She shook her head. “Nothing. I’m happy . . .”
“But you’re worried something will screw up that happiness?”
“Pretty much.”
Snow started to fall as Sara dropped her packages and took Petra’s hand. “Listen, I know this didn’t happen right, and I heard all that you said about the past and the present and my mother, but I want you to know I care about you. I’m here for you if you ever want to talk, or bitch.” She grinned. “Or just hang out. I really want us to be friends, and maybe someday”—she shrugged—“sisters.”
“I’d like that too.” Petra gave her a quick hug, then eased back and smiled. “I’ll see you later?”
“You got it,” Sara said with a smile of her own. She picked up her bags, gave a wave, then headed down the street.
Petra entered the building and seconds after she hit the elevator button realized she’d forgotten to get a key from Synjon before she’d left. Thankfully the concierge remembered her, took one look at her belly and all the packages, and supplied her with one.
The ride up to the penthouse was quick, and after she battled her packages to the door, she entered the apartment with a thankful sigh. It was dark and quiet, and after dropping the bags in the living room, she went to look for Syn. But the rest of the place was just as dark, just as quiet. Strange—he hadn’t said anything about going out when she’d left this morning. And it was daytime.
Maybe he was downstairs at the gym, or maybe he knew about the tunnels below the city that Sara had told her about today, and was hanging out with the Roman brothers. He seemed to have a relationship with the very blond, sarcastic one, Lucian.
Gathering up her packages again, she headed into her room. She set them on the desk, glanced at the bed and thought about grabbing a nap. It was good for Syn to have some normal chill time with friends. She couldn’t imagine he did that often. She looked for her robe, the soft, black silk one she liked to sleep in when she wasn’t sleeping naked with Syn, but it wasn’t where she’d left it. Or thought she’d left it.
Tossing her coat over the end of the bed, she left her room and headed for Syn’s. No doubt she’d left it in there, and maybe she would just take her nap in his bed instead of her own. She grinned as she entered his room, which still held the scent of their lovemaking from the night before. Yes, definitely in here. And when Syn came home, he could just strip and crawl under the covers with her.
Her body instantly went hot at the thought.
“That’s what he does to you, girl,” she mumbled as she entered his bathroom. She didn’t bother with the light. Her robe wasn’t on the hook beside the shower where she’d expected to find it, and she was about to return to her room and just sleep in the buff, when her gaze fell on the walk-in closet. Hanging up there, next to his suits and sexy black shirts, jeans and robe, was her lovely piece of silk.
Had he put it here? With his own clothes?
She went over to it, but didn’t pluck it off the hanger right away. Instead she fingered the charcoal gray sweater next to it. The fabric was so soft. She knew what this would look like on him, feel like on him, hard, unyielding muscle through soft cashmere.
She brushed the sleeve against her face and nearly moaned, but at that very moment, she heard a sound. Strange, unnerving, and coming from beyond the closet. Her instant thought was that it was the neighbors, but Syn didn’t have any neighbors. Or an animal burrowing in the walls? But the sound wasn’t animal-like at all. It was more of a metallic whine.
She let go of the sweater and ventured deeper into the closet. The sound was probably coming from outside. Maybe they were erecting another building close by or something. But when the sound came again, louder and stranger, her skin prickled with fear. At this point, she was really hoping it was an animal.
She moved her hand through a row of heavy coats and jackets, feeling for the back of the closet, or gods, an animal’s sharp teeth. When her fingers touched wood, she shook her head at her silliness and sighed with relief.
Then the wood moved.
Petra gasped, her gut clenching terribly. Instead of being solid, it gave way. Like a door.
Her breath now coming in quick, shallow pants, she told herself to turn around and walk away. But the rational part of her brain refused the call, and her curiosity and instinct propelled her forward, almost maniacally compelling her to part the jackets and step inside.
Everything happened unbelievably fast after that. One moment she was amid waves of wool and leather, and the next she was being pulled inside a dimly lit room by a shocked and pissed-off Synjon Wise.
“W-what?” she stuttered, looking from him to her surroundings. “What is this?”
He growled, hissed, turned away from her, then turned back with a ferocious glare. She’d never seen him so angry. “Bloody hell, veana. What are you doing here? How did you get into the apartment?”
She gasped, her hand jerking up to cover her mouth. At first she thought her eyes were fooling her. Or that maybe she was actually napping and this was a nightmare. The room she stood in had no windows, but the ceiling had the same black covering that was on all the windows during the day, so she suspected the entire thing was glass. But it wasn’t the ceiling that disturbed her or made her gut twist and ache. It was the contents of the room. Whips, knives, machines—all things that were designed to torture, kill.
She whimpered against her shaking hand, her eyes moving over the scene again, back and forth. She didn’t even have to ask. She knew who this room was meant for.
“I’m the monster now, right, love?”
She didn’t look at him. Couldn’t look at him.
“How long?” she asked. “How long has this been here?”
He exhaled loudly. “The room was already built when I bought the place. I customized it to my taste.”
The shock was starting to wear off, and horrific, nightmarish reality was moving in, quick and painful. “It’s perfect.”
“Petra . . .”
“You still plan on using this, don’t you?” She turned from the living nightmare and finally looked up at him. He was the most gorgeous male in the world, and the most haunted. She shook her head at him. “With me and the balas here. Are you fucking out of your mind?”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You don’t understand.”
“You lied to me!”
“Yes,” he ground out.
“Then I understand perfectly.”
“Petra—”
“Your emotions are definitely back, Syn. And they’re just as sad and dated and misguided as they ever were.”
She didn’t spare him or the room of torture another glance. She turned and walked through the open doorway, pushed back through the closet. She’d been so right to be wary when all she wanted was to believe in him, believe that he could let this shit with Cruen go so they could build a family together.
“Stop right there!” he called, coming after her. “Where the devil do you think you are going, Petra?”
“Does it matter?” she called back, hurrying out of his bedroom and down the hall.
“Of course it fucking matters!” he shouted after her.
She ignored the grinding pain in her gut, ignored the love she had in her unbeating heart. She would have to ignore it forever now. “I’m going home, Syn. Where I belong.”
When she reached the entry hall, he was right beside her, his hand hitting the front door at the very moment hers curled around the knob. “No.”
She turned around and pushed at him, but it was like trying to move a slab of ten-feet-thick granite. “You don’t get to say no to me.”
“We’re a bloody family, Petra.”
She froze. How dare he . . . How fucking dare he . . .