Page 41 of Unlawful Lies

Once I find her, we’re going to have to have a talk about security. Fuck, I might even have some of my own guys come down here just to make sure she’s okay.

There's blackmail on the table, and with it comes certain dangers. If she can’t understand that in her grief, then I’ll do it for her. I’ll be the fucking specter looming over her if it means she’ll make it through this safe.

Not unscathed because there is no way to live this life without accruing scars.

“Where are you?” My voice echoes back to me in the nearly empty house. It’s not supposed to be empty.

She should be under lock and key. Someone is pointing the finger at her, questioning her innocence, and her men need to surround her rather than scatter.

The first floor is clear, along with the rooms on the second floor. There’s no use searching the attic because, sure as shit, the only thing I’ll find up there are dead bees and mice.

So where the hell is she?

The door to the back is shut but not locked, the same as the front. The gardens practically sparkle in the moonlight. Little foxes always stick to their dens. A fierce smile pries my lips apart. It’s late enough for her to be in bed, but what are the odds she’s out for a stroll among her roses?

It might take me a little bit of work to find her, though. The woman has perfected the art of standing still, which is a huge benefit to her. She’s got the spirit of a wildfire, always poking into places she doesn't belong, yet she knows when to tamper her energy and use the quiet to her advantage.

My strides have purpose.

Every step brings me closer to her, like I’m following a scent on the wind. She’s close.

I lick my lips in anticipation. When she’s back in my arms, then I'll relax. Then I’ll have a moment of peace to really give a thought to our next step. Maybe even together.

I pull up short at the sight of Nicola on her knees with a knife to her throat. And looming over her, a literal phantom, is the same man who killed her father.

Her eyes go wide at the sight of me. “Edward, please, get out.”

In the madness of my mind, a single spot sticks out to me. She’s about to have her throat slit, and she’s worried about me? If my heart had not been well on the way to belonging to her, it felt official now: it’s hers.

“I thought it might be you with all the commotion,” the man says.

My mind blanks, and my gaze zeroes in on the knife. I know the sharpness of it intimately. I know how it feels to hold a similar handle in my fingers and slice it into a man’s gut.

Black rage presses in on me until it’s the only thing I see and feel. It’s impossible to move even when I’m itching for my gun.

“You know, I’d almost hoped you would show up,” he adds in a tone as thin and icy as a winder wind. “To make things easier. Now, I don’t have to go hunting for you.”

My brows draw down in a narrow V. “And who the fuck are you?”

A body plows into me from the side and takes us both down to the dirt. A mouthful of gravel bites at my skin and scratches deep, the heft a burden.

“Edward!”

My ears ring, and when I reach for my gun, my hand fumbles, crushed immediately under the pressure of a knee.

“None of that, now, Mr. Balestra.” The voice is soft and colored with an English accent. “We can’t have you ruining everything so close to the end.”

The man in the hat bows his head, a sharp decline of a chin pointed enough to be used as a yarn loop. “I’m surprised you haven't figured it out yet. Either of you.”

The old woman, the housekeeper we’d seen limping through the manor house that night…She’s got a kitchen knife in her hand, grasped in limp fingers, and my gun in the other.

“Why don’t you stick to cutting up vegetables than people.”

“She wasn’t supposed to be here,” the old woman argues.

I’ve felt the icy fingers of disgust on my spine more than I’m comfortable counting. I know when someone truly harbors hatred in their heart, and the way the woman looks at me leaves no doubt of her true feelings. The expression breaks only when she glances at Nicola. Who, I’m pleased to see, isn’t cowering but holding perfectly still against the blade.

I study my fingernails. “A traitor. Seems a little staid, doesn’t it? The money was just too big of a lure for you to ignore, so you employed…what? A friend? A lover?”

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