Page 61 of Chain Me

“And you’re jealous of François,” I countered—though I didn’t truly believe it, even as the words left my mouth.

Not until I saw his face. His mouth flattened as if he had hoarded all emotion behind a mask. It was an expression he only deployed in the rarest of circumstances.

When I’d caught him off guard.

I swallowed hard as he became stone against me. “Do I have reason to be?” he wondered in a dangerous tone.

“No, but do I? If I happened to care that you had a beautiful woman indentured to you for all eternity in your luxurious penthouse—”

“Raphael used her like a pawn, the same way he utilized the others.”

I cringed and my indignation diminished somewhat.Others.Those poor women made to look like me and paraded before him. Why? As part of some sick, twisted game?

Or perhaps something far more sinister…

“By keeping her close, I could negate his attempts to control her,” Dublin explained. “Nothing more.”

“And François is my driver,” I said thickly. “Nothing more.”

He shifted slightly and I wound up leaning against him even more. “So how did you wind up bleeding in his care?”

I sighed too drained to argue. There was no point in lying now. “I was trying to send a message to my sister.”

Did he believe me? I couldn’t tell. His face revealed nothing.

Cautiously, I continued. “I took a cab and slipped a letter in that stupid urn in the simplest chance she might remember she has a sister and come looking for me. I didn’t want her to worry.”

How pathetic, all things considered.

“I was in the crypt when two men came in. Something about them felt off so I hid. When they left, I tried to leave and François found me.”

“Did he hurt you?” I flinched. His voice was too soft. Too low.

“No,” I fervently insisted. “I fell. He helped me. And when I asked, he brought me to you.”

“How long have you known him?” Again, he used that alarmingly soft tone and I wondered just how naïve I’d been all this time not to realize my “driver’s” identity on my own.

“Just a few weeks. I didn’t know he was working for my sister. I swear I didn’t.”

But he had known. He nodded once as if confirming his own dark suspicions. Which of course he didn’t bother to convey out loud.

“Is he dead?” My voice broke in anticipation of the answer.

“No.”

“Good.” I squeezed my eyes shut, too relieved to watch his reaction as I added, “Please don’t hurt him.”

He said nothing for so long that I feared I’d done it—broken this fragile moment. My heart ached at the thought. This time had felt so different from our other brief truces. I could still remember the way he’d looked at me, his eyes burning, his lips hollowed around a groan.

“And the necklace?” he said before true panic could set in. “Where did you get it?”

My belly tightened. His tone was more cautious than ever, laced with something so rare that I marveled at the sound. The same cold, detached note he utilized only around Raphael.

“It was in a tomb,” I confessed. “An empty one. It didn’t have a name on it, just a phrase. Latin, I think.”

“Latin?” Dublin echoed hoarsely. He sat forward, dislodging me from his side. “What did it say?”

“Yes. Um…Memento mori. That was it. Do you know what it means?”