Page 52 of At Your Mercy

I pushed my chair back, the legs screeching against the floor. “This was a mistake.”

Wes’s voice cut through before I could stand. “Sit back down, doll.” I glared at him, but lowered my ass back down the few inches it’d risen. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry. I’ll rephrase it. I believe Elias is actively participating in human trafficking, among many other things. I need your help to find any holding locations, buyers, or anything that can lead us to these people. We can also potentially use what you find as evidence for the police.”

“You’d need access to his place for that.”

Wes held my stare, unrelenting. “Which you have.”

For a moment, all I could hear was my heartbeat hammering in my ears.

The words landed like a weight on my chest.

Elias’s place.

Nothing good ever happened to me there.

I could already see it if I closed my eyes—the gleam of expensive marble floors, the sterile scent of his cologne sunk into the furniture, my old room, full of pain and pretty things. The billiards room…

My body remembered the static hum of being prey, of the never-ending darkness that swallowed up any hope along with light.

I swallowed hard, holding back bile and keeping my face smooth even though my skin felt like it was crawling. “You don’t know what you’re asking me to do.” My voice was steady, but I hated how thin it sounded in my own ears. “And for what? I’m not a martyr, Wes. I will not sacrifice myself to save people I don’t even know exist.”

“Please, Ro. You’d only have to be there long enough to search his office or wherever he keeps his work.”

I wanted to laugh, but it would’ve come out jagged. “And what happens when he catches me? What do you think he does to traitors?”

“He won’t kill you—you’re too important to him. But that’s beside the point. You won’t get caught.”

The simplicity of it made me want to throw my coffee at his face. Instead, I tipped my head back and let out a humorless chuckle. “Wow. You make it sound so fucking easy.”

“I know it’s not,” he said quietly, a hint of pity in his eyes.

“And you’re right, he wouldn’t kill me. No. But he’d do something I consider to be much worse,” I muttered.

“We’ll have surveillance on you at all times. We won’t let him do anything. We can even have a team on standby in case things go south,” he promised.

My fingers tapped against my coffee cup, restless. Go to Elias’s place. Slip into his study. Pretend like I wasn’t crawling through my own graveyard.

A sick kind of nostalgia tried to claw up my throat—memories of rough rope, broken skin, of words whispered like promises but carved like knives. My pulse spiked just at the thought of stepping over that threshold again.

“I’ll think about it,” I muttered finally.

Wes leaned back, studying me as if he could read the hesitation written on my face. “That’s all I ask.”

But I knew he was lying. He wouldn’t be satisfied with me just thinking about it. He wanted action. He wanted me to deliver Elias on a silver platter, no matter how deep I had to crawl into hell to do it.

I stared at him across the table, watching the way the light from the window cut across his face, sharp as the shadows he carried with him.

And I couldn’t shake the feeling that, one way or another, this was going to end with me bleeding on Elias’s pristine floors.

Or his godforsaken billiards table.

* * *

I hadn’t been back in months. Not because I wasn’t allowed—I had a key, technically—but because the air got tight in my lungs whenever I crossed that threshold. Elias knew I hated being there, hated everything about it.

Oh, he was well aware, and he loved joking about it.

If I suddenly wanted to stroll in now, he’d know something was up.