Page 132 of Bought for Blood

“That’s it. He didn’t stay two minutes.” Grace turns her head. “A tall dark-haired woman came in behind him. The two of them went up to Viktor’s office. She signed something and left. Nobody’s seen either of them since.”

Faine.

I look at the second signature on the page. Small upright letters, no flourish anywhere in it.

“Is that what I think it is?” Grace says.

I hand it to her.

She reads the whole of the first page before she turns it. She gets to the bottom of the second, and I watch her find the crossed-out name.

“He’s put you in his own place on the paper.”

“Yes.”

“That’s a legal document.” She reads it again. “That’s an actual legal document, Sery. With a witness.”

“I know.”

Grace folds it back along his crease and gives it to me.

“He had you in that house when he came here, and he didn’t tell me you were alive,” she says. “I’ve had a week to think about that, and I’m not finished. But he brought you here, and he gave you back to yourself.” She stands up and picks up the mug that didn’t spill. “I have to figure out how I feel about him now.” She pushes it into my hands. “Drink this. It’s gone cold, and you’re drinking it anyway. Then I’m taking you for breakfast.”

I don’t tell her everything. He never put a phone in front of me, and I never asked for one. I slept through most of that week, and the part I was awake for I spent on him.

The mess hall is up two flights, and it’s full.

That’s the thing I’m not ready for. When I first came here, Aurora was made up of quiet corridors and closed doors. Now there are people at every table with plates in front of them. A lot of them are in clothes that came out of a donation crate and don’t fit. I’ve spent a year in buildings where nobody talked. The noise goes straight through me.

“A lot of them came from the quarry,” Grace says.

“I don’t recognize all of them.”

“You wouldn’t. That was a halfway house. They shipped people through. Some were at your compound. But the rest came out of other buildings that got emptied into that hole in the ground.”

“I can’t believe we both got out of that.”

“Me too.” She breathes in. “You have no idea how afraid I was for you. I was here for months, not knowing where you were. I ended up spying on Aurora so they’d send me updates on you.”

I glance at her. “Updates?”

She nods. “Just a word here or there. A photo.”

“They sent you a photo of me?”

“Yeah. Said you were better in the new place. What a joke. When I finally went in, you’d been sold weeks before.”

“Who did you speak to?” I’m struggling to put this together.

“A handler. I never knew her name, but she was a horrible bitch. I’m pretty sure she got a kick out of telling me you were gone.”

I think back to the day I walked out of the compound. A photo in the sunshine. “What did she look like?”

Grace shrugs. “Ordinary. Middle-aged. Gray hair. Heavy reading glasses.”

“Holy shit.” I’m staring. “So she sent you the messages after all.”

“Who?”