker said.

That wasn’t part of Rora’s plan and panic made her start to sweat. Tugging at the rope that was cutting into her wrists, she tried to be subtle in her attempts to free her hands.

“But, Junk,” Rora said, trying to come across as the concerned damsel in distress. “If Bella was complicit… she ordered her brothers’ deaths. What if she turns on you? You could get hurt.”

“I only turn on disgusting men who put their hands on me without permission,” Bella said.

Though apparently Bella’s permission extended to every woman on the planet. Bella had no problem with rape, and no problem threatening women with it. But it seemed to the Black Jewel that if she gave her permission for a man to touch a woman’s body, even one that wasn’t hers, it was enough.

This was arrogance above any that Rora had ever experienced. “No!” Junker suddenly called out and shoved away from the couch. “No! This is wrong! Bella! Bella!”

Marching toward the mantelpiece, he seemed to be losing his marbles, but reached up suddenly and grabbed something. Metal glinted, but Rora couldn’t see what was in his hand. Bella screamed and lunged forward, pushing at Strike who fired a shot in the same instant.

Junker wailed, but didn’t go down. He clung to his arm, but spun around with a knife extended toward Strike. A knife, Rora exhaled her relief, that wasn’t as dangerous as a gun. Bella didn’t seem to know that though, she’d plastered herself against Strike, protecting his body.

“You can’t love him!” Junker called, blood running from the wound on his arm that suggested a bullet had just grazed him. “You can’t have wanted our family dead!”

“I can!” Bella screeched. “And you will not hurt my prince!”

Finally, something Rora and the Jewel had in common. “If you ask forgiveness, if you tell me you’re sorry…” Junker said like he was trying to make sense of this. “Get over your infatuation with him—”

Movement to the right made Rora take her eyes from the stand-off. Someone was in the kitchen.

“Burke,” she said.

Strike turned to her, but she nodded sideways toward the kitchen. Strike pulled the second gun from his waistband just a second before the kitchen door opened and Burke came in brandishing a weapon of his own.

Strike backed away slowly, putting more space between him and the couch to better keep the two other weapons in his sights. He couldn’t watch both Junker and Burke at the same time, not unless he got to the other side of the room and widened his view.

Bella, still working for her without knowing it, stayed against Strike, offering a shield.

Rora tugged at her bounds and felt one loosen. She was the only one restrained, and though she was in a corner, she didn’t like being helpless.

“This is fucked up,” Strike spat out.

She didn’t envy his position, there were three guns and a knife in the room now; one man bleeding, one woman trussed up, and everyone wanted something different.

“Isaac Burke,” Bella said and squealed. “We might have a present for you.”

Torres!

Rora had forgotten about the other agent. Well, she hadn’t forgotten about him exactly, but when she hadn’t seen him, she figured he’d either bolted or Bella had got bored of him and killed him. Burke moved further into the room, seeming only to be concerned with aiming at Strike.

“Stand down, Exile,” Burke said. “We’ve got you surrounded.”

“If you had me surrounded, you wouldn’t be in here alone,” Strike said.

Rora tugged some more and found each of her wrists were tied individually to the bannister with the same length of rope. One wrist loosened and her elbow bent, but she kept it there, not revealing that she’d just managed to free one hand. Discreetly, she began to dip her hand in a circle to let the length of rope uncoil and fall from her wrist. When it got long enough, she let the loop fall behind her head to hide it from the room. It had just touched the base of her neck when she ran out of rope to free.

So she had one wrist still fixed to it anchor, a tight circle of rope around the other though it was no longer fixed to the bannister, and a length of rope hidden behind her head. Bella was telling Burke that they were going to be friends, and that he had to be smart because both Exile and Junker were prepared to shoot him if they had to.

But Rora was only half-listening. She watched the confident Burke, his focus on Strike, ready to get his man, or whatever he wanted from the Jewel. Rora didn’t care about what he wanted, all she knew was she didn’t like this setup one bit.

Burke had discounted her as a threat, so as he crept closer to Strike, he didn’t even look at her. She waited, tense, ready for him to move just close enough that she could…

Leaping up, she wrapped both legs around him from behind, catching him off guard, making him fall backward. In a flash, she tipped her own head out of the way and looped her spare length of rope around Burke’s neck.

Ignoring the screaming pain in her fixed wrist, she used the other to pull the rope tight around Burke’s neck. Using her legs around his waist to pull him down, her own body acted as a weight to choke him.

The gun must have fallen from his hand because he used both to claw at her as she huffed and tugged. Opening her mouth, Rora screamed out the exertion of strength she was using to pull the rope around his throat and in her legs to pull him down.

Strike appeared in front of them. He grabbed Burke by the top of his head while sweeping his legs out from under him. Her victim’s weight fell suddenly, jolting her, then Strike laid one punch to Burke’s temple and the guy went limp.

It took her a panting second to loosen her own grip from his body. Her legs relaxed, her arm dropped, and as Burke slid onto the floor in an unconscious slump, she too lost the ability to stand upright.

But as she sagged forward, Strike put an arm around her waist to support her. “We gotta untangle this shit,” he said and for a second, Rora thought he was talking to her.

But when she looked up, his attention was on Bella who nodded. “Separate them, tie them up!”

Strike nodded once and let her go. It took her a second to tense and hold herself up, but the adrenaline was enough to keep her going.

Bella was holding a weapon now, it had to be one of Strike’s. As her love picked Burke from her feet, and carried him up the stairs, Bella enjoyed holding court.

“We have all the time in the world,” Bella said. “This is going to be fun, won’t this be fun? No one’s looking for us out here.”

“Wonderland mark two,” Rora commented, but didn’t think anyone heard her.

“You don’t have to restrain me,” Junker said, still clinging to his arm. His pallor made her think maybe the wound was worse than she’d first thought. “I want you to have everything you want. I’m not your enemy, Bella. Just give up that maniac, that’s all you have to do. He’s manipulating you… he’s evil.”

“I like evil,” Bella said.

Junker stumbled forward and caught himself on the couch, which he climbed onto, she guessed to lie down. Rora expected Bella to say something about him staying in view or on his feet. But when she turned, she saw the Black Jewel was admiring her.

“I think we’ll give you your own room,” Bella said. “The room with the biggest bed.”

Rora wanted to spit when Bella winked at her. Strike came running down the stairs and Junker was next to be taken upstairs. He tried to argue and to lunge out with the knife, but Strike took it away from him without much trouble and then forced the man up the stairs.

“My prince tells me he played a little joke on you,” Bella said, coming toward her when they were the only two people left in the room. “Did you really think he’d chosen you?” Bella pouted. “We needed to know where Leandra was… You had your chance to answer the question, and you wouldn’t play nice with us. But I have to be honest; I don’t tire of the chase, do you?” She shivered and grinned. “There’s something invigorating about it, isn’t there?”

“If you say so.”

“Now I don’t want you to think I’ve been naïve,” Bella said. “My prince hasn’t convinced me yet, but he will… we have a little deal and I do feel it’s only fair to warn you since you will be the tool he needs to use.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Bella touched the barrel of the gun to Rora’s breast and traced it down her cleavage and up to the other breast. “I came here prepared to kill you if I had to… now I find you might be willing to play nice… But I will still have to ensure that my prince’s mind hasn’t been poisoned by you again… Do you love him?”

Rora pulled away as best she could, but her shoulder came up against the side of the stairs. “Go to hell!”

Bella’s head fell back when she laughed. “Isn’t that where we all plan to meet? In the home of our prince?”

Strike’s home wasn’t in hell. Rora understood that Bella enjoyed spreading stories about him and what he was capable of, but she failed to see what else Strike could be.  

“Junker’s going to kill him,” Rora said, hoping Bella wouldn’t forget the threat, though she made it seem like she was happy about the idea. “He despises Exile for murdering your family.”

“He has no idea what they were!”

As crazy as she was? Probably not.

“We’ll get the other one from the trunk,” Strike’s voice sounded behind her and she looked up to see him running down the stairs. “If he suffocates, we lose our bargaining chip.”

“Whatever you feel, my prince,” Bella said, waving an absent hand and moving away from Rora when Strike came to untie her fixed wrist. But the Jewel came back to peek around him as he reached up. “Tie her flat to the mattress… and strip her too… there are plenty of men for her to entertain.”

Strike didn’t meet her eyes, but Rora guessed he felt the beat of her hammering heart or the hitch of her shallow breathing. When her arm dropped, her legs almost buckled, but she managed to tug her arm hard, like she was trying to free herself from him. But he yanked her to him and then bent to toss her over his shoulder.

Kicking and shouting, Rora pounded at his back, and ignored the sound of Bella’s laughter. He took her into the bedroom she’d slept in last night and tossed her onto the middle of the bed.

Curling her knees up to her chest, Rora wrapped both arms around her legs and rolled herself into a ball. For the first time since she’d got there, she had a moment of safety to try gathering her thoughts. She had so many questions, and so many thoughts, but they only had a few seconds.

She expected Strike to say something, to issue instructions or ask a question. But the first contact they had was when he grabbed her wrist and pulled it hard, dragging her up the bed to begin tying her arm to the bedpost.

“What are you doing?” she asked, trying to pull it away. “Flame?” When one wrist was secure, he walked all the way around the bed and tried to get the other arm. But she wasn’t going to hand it over easily. “No. No! No!”

“Shut the fuck up,” he hissed and caught her arm.

Her muscles screamed in pain when she tried to resist him extending her arm and tying it to the other bedpost. “What the hell? No!”

When she was secured, he grabbed her chin and hauled her attention to him. “Fighting me will only make it hurt more.”

“I know pain,” she snarled at him, their eyes as enflamed as each other’s. “The physical I can handle.”

He shoved her chin and backed a step away from the bed. “Burke could’ve killed you.”

“He could’ve killed you,” she said, spitting her hair from her mouth. “You want to tell me we’re still on the same side, or have you screwed me over again?”

“Me? You’re the one hanging with the square. Was that part of the plan?”

“He showed up this morning,” she said. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Not play house with him.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t fucking matter. I’ve gotta get Torres.”

“Wait,” she called when he started for the door. “Flame?”

He paused and took a second before turning around. “I’ll put Torres and Burke in the same room. Torres will get him talking, he’ll have his confession, and we’ll get away clean.”

“How is she going to test you?” she asked, caring less about the NSA than she did about her lover. “She said I was the tool to—”

“You know what she wants me to do. It’s just like you said.”

She could see how the anger in his eyes became a tortured pain as they trailed down over her. “Will she drug me or do you want me to pretend to fight?”

His attention leaped to her. “Pretend?”

“If fucking me is what she needs to see you do to believe…”

“It won’t come to that,” he said. “This is going to be over tonight. I’ll kill her before I’d think about hurting you… I’m just sorry we won’t have the time to make her suffer.”

It broke her heart to see how he was tormented by the position Bella had put him in. “It’s not rape if I want it. Flame—”

“You don’t want it,” he said, repulsed. “And I don’t want it like that either, not on her terms, with her in the room directing, and you screaming…”

“You like it when I scream,” she said and smiled when he looked at her again. “Strike, we talked about this.”

“And we’re not talking about it again,” he said, marching over to the bed.

He propped a knee on the mattress to bow over her and touch his lips to hers.

She managed to draw him into a deeper kiss than he’d intended to give. While she lifted her head and dipped her tongue between his lips, she bent a knee to sneak her leg around him. Looping it around his hips, she swept the other around him and took him by surprise pulling him down on top of her.

“Babe,” he chastised her, but she smiled beneath his lips.

“I’ve needed you so bad this week,” she breathed into him and kissed him again.

But he pulled away. “I have to get back downstairs.”

“I know,” she said, but was in no hurry to relinquish his kiss.

Her need might not have been sexual, well not all sexual, but now that he was here, she felt recharged and ready to face anything. “Did he touch you?”

“No. He told me who he was. I think he wants a relationship with Bella, but doesn’t like to see his sister cozying up to you,” she said, resisting when he tried to pry her legs from his hips. But she was pleased to feel that he’d had his usual reaction to her, and she pushed up to rub herself against his dick. “I have no problem with you killing him.”

“Good, because I plan to,” he said and gave up fighting to kiss her more thoroughly. “He asked for you two to be in the same room… I nearly killed him right then.”

“Has Torres been any help?”

“This week, yeah, but he refused to sleep with Bella last night and she demanded he be tied up. He’s been in the trunk since.” She winced, but he brushed his lips across hers. “He’ll get what he wants.”

“So we get away clean,” she said, repeating what he’d said.

“Your ties aren’t tight,” he said. “You did good downstairs… waiting until the opportune moment.”

That was his way of telling her to do the same thing now. “I’ll be good.”

“Don’t try to escape. I’ll come for you when it’s time to go.” He took something from his pocket and held it in front of her face, showing her it was a switchblade. He tucked it down into her cleavage, covering her with the edges of her torn shirt, managing to wrap and conceal the blade at the same time. “If anyone comes in here… use it. Scream, I’ll come, and I’ll murder anyone I find in here… anyone, Ro.”

She nodded and caught his mouth when he tried to get up. When she whimpered and pushed her hips up to his, she tried to let him know she wasn’t ready to lose him yet. “Flame…”

“I can’t stay up here all night,” he said. “How far you want us to go before you’ll let me get up?”

That was enough of an invitation to make her smile. “You are supposed to strip me.”

“No chance. I’ll tell Bella half the fun comes in getting you naked… and that’s no lie.”

“I love you,” she whispered, hating that moisture was gathering in her eyes. “I love you, Flame, so much, I—”

“Hey,” he said, stopping her words with a kiss. “We’re going to be together, no matter what.”

Even if they had to follow each other to hell? Yeah, she understood what he was saying. “I’m scared you’ll be out there alone… if Bella talks to Junker…”

“All I gotta do is get my hands on the processor and then we’re out of here… I think I know where it is, and I’ve got one shot.”

“If you don’t find it and Bella wants you to come up here—”

“I’ll kill her,” he said. “Fuck the processor, Cupcake. Didn’t I say you were more important than tech?”

“But it’s sex. We—”

“Don’t belong to her and she can’t have us… either of us.”

He swept his lips over hers and this time when he tried to loosen her legs, she let him part them so he could rise. “Be careful,” she said.

Opening the door, he looked at her one last time and then slipped out, leaving her alone.