Masked Desires (Unmasking Prometheus, #3)

by Bold, Diana

  “Excellent,” Roger said, delight and confusion warring within him. “Tie Prometheus to the chair. I want to have some uninterrupted words with her.”

  The men smirked but did as he’d asked without question, quickly and efficiently binding her to the chair in front of the desk. “We’ll be just outside the room if you need us,” one of them promised.

  Once they were gone, Roger stared at the woman, still doubtful. “I’m supposed to believe you are Prometheus?”

  “I don’t care what you believe,” she snapped.

  “The Strathmores hired you, didn’t they?” He chuckled. “I have to hand it to them, for a second, I thought my longtime nemesis might actually be a young woman.”

  She said nothing, simply staring him down, her entire body vibrating with anger.

  “I know my stepbrothers were behind this,” he said, standing up and circling her, taking in every enticing inch. “You’re connected to them in some way. Closely, or you wouldn’t have been at that bloody wedding.”

  At last, she looked away, and he knew that last shot had hit home. She obviously didn’t want to admit she was working with those bastards.

  “Which one of them was it?” he demanded, the desire to know beating out all other considerations.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said dully, refusing to meet his eyes.

  He watched her for another long moment, fantasizing about the ways in which he would break her. She seemed to have a spine of pure steel, but he knew that eventually he’d find her weakness. In the meantime, he would send a message to his stepbrothers and let them know he had her. Then he’d see whether they cared enough about her to reveal themselves in order to save her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The next day, Morgan gathered his children and took them all up to the attic, where they began to paint as he found himself staring blindly at the portrait of Fiona he’d been working on. No matter how many times he’d tried to capture the exact shade of her auburn hair, he was unsatisfied with the results.

  With a groan of irritation, he tossed aside the canvas, determined to start over.

  However, in his heart, he knew his main issue was that he didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be back at Brookhaven, working on his next mural.

  She hadn’t told him he couldn’t continue his work, just that she didn’t want to be in his life, but he’d thought it wise to give her a few days. Now, he wondered if he should. Maybe if he just kept showing her how much he cared about her, if he kept being there for the children, she’d finally understand that she belonged with him and that her fears were unwarranted.

  She’d promised him she’d stop pushing him away, then done it again the very next day. He didn’t know whether he wanted most to shake her or kiss her. All he knew was that without her, his life seemed suddenly as meaningless as it had a few weeks ago.

  Still contemplating the idea of taking the children and going to Brookhaven, his thoughts were interrupted when his brothers burst into the attic, their faces grim.

  “What is it?” Morgan asked, his stomach immediately dropping.

  “We’ve heard from Roger,” Luke said, striding across the distance that separated them and handing Morgan a folded letter.

  Morgan took it begrudgingly, already certain he didn’t want to know what it contained. He glanced at Adrian, only to find his twin simmering with barely contained rage.

  He fumbled to open the letter, skimming it with dread.

  I have your pretty little Prometheus. Do you really think I am foolish enough to believe that she has been behind the mask all along? If you value her life at all, the actual Prometheus will meet me at my warehouse down at the docks. I want to settle this once and for all.

  Winters

  “Fiona!” Adrian muttered. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. She’s the only one who makes sense. She’s been rescuing the children herself, dressed as Prometheus.”

  Morgan dropped the letter and stumbled back, bending over and bracing his hands on his knees as all the horrors of last year came crashing down on him. How was this possible? How could another woman he loved be at the mercy of that bastard?

  “I think you’re right,” he said dully. “The answer was right in front of me all along, but I just didn’t see it. It never even occurred to me that it could be a woman, but why not? Of course, it was her. Of course, she’d be that brave. How could I have been so stupid?”

  “We have to go,” Luke said grimly. “We can’t let what happened to Anne happen to Fiona.”

  “I will kill the bastard if he harms one hair on her head,” Morgan vowed, all the rage that had been building up in him since his wife’s death coming to the surface. “He’s made our lives hell for long enough.”

  “I’m sorry this happened,” Adrian said hollowly. “I feel like this is all my fault. If I hadn’t started going out as Prometheus—”

  “Don’t say that,” Morgan interrupted, knowing he’d let his brother suffer for all of this long enough. “I am proud of you for what you’ve done. And I’m proud of Fiona as well. That monster needed to be stopped and all the others like him. You’ve taught me that it isn’t enough to make a donation every month while we live our charmed lives. I want to continue to fight this fight, and nothing Roger can do will ever stop that.”

  Adrian gave him a grateful look. “Thank you. I know you care about Fiona, and I promise that we will get her back.”

  “I don’t just care for her,” Morgan admitted fiercely, straightening. “I love her. She’s brave and smart and beautiful, and I couldn’t bear it if something happened to her, too.”

  Lucien scrubbed his hand over his face and nodded, cracking his neck. “Well, we can’t just walk in there blindly. It has to be a trap. We need to come up with a plan.”

  “I have an idea,” Morgan told them, trying to keep the panic away. “Let me get the children downstairs to their nanny, and we’ll head out.”

  FIONA WOKE UP SLOWLY, confused and disoriented when she realized she was not in her attic bedroom but in a dark stinking cellar. She tried to move, only to send pain shooting through her limbs, which were bound to a chair in the center of the room.

  She groaned and struggled, trying to break free, only to remember that she’d done so during most of the night with no luck. Her hands and ankles were raw and bloody, and every time she moved, it hurt.

  The Earl of Winters had brought her here sometime late yesterday evening, and he’d grilled her for what had seemed an eternity before he’d finally grown annoyed and left her with dire promises of what would happen to her when he returned.

  She’d resigned herself to the thought of being raped, but now, she wondered if he intended to kill her as well. Everything was made even worse by the thought that he intended to use her as bait to lure in the Strathmores—he’d gleefully told her that he didn’t intend to them let leave this place alive.

  She could only hope that they were smart enough not to put themselves in danger on her behalf. She would never forgive herself if something happened to them because of her own stupidity.

  Why had she gone into that brothel without checking it out first? She’d known it was risky, but she’d been so upset over what had happened with Morgan that some part of her hadn’t really cared. She’d thought herself smart and brave, but perhaps Winters had been right to laugh when he’d found out she was a woman. When those bastards had caught her, she’d been unable to do a damned thing to save herself.

  She had a knife in her boot, and they hadn’t searched her or taken it from her, but from the moment they’d first laid hands on her, she’d been immobilized and unable to reach for it. She should have brought a gun and shot the first one to touch her.

  With a muttered cry of resignation, she finally quit struggling and sagged back in her chair, winded and hurting. Darkness surrounded her, but a faint light seeped in from the doorframe at the top of the stairs. Was it morning or afternoon? How long had she slept?

>   She gazed around her, taking in everything she could of her surroundings, and suddenly had a horrible thought. Was this where Anne Strathmore had lost her life? Vanessa had told her it had happened in the cellar of a warehouse down by the docks. Were those the stairs they’d pushed Anne down, hurting her so badly that she’d gone into labor with Felicity and later, lost her life?

  Her heart sank even further at the thought that Morgan would have to relive all that when he came to rescue her. Because deep down, she had no doubt that he would come for her, risking his own life to save hers. That’s the kind of man he was, and she loved him all the more for it.

  Dear God, how she loved that man! She promised herself that if she got out of this that she would make sure that he knew it and never again do anything to push him away.

  A commotion above made her suddenly jerk upright, cursing under her breath as the sudden motion made her hurt all over again. She leaned forward, straining to hear what was going on, then shrank back when the door at the top of the stairs flew open and the Earl of Winters strode quickly down, a sneer on his lips.

  “Well, hello, Fiona Bohannan,” he said, having obviously found out everything about her. “I didn’t know we were old acquaintances.”

  “What are you talking about?” she demanded, a sinking feeling taking root inside her.

  “I believe your father once owed me a debt,” he said with a smirk. “He gave you to me as a payment. Unfortunately, Prometheus stole you away, as he did with so much of my property. But don’t worry, I plan to make him pay. Then I’ll put you back to work in one of my brothels so you can pay off the debt your father owed me, as you should have done long ago. You’re a bit old now, but there are always men who aren’t that picky. I’m sure I can get a few years out of you, at least.”

  She’d thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, but now, she knew she’d been woefully naïve.

  Chapter Seventeen

  As Morgan and his brothers approached Winters’ warehouse, he couldn’t help the anxiety that clawed its way up his gut. Just a little over a year ago, he’d experienced one of the worst days of his life in this same spot, and he couldn’t believe they were here yet again, that Winters had yet another woman whom he loved at his mercy, and that he was once again having to do battle with this monster who had made their lives miserable since they were children.

  Seeming to read his thoughts, Adrian put his hand on his shoulder, forcing him to turn and look at him. “I should have killed him the last time,” he said fiercely. “I’m so sorry that it’s come to this.”

  Morgan laughed bitterly. “It’s not your fault. You did what you had to do that day. You saved Vanessa. As for the rest of it, I suppose we all should have gone after him the moment we heard he was back in town. I just never thought he’d do this again, certainly not so quickly.”

  Luke shook his head. “None of us did. But it doesn’t matter now. This is the situation we find ourselves in, and we just have to make sure he doesn’t get away this time.”

  From where they stood at the end of the street, the building looked completely abandoned, but none of them was fool enough to believe that Roger’s men weren’t lying in wait somewhere, knowing they would soon show themselves.

  Morgan turned to Max, the boy they’d found a few blocks away. He was an enterprising young man of about twelve, with a shock of white-blond hair and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. He’d been more than willing to take on this job for the exorbitant sum they were paying him, and he was street-savvy enough to know the risks. “Here’s the note. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  Max nodded, his brilliant blue eyes sparkling with excitement. “Yes, sir. I’m ready.”

  “All right, then. Here you go. But remember, we don’t want you getting hurt. If things seem at all dicey, you run out of there as quickly as you can.” Morgan pressed the note into the boy’s grubby hand, still a bit nervous about whether his plan would work.

  “I’ll be out quick as a flash,” Max promised.

  As Morgan and his brothers watched Max run down to the warehouse, he prayed that this would go the way they wanted it to and that Fiona was still alive and well. He couldn’t bear to lose her, too.

  AS THE DAY STRETCHED on, Fiona grew more and more uncomfortable. Winters had spent the morning threatening her and then cajoling her, doing everything in his power to get her to tell him which of the Strathmores was Prometheus. He still didn’t believe that she’d actually been playing the part herself and seemed to think the brothers had simply dressed her up and sent her into danger to take the fall for them.

  She’d wanted to yell that if he thought that, he had no idea of his stepbrothers’ true characters, but she’d managed to stay silent, refusing to answer even the simplest question.

  But as the hours passed, she could no longer avoid the call of nature, and she finally had to break down and ask to relieve herself. She’d been humiliated when he’d sent one of his henchmen with her. However, the man had brought down a chamber pot and been kind enough to turn his back. While taking care of business, she’d managed to take the knife out of her boot and transfer it to her shirt sleeve. Thankfully, the thug hadn’t noticed it when he tied her back to the chair, and he’d even taken pity on her and loosened the ropes slightly. Still, even with the knife so close at hand, she had no idea how she was going to get out of this.

  She feared that the moment she tried to work the knife from her sleeve to her hand, it would either fall to the floor and her chance would be lost or that Winters would return and catch her in the middle of her attempted escape.

  For twenty minutes or so now, she’d been struggling with the risks of chancing it versus the dangers of not trying to free herself. In the end, she decided to try it. She’d rather go down fighting than just let him do whatever he pleased to her. She still greatly feared that he intended for her to die anyway, so what did she really have to lose?

  Taking a deep breath, she carefully maneuvered her hands until she could use her right one to inch up her left forearm, finding the knife and working it carefully down. It was very difficult getting it past the rope, and tears of pain and frustration streamed down her face as she worked it back and forth, her arms burning with the awkward position and her hands tingling from lack of circulation.

  But after a few minutes, she finally achieved her goal. The knife was in her hand and she cut the rope, the sudden loosening of tension making her cry out as the blood painfully rushed back into her arms.

  She just sat there for a moment, contemplating her next move and trying to get the feeling back in her extremities, when the door above her suddenly banged open and Winters traipsed hurriedly down the stairs.

  Thinking quickly, she thrust her hands back behind her back, hoping that from the front, it would look like she was still tied up. She clenched the knife tightly, vowing that no matter what happened, she wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

  Winters came to a stop a dozen feet away from here, glancing back the way he’d come, a haunted look in his eyes. “We have to go,” he snarled. “I’m taking you out of here.”

  “Why?” she asked, her heart dropping. If he moved her, how would Morgan ever know where to find her?

  He said nothing, simply strode forward, looking as if he meant to carry her out of there bodily, when there was a noise behind him and Morgan and his brothers appeared at the top of the stairs.

  A glad cry escaped her, and Winters gave her a withering look before turning to face them. “What have you done with my men?” he snarled.

  “We simply made them a better offer,” the earl told him, his voice colder than Fiona had ever heard it. “When you pay for men’s loyalty, it’s only as good as the highest bidder.”

  Winters uttered a foul curse, then hurried to her side, placing his hand on her shoulder and squeezing tightly. He was slightly behind and to the right of her now. If he looked down, he’d see the knife, but for the moment, his attention was who
lly focused on the Strathmores.

  “Have you forgotten? I’ve got your brother’s whore here for leverage. I’m sure you wouldn’t want what happened to his wife to happen to this little bitch.”

  Fiona blinked back her tears, hating that he’d called her that in front of these men whose opinion she valued so greatly but hesitant to give away the fact that her hands were no longer bound and that she was in possession of a weapon. She only had one shot at this. If she missed, he’d kill her for sure.

  Morgan and his brothers slowly descended the stairs, not making any sudden moves but not backing down either. Fiona glanced at Winters out of the corner of her eye, trying to see if he had any weapons. Had he come into this depending entirely on his henchmen to defend him? Surely, he wasn’t that stupid.

  “Say one more nasty word against her, and I’ll rip your heart out,” Morgan vowed, and she was shocked by the fury that emanated from him. She’d never before seen him as anything but sweet and kind. But she’d always known that he could protect her if the need arose. That was why she’d always felt so safe with him.

  Winters gave an ugly laugh. “I couldn’t believe it when Adrian married an actress, and I was even further stunned when Luke married a maid. But a whore, Morgan? That seems a bit much, even for a Strathmore.”

  Fiona felt as if his words had punched her right in the gut. She couldn’t catch her breath, knew her face must be flaming. This was her greatest fear brought to life. She’d never wanted Morgan to know this and especially not for him to find out this way.

  “I already warned you,” Morgan snarled. “Watch your tongue!”

  “Didn’t she tell you?” Winters asked casually. “She worked at one of my first brothels. She was the first girl Prometheus stole from me.” He chuckled. “By the look on your face, I suppose I can rule you out. You obviously didn’t know. I should have known that it wasn’t you. A man like you would never knowingly enter into a relationship with a used-up harlot like this.”