If his final words were meant to be reassuring, they were anything but, and even though I walked out of his penthouse suite alone, I took the cloak of dread with me.
CHAPTER 15
I spotted Joe pacing the lobby the second the elevators opened.
His eyes were moving constantly – checking his phone, the entrance, looking toward the restaurant, scanning the bank of elevators – so he saw me almost immediately after I’d started toward him.
“What the actual fuck, Emily?” He was visibly sweating, and his hair was disheveled, as though he’d run his hand through it several times. “Where the hell did you go? You’ve been gone for nearly half an hour. I was seconds from calling Sallis, and I promise you —”
He cut off, his eyes catching on something behind me. I swiveled to see Michelis with a man I hadn’t seen in the suite getting off the elevator. He smiled, his expression cruel and taunting.
Joe put a firm hand on my shoulder, both protective and steadying, his eyes pinned to Vilanakis as he and his companion disappeared into the restaurant. “That was Vilanakis,” he said when I suspected he could breathe again. “You were with him? God, Emily.” He began studying me – moving my hair off my neck, running his hands down my arms, searching for any signs of distress the way I’d searched him when he’d arrived at Kaya.
“I’m fine,” I assured him. “A bit shaken up.” I really was fine. But now that I was safe and with someone I trusted, my emotions surged to the surface. I put my hands up to cover my eyes. To breathe. “Just… I need a minute.”
“Of course. We can sit.”
He started nudging me toward the lobby couch, but I shook my head. “I’d rather get out of here. I don’t want to be in that hateful man’s vicinity one second longer.”
“Understood.” With an arm around my shoulder, Joe led me toward the front doors.
Before we reached them, though, I halted. “Maya!” He looked at me, confused. “There’s a woman. Upstairs. In his room. We have to help her. She’s a slave or a servant or whatever. She has the tattoo.”
Joe dropped his hand from my shoulder and scrubbed it over his face. “We can’t,” he said after a beat, and the look on his eyes said he hated saying that as much as he knew I hated hearing it. “We can’t just take her. We’ll start a war that we can’t win.”
“But she’s upstairs. She’s… she needs help.” Deep down, I knew he was right, but I wasn’t ready to give up. “You took Amber. How is that different?”
“It was different,” he said, practically at the same time. “Michelis left her for dead. And I took her to Reeve, who I thought could protect her.”
“Then we’ll take Maya to Reeve too!”
“If Reeve wants to take that burden on, then he needs to do that himself. Right now, I’m not even sure he can take care of Amber. I’m not going —”
“I thought this was what you wanted to do! You wanted to go after him. You wanted to help these women. Was that a lie?”
He sighed and tilted his head toward me. “I do want to help them. And I will, I promise. But right now, a rescue would be a suicide mission. You have to see that. You do, don’t you?”
A fresh sob threatened, but I swallowed it down. “Yes. I do. You’re right. Let’s just go.”
“Will you tell me what happened, at least?” Joe asked as he led me out the doors, his hand on the small of my back. “Are you really okay?”
“Yes. It was fine. I’m fine.” If fine was defined as a jumble of fear and agitation, that was.
Joe glanced at me skeptically. “Then, you just talked?”
“Yeah. Mostly.” My mind flashed back to Michelis’s breath on my skin, the wet feel of his tongue. A shiver ran through me.
Joe noticed. He came to a stop, a few feet from the valet station, and faced me full on. “What happened, Emily? What did he do to you?”
“He didn’t do anything, really, except try to creep me out.” I hesitated, trying to decide how honest I wanted to be. Joe had made a good point about playing hero, and I didn’t want him rushing to fight for my honor. From the urgency in his tone, there was a distinct possibility that he would.
“He didn’t hurt me,” I prefaced, then explained how I’d ended up in his suite. “He said he wanted to meet me. He didn’t hurt me and he barely touched me.”
“Barely touched you?” Joe looked ready to tear off someone’s head. All I had to do was say the word.
“I’m fine,” I insisted, nudging Joe toward the valet. “Everything’s fine. He was manipulative and he made every effort to show me he was in charge and get me riled up and it worked.”
I stood quietly until Joe gave the attendant his ticket. As we walked to the line to wait for his car, he asked, “But what did he want from you? Did he tell you anything about Amber? About Reeve?”
“Funny, you should ask.” A breeze blew by, and I shivered, but it was quite possible I might have shivered anyway. “He wants me to convince Reeve to talk to him. I guess Reeve hasn’t been receptive to such a conversation in the past.”
“I wonder if that’s what his e-mail to Sallis was about.” Joe furrowed his brow. “Will you convince him?”
“To talk to Vilanakis?” It hadn’t occurred to me that I had any other choice. “Yeah. I have to try. For Amber’s sake.”
Even as I said the words, I chided myself internally. Always for Amber’s sake. When would I start doing things for my sake?