Page 111 of The Villain

“But you should hear the offer?—”

“Not at any price,” I insisted.

“If you say so.” Glenn sighed, and then seemingly noticed the man behind me. Instantly, she was skeptical. “Do you need something? Is everything okay?”

“Oh yes.” I nodded effusively. “Mr. Henry is a former client, and he wants one of the landscapes I don’t have out on display.” The lie came easily when it was the only thing protecting her life.

Glenn instantly relaxed. “Oh, how nice.” She stepped to the side and held the door open. “Well, don’t be too long. I think you should hear this offer.”

I shook my head and walked by her, holding my breath that she didn’t notice anything off about the man behind me—or what was hidden underneath his jacket.

I jumped when the door closed loudly in the big openspace, the clang of metal ricocheting off the walls like a knock inside a coffin.

“Mr. Henry?”

I spun and banded my arms over my chest, staring at his arched brow. “What do you want from me?”

“Keep walking.” His chin jerked in the direction of the back door.

My throat tightened, and I slowed my pace, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “You were at Richard’s house the other morning.”

The less he realized I knew, the better, so I kept my knowledge of Ivans’s real identity to myself.

“Yes.” He chuckled. “Richard.”

As for the man with the gun to my back, his identity I didn’t know. But I recognized him. The instant I saw him, I remembered his face. I remembered Richard—Ray—escorting me through the house that morning. He wanted the paintings in the living room and begged me to tell him where to hang them.

Suddenly, pain seared through my head. I gasped and pressed a hand to my temple, bowing over in pain and knocking something off the table next to me.

“Dammit. Keep moving.” His orders came with the press of his gun to my back, the whole of me stumbling forward like I was made out of a single block of stone, my joints forgetting how to bend for a split second.

And then I saw what I’d knocked over—a tube of paint. One that I proceeded to step on when he’d pushed me to move, sending yellow paint squirting over the floor.

Yellow.Follow me.

I planted my next step squarely in the yellow acrylic, trying to get as much as I could on my shoe so I could leave a trail.

“You came over while I was there…” I murmured to hold onto the memory and to distract him from the intentional trail of yellow footprints I now left on the concrete floor.

“I did.”

The memory didn’t come back in pieces, it came back like threads. Strand after strand. Images. Sounds. Smells. That all had to be woven together.

Ray had just led me to the living room when there’d been a knock at the door. He’d left me with a smile and a plea to use my artist’s touch to decide where the paintings should go.

I’d never been more grateful for Glenn’s massive warehouse. Storage space. Studio space. And right now, a safe space, since it was clear my captor had no intention of killing me here.

“Unfortunately for you, Richard was a fool.”

I held onto my reply, instead clinging to the threads of my memory and weaving more of that morning.

“We have to talk.”A voice I hadn’t recognized echoed into the living room after Richard opened the door—my captor’s voice.

“Not now.”

“You don’t get a damn choice.”There was anger—rage even in the tone—and I remembered staring blankly at the painting in my hand, too preoccupied with Richard’s visitor to think about where it should hang.

“Then in here.”Their steps went from loud to quiet as they walked to the other side of the house, their voices disappearing out of earshot.

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