Page 182 of Morally Black Betrothal

43

COMING TO TERMS

Simone

“You know, I’m starting to think your ‘fiancé’ doesn’t love you after all, sweetheart.”

I watched Ezra Huntington pace across the creaky wood floors of the old sugarhouse but didn’t say a word. I couldn’t with the gag around my mouth.

I’d spent the night in Ezra’s Woonsocket office with nothing to eat but stale chips from a vending machine while he figured out what to do with me. In the morning, after he sent a photo to Brendan of me bound, I’d been hustled into the back of a van, and we’d driven for hours.

One breath of the unique blend of maples, firs, rain, and cows, and I knew exactly where we were before the blindfold was removed: Dandelion Farm.

That was also when I realized Ezra Huntington was not a very intelligent man. Instead of taking me somewhere I couldn’t identify, he’d brought me to a place where my initials were carved on the very piece of furniture they had tied me to. Nestled in the maples at the far end of the Dandelion property, the oldsugarhouse was a relic from my grandfather’s time that hadn’t been used in more than fifty years. Selena and I used to camp out here when we were younger, daring each other to go upstairs to the supposedly “haunted” rooms that had mostly been donated to raccoons.

Unfortunately, the sugarhouse was also situated on the opposite side of the property, nearly a mile from the barn and the house where my father was probably watching another baseball game.

I was so close to help and yet so far away.

So I glared as Ezra chain-smoked his tenth cigarette and stared at his phone, doing my best to ignore the fear lodged in my belly and the suspicion that maybe Ezra was right.

If Brendan had cared, wouldn’t he have found me by now?

Or at least answered the text?

So far there had been nothing.

Ezra slammed a hand on one of the dust-covered workbenches. “Does she ever talk about me?” he asked suddenly. “Do any of these hicks out here talk about me?”

I knew who he meant. Another thing I’d discovered about Ezra Huntington was that he ranted about his adolescence when he was irritated. It hadn’t taken me long to realize that he once had a serious thing for my sister.

That wasn’t terribly surprising. Before she’d run off the deep end, Selena’s devil-may-care act was the definition of cool-girl charisma in high school. Everyone we knew either wanted to be her or sleep with her (or both). Ezra Huntington, with all his money and pomp, had arrived at Woodstock High and identified Selena Bishop as the only girl worth his time in our small town.

Predictably, they’d flamed out within a month or so. Selena never could find anyone to keep her interest for long. I’d always thought Ezra had moved on, but clearly, he had not.

When, again, I couldn’t answer, he whirled around and swore. “Fuck this. It’s not like anyone can hear you out here anyway. And I’m sick of talking to myself.”

He ripped off the gag. I opened and closed my mouth a few times to relieve the ache.

“No,” I said finally. “She does not. But I wouldn’t take it personally. Selena only talks about Selena.”

That did not seem to make him feel better. “You know, you Bishop girls were never as great as everyone thought back in high school.”

“How would you know? You were too busy selling weed behind the bleachers to go to class.”

Was it wise to provoke a clearly unstable man while I was literally tied up and at his mercy? Probably. But at this point, I was beyond caring.

Ezra snorted. “True. Though I saw enough of your sister back there too. She filled me in on just what kind of goody-goody her twin sister was. Made her sick.”

Somehow, I resisted the urge to argue with him. That was all he wanted, after all. His plan wasn’t working, so he was spoiling for a fight—or at least a win—to make himself feel like he was in control again.

I counted old sugar stains on the floorboards, praying that he would mistake my silence for contrition.

It didn’t work.

The door to the sugarhouse opened, and two of his “associates” (who really looked more like the kinds of goons who sat outside of the biker bars in Woonsocket) walked in, one of them shaking his head. “I went to the top of the ridge for reception. Three bars. Still no response from Black.”

“Fuck!” Ezra picked up a stool and hurled it against the wall, shattering one of the legs. “Twelve hours, and your precious prince can’t be bothered to return a fucking message.”