And Beth would still be alive. I don’t say that last part, but I don’t need to. At my words, Nora flinches, like I just struck her a blow, and pain flashes across her face.

She recovers her composure a second later, however. “So let me get this straight…” She leans forward, placing her forearms on the table, and I see that her fingers are tightly laced together, her knuckles white with tension. “You want to implant some chips inside my body that will tell you where I am all the time—just so I’ll be safe on a remote compound that has more security than the White House?”

Her tone is heavy with sarcasm, and I feel my temper rising in response. I indulge her in many things, but I will not take risks with her safety. It would’ve been easier if she’d chosen to cooperate, but I’m not about to let her reluctance deter me from doing the right thing.

“Why, yes, my pet, that’s right,” I say silkily, getting up from my chair. “That’s exactly what I want. You’re getting these trackers today. Now, in fact.”

15

Nora

Stunned, I stare at Julian, my heartbeat roaring in my ears. A part of me can’t believe he’s going to do this to me against my will—tag me like some dumb animal, depriving me of any semblance of privacy and freedom—while the rest of me is screaming that I’m an idiot, that I should’ve known that a tiger doesn’t change his stripes.

It’s just that the last few weeks had been so different from anything we’ve had together before. I’d begun to imagine that Julian was opening up to me, that he was truly letting me into his life. Despite his dominance in the bedroom and the control he exerts over all aspects of my life, I’d started to feel less like his sex toy and more like his partner. I let myself believe that we were becoming something like a normal couple, that he was beginning to genuinely care for me… to respect me.

Like a fool, I bought into the delusion of a happy life with my kidnapper—with a man utterly lacking in conscience or morals.

How stupid, how gullible of me. I want to kick myself and cry at the same time. I’ve always known what kind of man Julian is, but I still let myself get taken in by his charm, by the way he seemed to want me, need me.

I allowed myself to think I could be something more than a possession to him.

Realizing that I’m still sitting there, reeling from the painful disillusionment, I push back my chair and get up to face Julian from across the table. The kicked-in-the-stomach sensation is still there, but now so is anger. Pure and intense, it’s spreading through my body, sweeping out the remnants of shock and hurt.

These trackers have nothing to do with my safety. I know the extent of the security measures on the estate, and I know that the chances of anyone being able to take me again are beyond minuscule. No, the renewed terrorist threat is just a pretext, a convenient excuse for Julian to do what he’s probably been planning to do all along. It gives him a reason to increase his control over me, to bind me to him so tightly that I will never so much as take a breath without his knowledge.