Page 73 of My Solemn Vow
“Come on, I’ll show you the entrance to my lair.”
“Do you usually call it that, or is it for dramatic purposes?” I sass him.
That draws a slow smile across his face. “I like when you get sassy like that. Keep it up, and we’ll get dirty in other ways.”
My breath catches. I look away from him, and he leads the way out of the closet.
When we get downstairs, I head toward the kitchen. “How long will this take?”
“As long as it takes?” Valor says, following me.
I turn toward him. “Like I should put the dough in the fridge to slow the rise or we’ll be done within the next two hours?”
Valor shrugs. “Leave it. We can take breaks and come put your bread in.”
“This feels very much like a team-bonding exercise.” I eye him before looking down at the dough. “And the bread probably needs ninety minutes to rise.”
“So scientific,” Valor notes, coming to stand behind me.
I stiffen. But there’s nothing pressuring about it. Instead, Valor rests his head on my shoulder and looks down at the dough. With him so close, the rich scent of bourbon and chocolate floods my senses. And I relax.How do I tell him I want more of this? How do I convince him to be this way with me more?
“So, you can tell it’ll be ninety minutes because?” Valor wraps his hands around mine on the sides of the bowl.
“How much it rose in the time it took you to bring the boxes in and carry them upstairs, then some estimations about the yeast and how much it will rise, continuing on the same scale,” I explain with a small shrug, trying not to dislodge him.
Valor pulls his phone out and sets it on the counter. The screen saver of Kerrianne and Captain gives way to the phone screen, where it shows his recent call from an unsaved number.
He goes to the clock app and sets a timer for eighty-eight minutes before pulling away from me. “Alright, let’s go.”
He tucks his phone back in his pocket, and I’m stuck following him. Dumbstruck by his care over my bread. He could have walked away and said nothing about it, but Valor took enough interest and concern for the work I’d done to set the timer.
I follow him back through the house, down the stairs like we’re headed to the shooting range. But we veer off to the home gym, which I assume he uses during the day when I’m working since I haven’t seen him in here. It looks normal, with only one way in or out. And then Valor puts his palm against the mirror, and a light blinks through the glass before the wall opens.
He pulls the wall back, like a door, revealing a small chamber. “Your palm print will open this. If the house is, for whatever reason, invaded, take Kerrianne and yourself and go out this way.”
Valor flags me into the small dark chamber beyond the wall. A motion-activated light flickers on as I step in. He shows me how to pull the wall closed, and it locks behind us. Then Valor pushes another door open.
The butcher shop downtown looks dirty compared to the sparkling clean stainless-steel and white-walled room Valor leads me into. It’s spotless and shiny. A computer table is set up on the left, with a tablet stand and monitor, followed by a wall with cabinets full of what I assume are torture implements and cleaning products. It smells clean but not sterile or bleached. A stainless-steel table is on the other side of the room, in front of a door, which I assume leads out. But perhaps the most intimidating part is the central piece.
A stainless-steel chair, with spikes and sharp corners, ismenacing. Chains and metal loops, clearly meant to restrain someone, make it all that much more foreboding.
“Afraid yet, princess?” Valor’s voice drips with something dark.
He walks across the room, gesturing for me to follow, and pushes a swinging door on the other side of the room from where we came in. Beyond the door is an underground parking area.
“I’m not afraid,” I tell him, looking at the vehicle stowed down here. “Though, I am wondering what your favorite way to kill someone is.”
It catches him off guard, but Valor recovers flawlessly. “Depends on my mood. Now, as I was about to say... This tunnel leads two miles away from the property to a little shed owned by a friend of a friend of a friend of the family,” he tells me. “Normally, the only people who see the tunnel are my most trusted confidants or my next victim. But the latter never get to see the way back out.”
I follow Valor back into the stainless-steel room and ask, “Normally, because I’m not a trusted confidant?”
“No. You’re not. But I trust you enough to get Kerrianne to safety and enough to keep your mouth shut about what you’ve seen.”
Valor is back to being so cold with me that it almost hurts.
There’s nothing more to say, but I wait with him. In five minutes, the low rumble of a vehicle driving down the interior driveway comes through the doors. Valor is still cold but now impatient. He walks back to the doors and leans, holding one open. I follow, slowly, and get there in time to see a van, which I’m certain delivered my boxes a little over an hour ago, deliver a whole new cargo.
After opening the back doors, Neil and another man drag someone from inside the cavernous interior. He kicks andshuffles, trying to escape, but the bag over his head and his arms bound behind his back aren’t doing him any favors.
