Anton opens the door.

He looks down at me, and he doesn’t look as confused at my arrival as I’d have expected.

His face is a bruised mess. Even though the blood is all wiped off, the bruises are all red, black, and blue.

He smiles nonetheless. “Amber.”

“Anton,” I say. “Can I come in?”

I try to make my voice sound sweet, the way I used to around him. Mostly because I felt sorry for him. I don’t feel sorry for him now, but I want him to think I do.

He nods and ushers me in.

“I don’t suppose you’re here to get your engagement ring from me,” he says. “And to accept my marriage proposal.”

I bite my lip. “No...sorry, Anton, it’s not that.”

“You can sit down here,” he says, pointing to the couch.

I see an indentation on the leather. It’s too small to be Anton’s. It almost looks like it was made by a woman.

“Did you--” I start, and then the smell of perfume hits me.

“Oh,” Anton says. “Yeah, I had a girl here. She just left.”

“I guess you got over me quickly,” I say, surprised that he managed to convince any girl to come over with his face looking the way it does.

“Girls like a guy who gets in a fight,” Anton says. “Honestly, Amber, I didn’t want to hit Liam this time. I mean, I did want to hit him, but I knew you’d hate me forever if I hit him, so I just tried to run.”

“Uh huh,” I say, nodding. “Thank you for not hitting him...that’s why I’m here actually. Liam shouldn’t have hit you either.”

“I know he shouldn’t have,” Anton says.

“I wanted to apologize for him,” I say. “He lost his temper, and it wasn’t cool.”

Anton nods.

“What you did to me in class wasn’t cool either, though,” I say, meeting his eyes.

He looks down at the floor, seeming embarrassed. I can’t tell if his face is reddened or not through all the bruising.

“I know,” he says. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I mean...I wasn’t thinking.”

“You thought long enough to get a ring,” I say. “It’s not like it was some spur of the moment decision.”

He doesn’t look back up at me.

“But it’s okay,” I say. “I’m not here to make you feel bad about that.”

“You’re here to get Liam off the hook,” Anton says.

“He overreacted,” I say. “But you also broke the agreement. I think we should all just walk away from this.”

Anton starts to nod. “I think the money has corrupted me. The fast car, the fast women...it’s too much for a good guy like me. I agree we should all walk away. Just take it all back. Pretend none of it ever happened.”

“So you’ll drop the charges?” I ask, trying to keep my jaw from dropping open.

“Sure,” he says. “If you’ll tell me one thing.”

“What’s that?” I ask nervously.

“Do you really love him?” Anton asks.

His normal goofy and aloof tone is gone. He seems to genuinely want to hear my answer.

I start to nod. “I feel like I’ve told everyone this but Liam himself. But yeah, I do.”

“I know he paid you off, Amber,” Anton says.

I try to fake confusion, but somehow he knows. I can see it in his eyes.

“Look,” he says. “Don’t deny it. Just answer this one question for me, and if I know you’re not lying, I’ll drop the charges.”

“Okay,” I croak out.

Liam would be so furious with me if he could see this. If he knew I just casually admitted--to Anton Valencia of all people--that he had paid me off to act as his fiancée.

“If you knew everything you knew now about Liam, and if he first proposed to you right now. If he didn’t offer you any money, would you still say yes?”

“Without hesitation,” I say.

A woman’s voice cuts through the darkness. It’s familiar, but I can’t place it.

“Wrong answer,” she says, stepping out of the shadows.

When the light hits her, I see her straight black hair and icy blue eyes. Cynthia Frost.

I nearly jump--the same instinctive reaction I’d get if I’d seen a big spider creep out of Anton’s bedroom.

I didn’t think Anton would really hurt me, but Cynthia? Especially knowing she just overheard everything I said to Anton? I turn my back and start to run.

I get the door open, knowing that once I step outside, I’ll be safe from immediate danger.

I get two or three steps into the hallway, and slam headfirst into a wall.

I would crash to the ground, but the wall isn’t a wall--it’s a man. He grabs me before I fall, and he shoves me back into Anton’s apartment.

I hear the door slam behind us, and I look up to see that he’s no one I recognize. He looks grizzled and scarred. He has close-cropped, male-pattern baldness, and he’s all muscle and frown.

He shoves me forward, toward Cynthia, who is laughing.

“What the hell?” Anton asks.

“You want me to kill them both?” the guy asks, reaching down into his coat.

Cynthia puts a finger to her mouth. She seems to actually be considering it.

“No,” she says. “Maybe we can kill this one, though.”

She points to Anton.

He freezes, his eyes bulging wide. “But...but…I’ll do whatever you want! I’ll be your slave!”

The bald man reaches down and yanks me back up to my feet, but he doesn’t let go of my arm. I start to scream, and he covers my mouth with his hand.

“Let’s take them both,” Cynthia says.

“Would be a lot cleaner to kill the guy in his apartment,” the bald man says. “Could even frame Liam for it--”

“No,” Cynthia says, her voice flaring in anger. “I think of what we do, and you do what I say. I say we keep them both for now. Get them ready.”

The man nods, and I feel something jab into my arm.

Before I can even get my head around, I feel my body going numb. My head droops down, and my vision turns dark.