Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
He unlocked the door and pulled it open. “Lock it,” he ordered, then stepped into the hall, pulling the door closed behind him.
He waited until the soft scrape of metal clicked in the lock. Only then did he realize he’d left his phone inside.
“Fuck.” The curse echoed down the empty corridor as he stormed away.
Chapter Twenty-Two
A Valley of Ashes
The lock clicked into place, and Daisy pressed her back against the door, the key biting into her palm as she squeezed to stop her hands from trembling. Her breath came in shallow bursts. The suite stretched before her, vast and silent, firelight casting long shadows across the walls.
She didn’t know how long she had.
The shirt he’d left lay draped over the chair where she’d abandoned it. She rushed to it on battered feet, each step a fresh reminder of the lengths she’d traveled to be there.
The blanket fell, and she shrugged on the shirt, the starched material swallowing her whole. She fastened the buttons as quickly as her unsteady hands allowed. The hem grazed her thighs, and the sleeves hung past her wrists, but it was better than twelve pounds of beaded gown or the blanket he’d offered.
The material smelled of cedar and something darker. Something that made her stomach tighten in ways she refused to name.
Her gaze snagged on the narrow drawer beside the door. The one he’d opened before retrieving the gun.
She crossed to it. Pulled the brass handle only to find it empty.
Her fingers traced the velvet lining where the weapon had rested. Nothing. Not even dust.
The next drawer yielded the same. And the next. She moved through the sitting area with mounting frustration, yanking open every compartment, every cabinet, every hidden panel she could find. All of them empty. Pristine. Unlived in.
Like a hotel room dressed for a guest who never arrived.
Who was this man? He had files on dozens of women, but kept nothing of himself. No photographs. No letters. No evidence that a human being occupied this space beyond the fire in the hearth and the half-empty decanter on the bar.
She scurried to the dressing room, her feet screaming in protest. The wardrobe revealed only one row of suits in charcoal and black. More than enough for someone of her means, but far less than what she expected for a man of his class.
Shirts hung beside the suits, pressed to military precision. Shoes lined up like little soldiers, polished to mirrors. She rifled through pockets, checked linings, searched for anything that might tell her who R.A. or Jack really was.
Nothing.
Her fingers paused on a small velvet box. She lifted the lid and found what looked like earrings, plain onyx, flat and unadorned, but upon further inspection, she didn’t know what they were. Lifting one, she twisted the strange metal post, then realized they were cufflinks—something no one in her world owned.
She’d expected something showier. Gold, perhaps. Or diamonds. The kind of ostentation that announced wealth like a battle cry. But these were simple. Too plain for even a thief to steal.
“You like being understated,” she whispered, sliding the cufflink back into the box beside its twin.
She scanned the hanging suits, each one a powerful wrapper he used to hide his ravaged body. How many people actually knew what he hid beneath the surface?
“Who are you?”
Was he really named Jack? And if R.A. was dead, like he claimed, why did he wear a dead man’s ring?
A squat safe tucked in the corner of the closet, its digital keypad glowing a patient green. She tried his initials. The letters RA from his ring. Random numbers that meant nothing. Each attempt earned a sharp beep of rejection.
Hopeless. She abandoned it after only a few tries, unwilling to waste time on locked doors when so many others stood open.
The bathroom offered more contradictions. Wrapped soaps lined the drawers in neat rows. Extra toothbrushes, still in their packaging, filled the next drawer. Towels folded with hotel precision. Everything arranged for a guest, nothing touched by habit.
His wet clothes lay in a heap on the heated floor. She crouched and searched the pockets with methodical desperation. Empty. All of them. Not even lint.
The man was a cipher. A ghost in a three-piece suit.
Her gaze settled on the leather toiletry case tucked neatly beside the rolled towels on the vanity. She pulled open the zipper, and his scent wafted from the shadowed contents, intense and recognizable. She dumped the contents, wincing when a glass bottle of shaving oil hit the counter and nearly rolled off the ledge.
“Shit.”
She sorted through the rest. Aftershave balm. Hair trimmers. A nail kit. Tweezers. Eye drops. Over-the-counter painkillers. And one single syringe filled with clear liquid.
“What the hell?” She held the syringe up to the light. It had no prescription markings. Just a cap on both ends and whatever fluid filled the inside.