Page 57 of Diamond in the Rough (The Diamond Trilogy 1)
She hopped down from the chair, which was too tall. And crossed the room to the window, which was also too tall. If she pushed up on her toes, she could see over the sill to the empty road. “They aren’t coming back, Charl,” she whispered.
She climbed the chair again and turned the page of her textbook. More swooping graphs and long formulas. More notes handwritten in the margins.
And the words, I know how to make magic.
A car door interrupts my writing, and I cross the suite to see Elijah emerge from a black SUV. He doesn’t glance up to see me, only strides into the front door. I imagine him greeting Carson, who will tell him we had a quiet dinner of bread and cheese while he was gone.
Footsteps climb the stairs, and I run to meet Elijah.
He looks more tired than when he left, but I imagine anyone would be after a twelve-hour day. There are lines on his face, shadows in his hazel green-gold eyes.
“Are you okay?”
A small smile curves his lips. “I should be asking you that.”
“I’m fine,” I say a little too brightly, glossing over the fact that I bit my nails, paced the room, and peppered poor Carson with questions about his life for way too long. I’m basically bursting with emotion right now. “Did you find out anything about my sister?”
“Not yet, but I should have answers from my contacts online.” He grabs his laptop from the coffee table and settles on the sofa. I curl up beside him, marveling at how natural this feels. The way it would be if a boyfriend and girlfriend were looking up movie times. Instead we’re looking up who might have harmed or kidnapped my sister, but still.
When he logs in, the little chat window blinks.
No info yet, says the message. Wire the money to continue search. 1M.
Something sharp twists in my stomach. “One M,” I say, reading the end of the message aloud. “What does that mean? Is it her signature? A way of signing off?” My guesses seem unlikely, but I’m holding out hope.
“No, it’s an amount.”
Another twist of the knife in my stomach. “One million. One million dollars?”
“Euros, actually. Don’t worry about it.”
“Of course I’m worried about it. This is my sister, and someone’s demanding one million euros for information about her. Is this a hostage situation? What’s going on?”
“Relax,” he says, which has the opposite effect on me. “She’s not being held hostage. This woman, this hacker is providing a service, and I’m paying for it.”
“Listen, I understand that you are richer than me. I get that. And I understand you’re helping me here, but there’s something off about this.” I stand and stride away from him. “I just need to stop and make sense of this for a second. You’re not even blinking an eye at paying one million euros for information. What if it’s not even her? What if it doesn’t lead to her?”
“It will.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the hacker backs up her information.”
“I don’t understand why we even need a supersecret, superexpensive hacker to find my sister. Something is going on here, and I don’t understand.”
He flicks a few keys on the laptop—no doubt wiring one million euros, before shutting the lid. Then he stands and approaches me, hands out, placating. “Listen. You don’t need to worry. I promised you I would find her, and I will.”
Tears prick my eyes, and I press my palms against my sockets to hold them in. “Look, if we have to pay money to get her back, I’ll do it. I’ll mortgage my house or ask my parents or something. I don’t know. But we can’t owe you this kind of money. I can’t owe you this.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
He seems so serious, so sincere. I want to fall into his arms and believe everything. Except things that I accepted in that prison cell don’t make as much sense in the clear light of day. I walk away to the window, to the beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower, only now there’s fog blocking the sight. “It’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it? Me ending up in a prison cell with you.”
“Holly.”
“Except it’s not a coincidence, is it? I don’t understand it, but it’s not.”
“Don’t do this. Nothing good will come of you asking me these questions.”
“The truth will come from asking these questions.”
He gives me a sad smile. “The truth has never been anything good for me.”
I know he’s talking about his mother and her death at the hands of his father. I know he’s talking about the family secrets that nearly strangled him, but I need to know. This is my family at stake. “Why did I end up in that prison cell with you?”
“I don’t know.”
It feels like one of those half-truths. “Why do you want to find my sister?”
