T-MINUS 5 DAYS.
The countdown loomed over me like a guillotine.
Each day I couldn’t find Eileen brought me further from the calm, collected, and ruthless man I once prided myself in being.
I’d exhausted all my options. The four private investigators I’d hired had come up short. All of Eileen’s relatives refused to give up her location (despite numerous threats).
And Mom? Guantanamo wouldn’t stand a chance at prying info from her lips.
On the twenty-fifth day without Farrow, I decided I’d had enough of being miserable in the comfort of my thermostat-controlled home and dragged my pathetic self into the cryochamber, where I could be comfortable with half-frozen balls.
Did Farrow even cure you? I started to reason with myself. Surely, she is not St. Anthony, capable of miracles. Nor Bian Que. Or even Fu Xing.
No. A sit-down in the ice room would deliver cognitive clarity. And prove that I hadn’t changed. That I still felt absolutely nothing. Not even the cold.
I hadn’t entered the chamber in almost four weeks, but I still notched the temperature to advanced.
I stepped inside in my robe, immediately hit with the sharp bite of frost eating at my skin.
Well, shit.
“What on earth…” I hissed out, closing the door behind me as white smoke curled around my limbs, climbing up my body like ivy.
My vision fogged. I turned around to the overhead digital clock to see how much time had passed.
One second.
One fucking second.
Was this a joke?
I shivered, realizing to my dismay that I was feeling cold. That I was feeling, period.
My nose became numb, too frozen to properly inhale. I had to cup it with my palms, quivering violently as I shuffled from leg to leg.
I felt cold.
In pain.
Alive.
The seconds ticked by at an excruciating pace. I started jumping up and down, doing a few squats to fight the freeze.
I finally understood why Romeo and Oliver became restless as soon as they entered.
Finally, when the buzzer sounded after the three minutes passed, I staggered to the door and pushed.
It did not open.
I gave it a good shove with my shoulder, using momentum that would usually send it hurling, knocking over the wall. It didn’t budge.
Potent, hot panic sliced into me.
The human body wasn’t designed to endure this temperature for longer than nine—maybe ten—minutes.
I’d already reached four.
I walked backwards, gaining momentum, ran toward the door, and delivered a roundhouse kick. Still nothing.
Terror and alarm swirled inside me.
You are going to die without ever seeing Octi again. Good going, doofus.
“Think.” I paced, trying to gather heat. “Think, think, think.”
The door had no locks on it—purposefully so. To ensure no accidents happened.
That meant…
I banged my fist on the door. “Who’s out there?”
Whomever it was, they knew my lair by heart. Had open access to my home.
I pounded my fist, trying to thrash my way through it. “Let me out.”
I would kill whatever sturdy psychopath stood on the other side of this thing. In fact, I racked my brain for any suspects, hoping to at least witness his death in my head before I croaked.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to shortlist the top twenty.
My desperation grew, clawing at my chest.
Five minutes and counting.
I punched the door. “Let.” Kick. “Me.” Shove. “Out!”
Ice crusted my entire body. White-gray fuzz clouded my eyesight. I began to lose clarity when the door finally whined open.
Two fiery hands grabbed me with force, dragging me out of the chamber. My eyes rolled in their sockets. Darkness blanketed my vision as the hands tugged me onto the horizontal shower in my home gym.
Warm water sloshed over my skin as he turned on all six shower heads, shooting water at my back at full blast. I spasmed, my body trying to acclimate to normal temperature again.
Piece by piece, my sight returned, like a camera adjusting into focus.
Oliver sat on the heated lounger, wearing a bright burgundy-and-gold satin robe paired with a shit-eating grin. I launched myself at him at a sluggish pace, but he merely yawned, hopped off the spa chair, and pushed me back with a careless shove.
I couldn’t fight back, my body too weak from being locked in sub-Antarctic temperatures. He wagged his fingers at me.
I punched the marble tile, regretting the idiotic decision immediately. “You psycho.” Little by little, my nerves began to defrost. Just in time for pain to shoot through my knuckles. “I could’ve died.”
“You could’ve.” Oliver leaned in to check the water temp. “And judging by the last three weeks, you wanted to, too. You’ve completely lost your desire to live, Zachary boy. I had to remind you that life is a precious gift. It’s my moral duty as your friend.”
“I’m going to kill you,” I spat out, my body still thawing under a torrent of water, slowly coming alive.
I didn’t remember him undressing me before he threw me under the spray, and yet I was completely naked.
Oliver yawned, visibly unimpressed with my threat. “I hear this on an hourly basis. You love me, and you know it.”
“I don’t—”
“Problem is, you love her, too, and you are unwilling to get your head out of your ass and do what needs to be done.”
“Which is?” I narrowed my eyes, gripping the edges of the shower.
Oliver crossed one leg over the other, cupping his knee. “Cancel that sham wedding, to start with. You know I hate bad investments. I’m not sending a check or buying a registry gift only to watch you get divorced faster than Britney Spears and Jason Alexander.”
“The Seinfeld guy?”
“One would think, but no. A different one.” Ollie stood, trekking toward my robe.
He retrieved it from the floor and flung it toward me.
I collapsed on the shower bed, done resisting. “I canceled the wedding.”
“And yet, I received the Save the Date yesterday.”
“And I’m hunting down Eileen.”
“We both know who your best bet at finding her is.”
“Mom would never spill the beans.”
“Hmm… I wonder what other woman practically lives at your side.” He reclaimed his seat on the heated lounger, kicking one leg over the other. “Some would call her a second mother.”
“Celeste Ayi—” I paused, wondering how I hadn’t thought of it.
For years, I’d gotten so used to assuming she knew nothing about anything important that it hadn’t even occurred to me that she had eyes, ears, and the inability to keep a secret when pressed.
Oliver tsked at the sight of me darting out of the shower and shrugging into the robe. “Eileen should’ve never happened. Having everything with someone who means nothing to you takes the sting out of the accomplishment. If only you—”
He’d have to finish his monologue before his audience of submissives.
I had one chaotic aunt to track down.
