over again. And I’ve never wanted that. I swear, I’ve never wanted to have to do that.
But the longer I stare at the empty nest, the tighter my ribs feel.
I don’t move, though. Not right now. I don’t trust myself to move. I hardly trust myself to breathe.
I must think.
Since the day I met Andrei, he has maintained that my own audacious nature will be my downfall. I prefer not to take too long in the thinking. Taking too long in the thinking only lends more opportunity to doubt.
Doubt leads to indecision. Indecision leads to hesitation. Hesitation gets you killed.
But for once, in possibly my entire life, I know I need to think about this.
Someone has betrayed me.
Sapphire has betrayed me.
No.
No.
She wouldn’t. She would.
No, no, she wouldn’t. I watched her face light up when she stirred from sleep. She wouldn’t leave me. Not now. Not when I was going to make everything so perfect for her. Not when I was going to build her a new world and hand it over to her, to our boys.
She didn’t know that, though.
It doesn’t matter.
Someone betrayed me. Someone who’s not her.
There are only two people here who would ever take it upon themselves to do something so bold, and one of them was with me the whole time.
33
Baron
I enter Celeste’s bedroom without knocking.
“Where did she go?”
She’s sitting propped up in bed, swamped in garishly colored patchwork blankets.
“Baron, I’m sorr—”
I hold my hand up while I cross the room, cutting her off. I have no need of her sympathy. There is nothing to be sorry for. I will fix this mess and bring her back to me. “Now, now. No need for that. Answer the question.”
Celeste presses her lips together tightly as I sit down on the edge of her bed. “There was nothing I could do to stop her. She had a knife and made it to the car. She’ll be on the boat by now.”
I smile, though she can’t see it. “Come now, Celeste. I watched the tapes, and we both know only one of you is smart enough to think of such a ruse.” I shake my head. “I watched one girl get out of that car and step on the boat, and that girl was not Sapphire. Where did she go?”
“You went to the port?”
“I did.”
Her lips tighten as she looks down at her quilt. “I fear you are not in the correct frame of mind for us to be having this conversation.”
“Am I not calm?”
She narrows her eyes. “That is exactly what concerns me.”
I shake my head. “Enough of this nonsense. You will tell me where she is, or I will snap your neck, here and now, before feeding you to the swine.”
Celeste gives me a tight-lipped smile.
“Better?” I ask her.
She inclines her head in a nod and clears her throat. “I sent her back to Maxim.”
I let out a hollow laugh. This is hardly the time for jokes. “No.”
Celeste lets out an audible breath and gazes around the room.
“You joke with me, Celeste. Surely. Where is she?”
Her eyes snap back to mine. “She is with Maxim.”
“Why?”
“Maxim is the only thing standing between you and your hold over the entire island. He is a problem, and yet you choose to ignore him. I was merely expediting the process.”
“You sent her there so I would go and fetch her—starting a war in the process.”
“Finishing it, too,” she says, nodding.
I narrow my eyes at her. I do not appreciate being manipulated. In fact, that is very much an understatement. Nobody manipulates me.
But I can’t help admiring someone who thinks she can. “And you wanted to wait to reveal this, isn’t that right? You wanted me to think she had gone to the port of her own accord, and all hope was lost? You wanted me at my wit’s end and then you’d swoop in and reveal her true whereabouts and I would take Maxim out and then…? Then what would you have me do in this little plan of yours? At what point in this grand scheme would I stop being your puppet?”
She smiles. “Then you would have this island under your control and all the people in it. We’d double up on everything. Instead of syphoning off money for your… endeavors, we take back the mainland, and then you’d have all the money and power you could need for said endeavors.”
“Hmm. You have it all worked out, don’t you?”
“I have a lot of time to think, banished to these four