Twisted - Esme Devlin Page 0,88

door while his body stays on the other side of it.

I roll my eyes. This always happens. They get scared when they realize they’re not staying.

“Then deal with it,” I tell him.

“I think you’ll want to hear what she has to say. It’s about Sapphire.”

Instantly, my eyes narrow. “What could this girl possibly know about my Sapphire?” The girls who work here see Sapphire, but under no circumstances are they given the opportunity to speak with her.

Andrei clears his throat, shifting nervously as he edges into the room. The girl follows behind him. What is he playing at? “She was… she was in the room next door to Sapphire’s.”

“Really?”

He should be able to tell by the tone of my voice that I’m not exactly happy about that.

“I thought Sapphire would be in your room from now on. I didn’t—”

“Oh, enough with such nonsense.” I train my masked face toward the girl. “Say what you came here to say.”

The girl looks petrified. Quite right. She steels herself enough to take a deep breath before she begins. “I want to make a deal with you in exchange for my freedom.”

Oh, she wants to make a deal?

Maybe if she had actually spoken to my Sapphire, she’d know I only like deals when I think of them. “That’s not how this works. How about you tell me what it is you think you know, and I’ll decide if that information is worth a deal?”

The girl bites down on her lip while she thinks about it. If only she knew she was getting her freedom regardless of what she does or doesn’t say. “We could talk through a hole in the floor,” she begins.

Fascinating.

“Sapphire was going to help me escape. She said Utopia is just a place in your basement where you take people to shoot them. But she was going to find a way out for us.”

I scoff at her. “Ridiculous. Sapphire knows there is nowhere to go.”

Celeste made sure of it. Guaranteed it.

The girl shakes her head. “There are rumors. Rumors of the Kingdom.”

The blood in my veins turns to ice at the sound of that word. Celeste puts down her teacup, watching me carefully. “And what, pray tell, are these rumors?”

The girl swallows. “That you only have to work there for five years and then the King sends you to Utopia. The real Utopia. Not the… not the basement.”

I nod my head once. How utterly brilliant of him.

Or maybe not so brilliant. How does he give his clients a realistic experience if the girls know they’re only serving out their time?

That’s the primary reason I keep everyone here in the dark.

The more I think on it, the more I doubt the man even sends his girls to Utopia.

“Interesting.”

“Does that mean…” the girl begins.

I dismiss them both with a flick of the wrist. Andrei already knows what to do with her. It will take time, but the wheels are in motion.

And I have bigger problems now.

The moment the door closes, I turn to Celeste. “She would still run from me if she could.”

Celeste leans back in her chair, putting her fingertips together in a point while she deliberates her answer carefully. She’s quiet for so long I start to think she’s not going to say anything—but Celeste never has nothing to say. “Give her time.”

“I’ve given her time,” I shoot back. “If she doesn’t fear me now, she never will.”

Just then Andrei comes back into the room and returns to his seat. “Sent a man to the port to find out when the next boat’s due in.”

I nod once.

“What are you going to do about Sapphire?” he asks.

I look down at the table and let out a breath. What am I going to do about Sapphire, indeed.

“He’s still trying to make her scared of him,” Celeste says.

My head flicks up. “And you are still trying to find a romance where there isn’t one,” I tell her defensively. “Maybe you should go back to reading your books.”

“Why don’t you just tell her?” Andrei suggests.

Celeste nods. “Would it be the worst thing?”

I look between the both of them, head switching back and forth like a pinball. It’s at times such as this that I miss having peripheral vision. “Am I the only one here who hasn’t completely lost his mind?”

“You feel something for her,” Andrei says. “Anyone else, and you’d have put a bullet in her head already.”

My stare rounds on him. “And who the fuck says I won’t do exactly that?”

I don’t like his