Page 50 of Dangerous Kiss
“So, you’ve come.” This was after all three of them had been silent for too long.
Her father cleared his throat. “You were hurt.”
“Stabbed. Yes. I was in the hospital for five days. It was on the news, which is how I assume you found out about it.” Biba wasn’t in the mood to play nice.
“You could have called us.” Her mother spoke finally, and Biba detected a little quaver to her voice. Her mother, the Major, was nervous of her. Biba didn’t care.
“I could have, but then again I was busy recovering from being stabbed. Stabbed. Did you not understand that part?” She gave a disgusted noise. “Why are you here?”
Her father glanced at her mother, then cleared his throat. “We wanted to say…about Derek… We’re sorry. We’re sorry we didn’t listen to you.”
Biba stared at her father. “Derek was sent to jail five years ago. You’ve had five years to apologize, and yet it’s been crickets. Why now?”
“Because…”
“Because I was stabbed? So now that I’ve almost been murdered, now I’m worthy of being apologized to? Shove your apology.”
She turned away from them, not wanting them to see her tears, but her mother caught her arm.
“Biba…please. Listen to us.”
Biba sighed. “You know what? Fine. I accept your apology. You’re forgiven. But you’ll have to excuse me. My friend was just murdered, and my boss—and friend—is missing, abducted by a psychopath who stuck his knife in my belly. Twice. I don’t have time for reunions when my real family is suffering. Please, just go.”
She turned away again and went back into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her but staying close to it to hear what they had decided to do. She heard low voices and the suite door being opened and shut. She peeked out and saw with relief that they had gone. She went to find the security guard and asked him where Cosimo had gone.
“I believe he is in the bar, Miss May. I’ll escort you down.”
Stella tried to block the stench of death out of her nose with the blanket he had given her. At last he had allowed her to find something to wear. The woman who had lived here—the woman who stared back at Stella with sightless, dead eyes as she huddled in the tiny, locked bedroom—had been roughly Stella’s size.
When he’d dragged Stella to the bedroom—her prison, it seemed—he’d pointed out the closet without saying anything. Stella was pathetically grateful for the clothes found—sweaters, jeans, fleeces, and socks. She’d pulled on everything she could find, layering clothes over clothes. The room itself was heated, the bed comfortable, and Stella had to admit, if she wasn’t terrified for her life, she could pretend she was on a break.
But she was terrified, barely sleeping in case he forced himself on her. But he’d left her alone for long periods. Until now. This morning, he unlocked her door and made her come out into the living room. She tried not to look at the dead woman slumped in the easy chair, her blood-soaked shirt, the gaping slice in her neck, almost to the bone. The brutality of it made her shiver, reminded her—as if she needed reminding—of the way he had attacked Biba—the utter lack of mercy.
“Who was she?” Stella asked without thinking, but he ignored her. Stella swallowed and stepped towards the woman. “Can I close her eyes at least? Cover her up?”
“Leave her alone.” The scarf tied over his face muffled his voice, but he wasn’t using the voice manipulator. Stella decided to try to get him to talk. If he was someone she knew…
Because she figured out—hehadto be. To get through the security Cosimo had put in place at Lakewood, to be able to know exactly where her trailer was and to get in…
“Can we talk?” Stella decided to turn on the Reckless charm—what harm could it do? She averted her eyes from the evidence of the harm itcoulddo—the dead woman—and sat down in another chair. “What is it we are doing here? Your letters said…we would be together, and we are, so what now?”
She deliberately didn’t acknowledge the threats in his last letter. Her abductor sat down opposite her, staring at her with those unnaturally blue eyes, but saying nothing. Stella tried again. “Look, I haven’t seen your face. You could stop all this now, and just let me go. Or tell me what you want from me, and we can try to make it work.” She hid her feeling of nausea at the thought of being intimate with this monster.
He lifted the voice modifier to his mouth. “You’re lying. You don’t want me. Please don’t insult my intelligence.”
Stella sighed. “Then…why am I here?”
“To die.”
Stella kept her composure. “But why? What have I ever done to you?” She silently cursed as her voice broke. “Why did you have to kill Biba?”
“What do you care about her?”
“She was my friend.”
He gave a sarcastic laugh. “The way you treated her was not as a friend.”
So, he was known to them. “Do you care about Biba? Do you care that you murdered a sweet girl?”
