Chapter 22 Gertrude arrives at five. The meet and greet with Dimitri goes well enough. He's polite, welcoming. Gertrude still gives him the side eye. She's a crusty old lady, and I could blame her standoffishness on that. But the way she eyes the tattoos on his hands, it's clear that she's skeptical about what kind of man she's moving in with. I wonder how she's going to react when she realizes I'm also part-time living here, even after she moves in. I wince, trying to remember the HR policy for finding nannies for friends and family. I shake my head. It's a problem for tomorrow. Tonight, it's my job to get Gertrude settled and to help Anna adjust. It's been a lot of changes for her, and I don't want her to be upset. Dimitri leaves in the evening for work. Just before he goes, he kisses me goodbye. "Tonight, I'll be late." We make dinner, play, watch her favorite show, before I walk Gertrude through the bedtime routine. Sitting on the couch, Gertrude works on her knitting while I fire up my laptop, intent upon finding Gertrude's permanent replacement for Anna's nanny. No more dragging my feet. I've set up a few interviews for next week, but I need to get a few more scheduled. And then there are the pile of new requests I've been ignoring. I sigh, as I open my email, and start sifting through all the unanswered correspondence. It's going to take me weeks to catch up. That's when my cell phone rings. I don't recognize the number, and I squint down at the local number before I pick up. "Hello?" "Miss Tantor, it's Henry from the front desk." "Oh. Hi, Henry." "Mister Trent is here to see you." "Mister Trent?" My brow furrows in momentary confusion. "He's here often, ma'am. He works with Mr. Ivanov. He's got a key, but he asked me to call up as a courtesy." My eyes widen as I make the connection. "Of course. Send him up." I close my laptop again, nipping at my lip as I set it on the coffee table, and get up to start moving toward the kitchen. Just as I reach it, the elevator opens. A man dressed in all black steps out of the elevator. He's Dimitri's age, I think, though far grayer, but no less distinguished, his clothes finely cut, his hair perfectly coiffed. He's handsome enough and sporting a friendly smile. "You must be Ava." His Russian accent is laced with a tension I don't quite understand. "I am. Trent?" For some reason, I don't reach out my hand. I don't want to touch him...maybe I'm not as healed as I thought. "Yes, that's right." His smile widens, revealing more of his teeth. "Dimitri actually sent me to collect you." "Collect me?" My brow furrows. "What does that mean?" He runs a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, the smile disappearing. Dropping his hand, he pulls at the lapels of his coat. "I don't want you to be concerned, but Cadence fell this evening and she's been brought to a local hospital." I gasp, my hands flying to my mouth. "You're serious?" "I'm afraid so. She's asking for you and so Dimitri sent me to take you to her so that you can see each other." My hands drop, clasping by my chest. "Is she all right? How seriously is she hurt?" "She's going to be fine. Hurt her leg, but we all thought you'd want to visit. Check in on her." I don't need to hear any more. Spinning, I race into the other room, grabbing my sweatshirt and slipping on my sneakers. "I'll be back, Gert. There's been an emergency," I call to Gertrude as I finish putting on my second shoe. She looks up at me with concern, but I don't give her time to ask questions as I stand back up and race back toward the kitchen. As soon as Trent sees me, he pushes the button for the elevator. It isn't until we're closed in the space that I realize, I'm going to be alone with a man who isn't Dimitri. It's just one of those things I don't do. I breathe through the panic, knowing that I have to control it for Cadence's sake, but my legs are wobbly as we reach the garage. It helps that Trent's car is parked where Dimitri's usually is, and that, with a press of his phone, Trent is opening the garage gate. Clearly, Trent is a man whom Dimitri trusts. I take a few cleansing breaths as I climb into the car with him. He pulls the car out of the garage, moving through the Vegas streets to the highway. The traffic is thick enough that for a while we don't speak. Instead, I stare out the window, lost in thoughts of Cadence, our past, and of Dimitri. Trent lets me sink into my own thoughts, and I relax, the silence a comfort. But as the traffic thins, I realize, I have no idea where we're going. "Where is the hospital? I thought it was local?" "South," he answers. "The hospital that Cadence was taken to is south?" I ask, his one-word answer making me uneasy again. "And I meant it was local to her." He looks over at me, but that does little to calm me. In fact, his sidelong glance makes my chest grow tight. "And where is that?" As the highway slips by, all that I can see is open desert. "Not far now. There's a small, forested area that's fed by a river. We have cabins there that we use for The Hunt." "The Hunt," I repeat, a tingle of dread moving down my spine. Dimitri was very specific that he couldn't share details. I'm surprised that Trent mentions it at all. "After The Hunt, we like to have a quick place for the winner and the prize to go." "The winner? The prize?" I don't like my friend being referred to as a prize. I look over at him, clasping my hands to stop them from shaking. Why is he telling me this? And why am I just parroting back key words? "The women volunteer. Most of them are like Cadence, they struggle to build meaningful relationships in the outside world and are looking for a way to disrupt their own patterns. A neural reset of patterned thinking if you will. A way to break their cycle of behavior. Dimitri could tell you more about it." "Dimitri knows about neural resets?" Trent gives me a knowing stare accompanied with a smirk. "Did he not tell you? I'm not surprised. The two of you don't know each other that well and you did betray him." A drum beats in my chest as the blood rushes in my ears. "Dimitri studied neurobiology before his father forced him to quit and join the family business. But he uses the knowledge he acquired to change the lives of so many women. Something about the fear response helps create new neural pathways better than any other response. If you ask me, he's attempting to rewrite his mother's ending, but it makes sense I'd think that. I studied psychology." I stare at him, hardly able to catch my breath as the shaking takes over my whole body. Any other time, I'd enjoy the tidbit I've just learned about Dimitri but in this moment, I can only think of my friend. "Cadence did this? She allowed a man to hunt her? Capture her?" "Not man. Men. Five of them. Zane was the winner." "That's not how she was hurt?" I cry, fumbling to pull out my phone and call Dimitri. Somehow, I just need to hear his voice to assure me I haven't stepped into danger. Because this has started to feel...crazy. But Trent plucks the phone from my hand before I've even processed what he's doing. I let out a small cry. "That's my phone!" He doesn't answer. Instead, he rolls down the window and tosses the phone out of the moving car. I whip my head around, seeing the lit screen as the phone lands on the tar, bouncing a few times before it comes to a stop. I watch until it goes dark, my throat closing as I clutch the back of my seat. I've made that mistake before, thinking that a man attacking me was all just a misunderstanding. There is no mistake here, and no point in asking for more information. Trent is not telling me his motivations. I draw in a jagged gulp, trying to calm my spinning thoughts as the blood rushes in my ears. I wrap my arms around my middle. "Where are we really going?" I just manage to whisper through ragged gasps. "The Hunt," he answers with a sneer. "You are the next prize." "No." But my voice isn't much more than a whisper. I can hardly make it work. "And by the way, a man claims the prize by fucking her. On the ground in the dirt, or against a tree for any of the other players to watch." I curl into a ball, the very idea of men fighting, one of them brutally taking me, makes my brain go white and then black.