Page 31 of Captured

But Emmaline was talking again, and Lauren refocused sharply when she heard Dimitri’s name. “Wait, say that again?” she demanded.

Emmaline exhaled a shaky breath. “I said, that’s why they were so freaked out about Henry Smithson going after you so aggressively. They think he may, you know, have a connectionwith the god Typhon. Not the actual god, I don’t think, but one of his minions. They don’t like him.”

“Yeah,” Lauren managed. She immediately recalled her conversation with Stefan in the limo, how she’d outlined Henry’s use of the name Typhon on his boat. When he’d said that the royal family wasn’t a fan of the god, she’d thought he was making a joke to put her at ease. But now…

She cleared her throat. “Are you okay?” she asked Emmaline, because in the end, that was all that mattered.

“Me? You know, I am. It’s not even a question of me believing them—I do. I totally do. And I told them I’d be telling you guys and Kristos didn’t officially forbid me, so...here I am. I knew I had to tell you as soon as possible. Like, right now. Especially now.”

“Okay, but why?” Lauren asked, genuinely confused. “Because of Henry? They really think he’s, ah...joined some sort of Typhon cult?” Once again, it sounded preposterous, but with as skeevy as Henry was, she somehow could see him falling in with the god of monsters. And if the gatekeepers of the gods thought that Typhon was amassing supporters or something, she could see how that would be a problem. But Dimitri was handling that problem, right? That’s why she was here. Alone with him. On a gorgeous island in the middle of the Aegean.

She grinned. If this was what she had to do to keep the world safe from the gods, she supposed she could handle it.

Emmaline sighed on the other end of their cell connection, still sounding unreasonably upset. “I mean, yes, but, um Lauren—there’s more.”

Lauren’s brows climbed. “More.”

“Yes. It’s... well, it’s about Dimitri.”

Eighteen

Day had begun to edge toward evening, and Alexi had dutifully checked in three times over the past few hours. That did little to assuage Dimitri’s concern about Lauren’s safety, but it was important that she not feel trapped here. It was important that she trusted him enough to allow him to keep her on the island for her own safety. The last thing he needed was a headstrong socialite calling in favors from the Greek embassy and causing an international incident that would look like, to anyone on the outside peering in, a lover’s quarrel.

He shifted in the deck chair, his eyes fixing on deceptively calm sea that gleamed beneath the swiftly setting sun. He knew the issue between Lauren and Smithson was a hell of a lot more than that, of course, but this wasn’t a conversation anyone in the Oûros royal family wanted to have with outsiders. Least of all the king and queen. No. He needed to keep things as quiet and close as possible. Which meant he needed to keep Lauren as quiet and close as possible.

Dimitri’s phone buzzed, and he plucked it out of his pocket, recognizing the number immediately. Cyril’s voice was cool, crisp. And the man was clearly on speaker phone. “Report.”

“She’s safe,” he said gruffly. “Meeting a town’s worth of witnesses. Shopping. Eating. Everything in the open, exactly as if she’s a tourist on holiday. No sign of Smithson or anyone unusual on the island.” He paused. “I can get her to mainland Greece tonight if you’d like. It will take some doing to keep it quiet, but it could be arranged.”

“No.” This was from Stefan, who paused, clearly waiting for the go-ahead to continue. Then he spoke again. “Our intel on Henry Smithson is proving increasingly problematic. It appears Ms. Grant’s suspicions about his business practices are well-founded. There is reason to believe that he has begun financing insurgency forces in Turkey and Armenia, with outliers who might be rallied to his cause with sufficient motivation. That he hasn’t acted yet to find Ms. Grant is simply a matter of him not knowing where to look, we expect. Any attempt to move her to another country could potentially prove dangerous to her, requiring official action, which we don’t want to initiate if we can avoid it.”

Dimitri nodded, though they couldn’t see him. “Any information on your end from her call to Nicki?”

“Ms. Clark offered assurances and confirmed that nothing new has been received in the palace.” He paused. “She knows something more, but we can’t interrogate her without causing suspicions to rise. And I’m not convinced her information would be worthwhile.”

Dimitri stifled a snort. Stefan wasn’t convinced that anything Nicki Clark had to offer was worthwhile. Her brash behavior might be blinding him, but in this case, he was probably right. Nicki knew only what Lauren had told her about Smithson, both today and throughout their relationship. Based on what he’d learned about Lauren, so far, he suspected she hadn’t shared much.

“What has Smithson done to Lauren?” he asked instead. “Beyond these stupid gifts he’s sent her. There’s something more.”

“That intelligence is being accumulated now,” Stefan said. “But his affection for Ms. Grant is, at a minimum, suspect. By her own admission, the attention began when she was a child and increased every year, becoming romantic in nature only when she turned eighteen. Within the letter of any law in any territory.” Stefan’s words seemed to disgust him, but he was right. Smithson had not assaulted Lauren by any account, neither before nor after she’d turned eighteen, and he’d acted at all times within the boundaries permitted by her parents, as evidenced by the fact that they maintained ties to him. There was something distinctly wrong about his attention, but it wasn’t criminal. And, perhaps most damning, Lauren herself had not brought charges against him. Even if her reasons were sound in her own mind, there was little she could do without having stated her case to the authorities.

“Smithson’s relationship with her father showed signs of strain at approximately the same time, but the two clearly reached an amicable resolution, and now they remain tightly connected,” Stefan continued. “We will continue to compile data and cross-reference to all his other known relationships and romantic partnerships.”

He hesitated. “There’s...something else, too. Something I don’t think we can ignore.”

Dimitri’s nerves prickled. “What is it?”

“The link to Typhon. You mentioned the unsavory gifts that Smithson has given her. She told me about them too. How did she describe them to you?”

“Dead things. Bugs, spiders, beetles. Like that.”

“She didn’t mention the snake pin?”

Dimitri sat up. “What? No. What snake pin? Did she describe it?”

“Other than say it was a pin with a snake decoration, no. It was apparently the first gift he ever presented to her, and she accepted it politely. She said he hasn’t given her anything like it again—no other snakes. But with everything else we’re discovering...”

“Echinda,” Dimitri blurted. “Son of a bitch.”

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