Chapter 4

When I woke again, I was in a damp, dim, abandoned glass factory.

"Sophie, I'm warning you—Martin won't let you get away with this."

I turned toward the voice. Lisa Henson was tied to a chair, just like me.

What part of her brain had worked out that I was the one who'd tied her up?

Before I could gather my thoughts, Martin came rushing in.

Several masked men in black cut him off.

"Mr. Rowe. Long time no see. Pick one."

He looked at me, his mouth twisting into an ugly line.

"Sophie, it's you, isn't it?

"What game are you playing this time?

"You want to see who matters more to me—you or Lisa?"

The man burst out laughing.

"Miss Carter, five years apart and things have already soured this badly between you two?

"He doesn't trust you even this much. You really did take that knife for nothing back then."

Something flashed through my mind at lightning speed, and I turned to Martin in a panic.

"It's Luke, Martin. He's Luke Fox."

Five years ago, the man in charge of a Rowe development project had cut corners, and Martin had fired him.

But half a month later, his father, gravely ill in the hospital, jumped from a window and killed himself.

He blamed Martin for it, and the scar on my back was from the knife I'd taken for Martin back then.

And Martin had sent Luke to prison for four years over it.

Luke gripped my jaw.

"Miss Carter, all these years, and you still can't forget me?

"How about this—you kill him, and come with me."

A thud. Martin threw off his jacket and made to charge at Luke.

"You animal. You've got a problem, take it out on me."

"What's the rush?"

Luke made a gesture. Cracking sounds rose one after another, and in seconds the floor was covered in shattered glass.

"Crawl over here, and I'll let one of them go."

"Luke, you—"

The man swung his hand. A sharp slap, and a clear handprint bloomed across Lisa's face.

"Let her go and I'll kneel."

By the time Martin crawled to Lisa, the legs of his trousers were soaked through with blood.

But he only cupped Lisa's face in his hands, soothing her and wiping away her tears.

"It's okay, it's okay. I'll take you home."

I stared at the two of them and asked him hoarsely,

"And me? Are you giving me up?"

His gaze stayed on me for a few seconds, then he set his jaw and pulled Lisa into his arms.

"I'll come back for you. Even if it means my life for yours."

He carried Lisa away, step by step, and never once looked back at me.

He knew what would happen to me here, given the grudge Luke had held all these years, and he still left me behind.

Luke sat down in front of me and spoke as if amused.

"Want to know why I let him take that woman away?"

He rose, moved behind me, and began working the ropes loose bit by bit, his voice low and sinister.

"Death is nothing. Heartbreak is the greatest punishment.

"I want him to regret today's choice every time he wakes in the dead of night."

My body was lifted off the ground, and with a great crash I was shoved down into the glass covering the floor.

The slightest movement drove the sharp shards into my skin, and my cries of pain filled the whole storeroom.

The air was thick with the smell of blood. I could no longer tell what was mine and what Martin had left behind.

The man seized my wrist, picked up a shard, and dragged it across in one hard stroke. Blood gushed out at once.

"Rest easy, Miss Carter. From now on, every day and night, our Mr. Rowe will never forget you again."

I collapsed weakly into the broken glass, so drained that even the pain had faded to numbness.

The man's figure grew blurrier and blurrier, and the whole world dissolved before my eyes, piece by piece.

……

At Lisa's bedside, Martin's right eye kept twitching, his mind a tangle. Several times he wanted to leave, and each time Lisa held him back.

"You want to go find her? Then why didn't you choose her from the start?"

Looking at the tears in the woman's eyes, he swallowed the urge to go.

He'd already sent people over. They were more than enough to get Sophie out.

Besides, Sophie had been fully dressed, neat from head to toe—nothing about it looked like Luke had kidnapped her.

It looked less like an abduction than a show she and Luke had staged together.

Luke had spent four years locked up. To come straight out and go rushing toward his own death made no sense.

Unless it was for money. But the Rowes didn't lack money, and neither did Sophie.

Thinking this way, his rattled heart settled a good deal.

Half an hour later, his assistant called. Martin spoke first.

"Once she's out, take her back to the villa. I've already arranged for the best doctor. She can't stand the smell of hospitals."

After a long pause, his assistant's voice came through, stammering.

"The storeroom burned—it burned down. We only found one charred body."