I felt like a dirty pauper invading a king’s castle, out of my element in a land of psychopaths. Maybe it was better to compare myself to a jester, simply in attendance for entertainment purposes.

I was the only girl in the room. Mason’s father, who I now knew was named Julian, sat at the head of the table—typical. His cousin sat across from us, and three other men I was assuming were related to him sat around us.

There hadn’t been a chance to protest before Mason had me down the stairs and standing in the limelight for all to see. My hair was still wet, and Mason made sure to remind me there was nothing beneath my dress, casually stroking my thigh every few minutes, his fingers getting a little higher each time.

I stared down at the white table linen, robotically putting mashed potatoes in my mouth. The food smelled delicious, but I couldn’t taste it.

When a large finger skimmed over my pussy lips, I almost dropped my spoon. I fought not to jerk or tell him to stop. How humiliating would it be if the whole table knew what he was doing? Even worse, I knew he could feel the moisture pooling between my legs.

My body was a treacherous whore. I shouldn’t have been so turned on, willing to let him sit me on top of the table and wrap my legs around his waist if it came down to it.

“Where is my sister?” I turned and asked him, mainly to stop him from touching me, but also because I wanted to know. If we were all eating, where was she?

“You think I would let your cunt of a sister sit at my table?” Julian interjected before Mason could answer.

I looked at him, failing to hold his gaze. If Mason ever got as intimidating as this asshole, I would never be able to relax around him.

He was clearly in on this, which made me the odd one out. I bit my inner cheek and looked back down at the table.

“Uncle J.” Declan managed to catch my eye and shot me an apologetic look, shaking his head. He seemed to be the most stable Andreou in the room, which said a lot.

“She’s can’t leave her room,” Mason finally responded, paying no mind to his father’s outburst.

That’s good for you! A part of me rejoiced, knowing that meant she had done something that warranted her being locked away. Jesus, what was the matter with me?

“What do you mean? Why can’t she?”

“I’ll tell you later,” he answered absentmindedly after a few minutes. He eventually fell into a conversation with the man beside him, no longer paying me attention.

He gave me nothing, and it was so tiring. How could he expect me to sit here like an obedient dog and just accept everything he did?

Because that’s what you are.

Katie Cormick didn’t talk back, she didn’t stand up for herself when it counted, and doormat could have been stamped on her forehead. Katie was a spineless idiot.

Slightly shifting so that my dress lowered a little way back down, I took a sip of water and then casually stood up and walked out of the room.

I heard Mason call my name but didn’t bother stopping. It wasn’t until I was back upstairs in front of the double doors that he caught up to me.

“Was that your way of throwing a tantrum?” he asked, sounding bored. I turned my head to glare at him and saw he was leaning against the wall, watching me with unabashed amusement as I desperately tried to figure out how to open the doors.

“Katie, you’re a smart girl. You know you aren’t getting past those doors unless I want you to,” he pointed out.

“And why don’t you want me to, Mason?” I spun around to face him.

“Tell me.” He pushed off the wall and took a step forward. “Do you want to save your sister because it’s ‘the right thing to do’? Or do you want to save your sister because you’re trying to prove something to yourself?”

“Prove something like…?”

“You want to prove you aren’t like me. That we don’t breathe the same, bleed the same, or desire the same things.”

I wasn’t anything like him.

Liar.

“Mason, what if I just want to get my sister and go home to my mom?”

Nothing but silence answered that question. He cocked his head and studied me, his expression unreadable.

“Are you saying you want to leave me?” He lost all traces of cockiness, his tone softened.

No. You could never leave him.

I didn’t say that aloud. I didn’t say anything. A look flashed across his face but he masked it before I could analyze what I just saw. Was it hurt? Was it even possible for me to hurt him?

Of course it is, you stupid girl.

He cleared his throat and brushed past me, going straight to the doors. He then proceeded to tap four numbers into a keypad attached to the far wall. I had to have looked at the thing a dozen times without bothering to actually see what it was.

“There are over twenty rooms in this house. This hall specifically has twelve,” he explained, pushing the doors open and gesturing for me to follow. “I want you to give me a week to convince you to stay. Within that week, you’re going to pick seven doors. Each door has something different behind it. Your sister is behind one of them. If you find her before the seven days are up, I’ll take you to your mother myself. However.” He paused and turned back around with a cruel grin in place. “If you give up before then, or happen to fail, she isn’t going anywhere.”

My brows slammed together in confusion.

“I don’t understand. I saw the picture—she’s your wife. Why are you keeping her locked away?”

“It was an illusion, Katie,” he sighed, as if he’d already explained this to me in detail.

“The only woman who will be granted the honor of having my last name is you, if you’ll have me. No one else comes close to deserving it.”

How did I deserve it? I quickly reran our conversation in my head, coming back to his earlier statement.

“Did you say something about saving my sister?”

His megawatt grin was the only answer I needed. What had he done with her?

Nothing she doesn’t deserve. Why are you so worried about her? She left you.

Shaking my head as if to clear the negative thoughts away, I went to the first door to my immediate left and tried to open it, but the damn thing was locked tight. The door directly across from it was the same.

His dark chuckle from behind me had every hair follicle on my body rising to attention.

“Did you plan this?” I looked back and asked him.

“I might have had something to do with it,” he teased.

“Is this a game to you?”

“Maybe—although I’d rather call it a proposition,” he replied flippantly.

“And what happens if I decline?”

“Do you want to find out?”

No…

Yes…

Did I have a choice? I didn’t want to try and solve his impossible riddles anymore. What was so special about seven days?  What was so special about me? I had no idea how to describe the chaotic emotions swirling inside my chest.

I hadn’t wanted any of this, but now I couldn’t deny that on some level I did need him. I’d started falling for him from the beginning, and there wasn’t anyone around to catch me except the same man who tripped me.

Accepting him as he was would be accepting the devil that lived inside him. It would be doing what I’d done my whole life, burying my head in the sand and being a coward.

Frustrated, I moved away from him, going further down the hall.

As expected, he quickly closed the distance between us, taking hold of my arm and making me stand in front of him, chest to chest. Every time I pushed him away, he just pulled me closer.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked, peering up into his gorgeous eyes.

“I honestly can’t give an answer that will satisfy you. I just want you to stay. I need you.” He threaded his fingers into my hair and began gently massaging my scalp. Like a kitten desperate for affection, I leaned into his touch.

I couldn’t hate him, and God, how I tried. Mason wasn’t a bad man. Bad men didn’t save tortured souls. He wasn’t a good man, either—he was just…him. He was something indefinable, tragically flawed but still human.

 “I think you’re insane,” I quietly confessed after a few silent minutes.

He paused at my words, his grip going from soft to harsh. I’d offended him without meaning to, lulled into a stupid sense of safety by his gentle demeanor.

“You think I’m insane?” He laughed humorlessly. “That’s always the prognosis, isn’t it?”

He tugged my head back and looked down at me with blatant displeasure on his face, a cruel smile appearing when I grunted from the sharp pull on my hair. His next words were a challenge.

“Let me show you the definition of insanity.”