Page 57 of Tarnished Reign

As we leave his study and walk down the hallway, I poke my head into the kitchen and beckon Adriana over. “I need to go somewhere, and I'll be a couple of hours. You'll be safe here with my family. Stay with them and have some lunch. Make yourself at home. I'll pick you up later this afternoon, and we'll head back to the boat.”

Her face twists in surprise and what looks like anxiety. “I don't know them,” she whispers.

“You don't need to know them. All you need to know is they're good people, and they'll take care of you. My sister is a sweetheart, and my mother is the gentlest soul on God's green earth. You'll be fine. It's just lunch. I won't be long; I promise. Do this for me. It's important that I go with Virgil now and try to find out some information.”

She bites her lip, and I can see the tension in her features, but she nods. Her gaze is brave and resolute. I can't stop myself. Even though I know that my father, Virgil, and my mother even more so, will see this and make all sorts of assumptions from it, I lean in and kiss the top of her head. “Good girl,” I murmur. Then I turn on my heel and walk down the corridor, Virgil following me.

As we head out the door and into the bright light, he says in a low voice, “I get it now.”

“Don't take anything from that quick interaction. I’m just trying to put her at ease. She's terrified, and she sees me as a safe haven.”

“I'm not talking about that moment between you,” he clarifies. “I mean now that I've seen her, I get it.” He stops walking and faces me, his expression guileless. “Kid, if I was thirty years younger and single, I think I'd burn the world down to save her too.”

I don't say anything because what can I say to that?

The men I brought with me follow as we drive out the gate, but I call them and tell them to turn around. I want them on Adriana, even though my father has plenty of security. It never hurts to have more.

I can take care of myself. I call Alexis and tell him that I want Jinx and Yuri at the cabin in thirty minutes.

“Do you want me too, boss?”

“No, I need you to keep working on finding out everything you can. Get in touch with Damen and make sure he has your contact details. Anything you find, share with him, and ask him to do the same.” I hang up and focus on the road.

Virgil is tense beside me. “How badly is he beaten?” I ask.

“Not badly enough.”

“We need him alive,” I remind Virgil. I get it; if he’d taken my daughter, I wouldn’t be able to hold back.

“I know that.” His voice has a bite to it. “You think I can't handle myself? Been doing this longer than you.”

“No, not at all. I just know that if it had been my daughter, I'd want to kill him. Let me work him over for a while and try to get the information I need. Once I do, you can take him right to the very edge of sanity and death.”

“That sounds like a good compromise,” Virgil says.

I grip the steering wheel. I might find it hard not to murder Dorian after what he did to my Littleblue.

14

ADRIANA

I can't believe he left me with his family. His father, or rather his stepfather, is a scary looking man. He's powerfully built, with salt and pepper hair, more grey than dark, and stern eyes. He radiates an aura of control, which matches that of Dimitri.

Thankfully, after busying himself in the fridge, he exits the kitchen and strolls into the garden beyond. He says he's going to start grilling. He comes back a moment later and grabs a couple of beers and then steps outside again. For some reason Jacob makes me uncomfortable.

There’s something calculating and cold about the man. Dimitri's mother is a lovely woman, though. She’s strikingly beautiful and has such a warmth to her face; there's something almost beatific about her. And his stepsister, Nataliya, is arrogant and cocky, but funny as hell. She's the sort of girl that if I were a few years younger I would have given anything to be like. She's probably the sort of girl that if we'd have gone to school together, she would have bullied me, but I try not to let that get to me.

After all, I don’t want to make an enemy of her before I’ve even begun. I can’t figure out what is happening here. Dimitri blows hotter and colder than a San Francisco July.

We shared that passionate moment back on the yacht, but he’s been all business ever since. I don’t think he left me here because he wants me to get to know his family, but because he needs somewhere to park me while he goes off and does mobster things.

His mother busies herself with her baking while Nataliya seems increasingly bored by it.

“Do you want to come to my room and try some clothes on?” she asks after a while. “I could give you a makeover too.”

“She doesn't need a makeover,” Dimitri’s mother says. “She's a lovely girl.”

“Of course she is, but even lovely girls like a little bit of help sometimes. There’s lovely, and then there's hot. I think I could make you look hot,” she says with an evil grin.

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