Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
She thinks she's in control of what happens. That her pace can change the outcome. That her compliance, or failure will dictate… anything.
It can't. It won't.
I've planned for every fucking possible scenario.
The whole point of this island is… her enjoyment.
Chapter 4
Scarletta
The watch beeps.
I freeze mid-step, certain I've failed—certain he's going to punish me harder because I'm late, because I'm slow, because I'm me—but the timer reads 0:02:17.
Two minutes.
I made it with two fucking minutes to spare.
The clearing opens up in front of me like something out of a fever dream. Or maybe I actually have fever. Malaria. Dengue. Whatever tropical nightmare is currently incubating in my bloodstream because I walked through a goddamn jungle naked and barefoot like some sort of feral idiot.
There's a massive tree in the center. Ancient. Gnarled. The kind of tree that looks like it's been here since before humans invented fire, waiting patiently to murder someone.
Thick vines wrap around the trunk like veins. The branches spread out overhead in this twisted canopy that blocks most of the light, turning the clearing dim and greenish and wrong. Like a fairy tale forest where children get eaten.
A rope ladder hangs down from somewhere high up in the branches.
Next to it, an envelope dangles from a nail hammered into the bark.
Of course there's another fucking envelope.
I stumble forward, every nerve ending screaming. My feet are bleeding—I can feel it, even if I can't see it through the dirt caked on my skin. Something bit my shoulder. Or maybe scratched me. I don't know. Everything itches. Everything. Like ants are crawling under my skin, burrowing into my pores, laying eggs in my—
Stop.
I rip the envelope off the tree. My hands shake so badly I almost drop it.
Inside, another card. Another stupid goddamn poem written in his perfect handwriting.
My naughty little Valentine let strangers make her moan,
So sixty feet above the ground, she'll pay for what she's sown.
Climb the rope into the tree and prove you can obey—
Walk the plank, retrieve your cuffs, and give that ass away.
Walk back to the beam you started on, then face it like my whore,
Bend yourself across the wood and wait for what's in store.
"Fuck you."
I say it out loud. To the tree. To him. To the cameras I know are watching.
"Fuck. You."
My voice cracks on the second word.
I look up.
Sixty feet.
Sixty fucking feet.
There's a platform up there. I can barely see it through the branches, but it's there—wooden planks lashed together, extending out from the trunk like a diving board suspended in nightmare territory.
I'm afraid of heights.
Like, genuinely afraid. The kind of afraid where I can't even stand near the railing on a second-floor balcony without my legs turning to jelly. The kind where I once had a panic attack in a glass elevator and had to take the stairs for the rest of the week.
And he wants me to climb sixty feet up a rope ladder.
Then walk out onto a plank.
Suspended in the air.
Above a jungle.
Naked.
I can't. I can't do this. It's not possible. I'm not capable of this. It's not within my abilities. I'm not—I don't have the capacity for this. I'm not the kind of person who climbs trees. I'm not athletic. I barely leave my apartment. I'm the girl who gets winded walking up four flights of stairs.
Climbing sixty feet up into a tree isn't in my… my… constitution.
Constitution? What the hell, Scarletta? The word floats through my panicked brain like it's auditioning for a role it doesn't deserve. It's not in my constitution. My fucking constitution.
Who even says that? What am I, some regency-era damsel clutching her pearls? Some fantasy princess fainting onto a chaise lounge because the prospect of physical exertion is too vulgar to contemplate?
Christ. I sound ridiculous. I sound like I'm writing dialogue for a character I'd mock in someone else's manuscript.
Oh, my God. I'm spiraling. I need to chill. Zen. Calm…
This is… safe. It has to be. I crane my neck back, squinting up through the canopy at the distant platform—barely visible through layers of leaves and dappled sunlight. The wood up there looks thick. Solid. Sturdy, even from this impossible distance.
Don't think about how far away it actually is. Don't think about how you can't possibly assess its structural integrity from sixty goddamn feet below. This is the masked man we're talking about here. Control freak extraordinaire. The man who orchestrated an entire auction, who rigged every detail of my arrival, who probably has backup plans for his backup plans.
He's obsessive. Meticulous. Pathologically thorough.
It's got to be safe. It has to be. He wouldn't put me in actual danger—not the kind that involves plummeting to my death from a tree platform in the middle of the jungle.
Right?
I take a breath and hold it as I read the poem again. Slower this time.
Bend yourself across the wood and wait for what's in store.