Page 49 of Captive Audience

“Do I like it?” She jerked back. “About as much as a prisoner on house arrest likes an ankle monitor.”

I looked out the window at the city blurring past. “Will it be so awful to wear it? To live in a twenty-five-million-dollar penthouse with every luxury you can imagine? I’ll buy you anything you want.”

“It’s not the conditions I’m objecting to; it’s the company. And just so we’re clear, I don’t want you buying me things, either.”

We drove through the streets in silence. Finally, I said, “Can I ask you something?”

Asha grunted but kept her gaze pinned to the window.

“Why’d you quit journalism?”

Her gaze cut to me, green eyes flaring.

Interesting. “Captive Audienceis great, but you barely make enough money to survive.”

“How do you—” Her eyes pinched shut, and her hands balled into fists. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

“You were good,” I added when she didn’t answer. “Better than good. Awards, front pages, solving cases even the cops couldn’t touch. Why’d you give it all up?”

“I didn’t quit,” she said quietly. “I got fired.”

Fired? How the hell hadn’t I known that? It didn’t even make sense.

“Why? What happened?”

“Not what.Who.” Her jaw worked. She bit a nail and turned back to the glass. “I don’t want to talk about it. Just drop it, okay?”

But I couldn’t.

Asha’s words might’ve been final, but the tremor in her voice wasn’t anger. It was hurt. Old, festering, raw. Whoever had stripped her of that career had done more than cost her a job. They’d carved into her pride. Into her fire.

And I wanted a name.

She pressed her forehead to the window, shutting me out, but it only made the need worse. Because if someone had broken her, I’d break them back. Slowly. Publicly.

Asha’s secrets would be mine. Every last one of them.

24

ASHA

When we stepped out of the elevator and into Rook’s penthouse at the Lynch Continental, he held out his hand.

“Give me your phone.”

My only link to my friends, family, and life outside this building? Hell no.

I frowned. “Why?”

“I need to fix it so no one can track you.”

I supposed that was a fair request. “That’s all?”

“You have my word.”

“Fine.” Hesitantly, I pulled it from my purse and slapped it into his palm.

Without warning, Rook went to the kitchen, turned on the garbage disposal, and tossed in my phone.