Page 29 of Ruthless King (Mount Trilogy 1)
Grunt.
I shut up and let him lift me out of the car and carry me up to my apartment.
Except something feels off. Keys jingle, but I swear they sound different from mine.
Scar hauls me up the stairs and stands me on my feet while he unlocks dead bolts. He gives me a small shove into the room, and the door shuts behind me before I can yank off the hood.
I rip it over my head and spin around, my brain racing to process something that makes absolutely no sense at all.
This isn’t my apartment.
Where the hell am I?
Mount. He did this.
He never intended to let me go.
“Where are you, you fucking bastard?”
I jerk my head from side to side, taking in the walls papered in a sophisticated black-and-white brocade pattern, looking for the telltale globe in the corners of the thick crown molding that would give away the presence of a camera.
I don’t see any evidence of a camera, but that doesn’t mean there’s not one here. But Mount’s not here either.
That’s something.
Barely.
All the relief I felt on my ride “home” drains from me as I investigate my new cage. I heard the locks. I know I’m not leaving until he lets me. My body trembles, and it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m naked under my coat.
I wrap my arms around myself and chafe them in an attempt to stop the shaking.
Don’t think about it. Gather information. Be a general, not a prisoner.
I swallow the fear and focus on my surroundings. There must be something that will help me either figure out where I am or aid me in my escape. I turn, surveying what is probably the most beautiful sitting room I’ve ever seen. The phrase gilded cage has never been so fitting.
There are only three colors in the whole room. Black, white, and gold.
A shiny black door leads off to the right and I rush toward it, hoping like an idiot that it could possibly be an exit, but knowing it won’t be at the same time.
It’s a bedroom.
Not the overblown bordello of a room I expected before, but one that’s sophisticated and feminine. Again, there are only three colors in the decor—black, white, and gold.
The black four-poster bed dominates the room, taking up an entire third, with sheer white fabric leading from post to post. The spread matches the black-and-white brocade from the sitting room walls, and the black satin sheets are already pulled back as if nightly turndown service has already been performed.
He never planned to let me leave. Ever.
The whole production in the library was exactly what Magnolia warned me about—Mount’s ability to fuck with my head.
I push the fear away. It’s a useless waste of energy.
Another door leads off the bedroom to a luxurious bathroom nicer than in any hotel room I’ve seen, again done in black, white, and gold.
What is it
with these colors?
The bathroom has another door that leads to a walk-in closet that could serve as a decent-sized bedroom itself, but the bars are completely empty. I check the drawers in the center island, and they’re empty too.
