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Kayla opened her eyes to a dark but familiar room. Her head was killing her, and her mouth tasted fuzzy, like she'd gone days without brushing her teeth. Blech. She reached for her phone on the nightstand, but there was no phone.
There was no nightstand.
She jolted upright, her heart thudding painfully fast in her chest. More painful was the heavy, shattered feeling of her head.
The room was familiar, yeah, but it wasn't the right room. This was her room from when she'd lived in Bronson's mansion, not her bedroom in her little cabin in the Ring of Fire.
Mind racing, she thought back. The last thing she remembered was Sloan offering to show her what he'd done with her old bedroom. She'd taken a sip of some fruity cocktail...the drink. What the fuck? He'd drugged her.
He'd fucking drugged her.
She slid her hands down her body—her dress was still on. Her underwear was still on. She didn't feel tampered with, she didn't think he'd raped her. So, why? What did he hope to accomplish by drugging her and keeping her here?
"Sloan!" she tried to yell, but it came out as a croak.
Motherfucker. She was thirsty as hell.
Voices sounded from outside her old bedroom door.
"What do you mean she's still here?" Bronson shouted.
"I mean I locked her in her room," Sloan said, his voice sounding whiny. "She's not going to come around if she keeps leaving every night. I just need more time to convince her."
"The fuck," Bronson said. "Did she ever actually say she wanted to work things out?"
"Yeah, all the time."
"In those exact words?"
"Yeah. Well, maybe not in so many words, but..." Sloan trailed off into silence, likely thinking back to all of the ways Kayla had deftly avoided lying to him.
There was a quiet moment. The calm before Bronson's storm, as Kayla had always thought of it.
"You are the biggest fucking idiot," Bronson said. "She was trying to see the papers on the table. Jameson is after the book, too."
Well, Kayla thought, Jameson hadn't been after any book, but he would be after she escaped to tell him about it.
"Fuck it," Bronson said. "She goes nowhere, Sloan. Got me?"
"Got it," Sloan said.
"If that fucking book doesn't lead us to the fucking sphere," Bronson muttered, "heads will roll. Dodd, time to head out."
Dodd said, "Are we going to Koffman's place to check out his library—"
"Shut the fuck up," Bronson said. "I'm surrounded by a bunch of fucking amateurs. Christ, Rhiannon's the only one with more than half a brain cell."
Bronson's muttering grew fainter and fainter as he walked away.
"Don't look at me like that," Sloan said to someone.
There was a smack and Dodd said, "Ow!"
And then Sloan's footsteps approached her door.
Kayla gripped the edge of her bed, the same pink bedspread as before. The framed red rose prints were still on the wall—chosen by Sloan. The same vanity rested across the room with its ornate mirror. The same rug lay across the hardwood floor with its white and red floral pattern. If she were to get up and look in the closet, she'd find more tiny red dresses.
There was one new thing in the room, though—the doorknob. Now it locked from the outside.
The lock snicked open and Sloan stepped inside.
"Sweetcheeks," he said. "Sleep well?"
"No, I fucking didn't," Kayla spat. "What the hell is this? Why did you drug me?"
"I just need more time with you—"
She jumped to her feet and ran at him. If she could get out of the room before he locked it, she could escape the house, make her way back to Parker.
He leaped back through the doorway and closed the door just as she reached it. She tugged on the knob, cursing, then heard the lock slide into place.
"Sloan! Don't do this to me!" she screamed.
"I can tell you still need some time, sweetcheeks. Sleep well—I'll come back and see you in the morning."
No, he wouldn't. She'd do whatever it took to make sure she wasn't here that long.
After waiting for the sound of his retreating footsteps to die away, Kayla hurried over to the window. Shoving aside the curtains, she was dismayed to find bars on the outside of the glass, fresh metal shavings collected around the ledge where the bars had been installed.
No problem—there was more than one way to escape. She went to the vanity across from her bed and opened the top drawer where she used to keep her barrettes and bobby pins.