Page 30 of Gilded Kisses

My thrashing heartbeat tries to tell my brain everything is cool, but the rush of adrenaline spilling into my blood isn’t helping.

“I’m just jumpy, that’s all.” My job has me jittery with all the bad guys and Russians wanting to play sex games with loaded guns. It’s probably a surprise party. My mother is always trying to come up with new ways to add some excitement to her life. Mostly at the expense of others.

“Hellooo. Anyone here?”

Nothing.

My pulse hammers in my ears and every muscle in my body tenses.

Nothing. Not even hushed whispers. I walk from the empty dining to the large kitchen when I finally hear shuffling or maybe muffled talking coming from the direction of the living room.So that is where everyone is hiding. The soft leather of my soles masks my presence as I make my way to the rear of the mansion.

A long hall stretches out in front of me, ending in a large archway and a gorgeous living room my mother uses for receiving guests.

I am almost at the end of the hallway when a large shadow moves across the yawning gap.

Whoa. That is not one of my brothers or my father.

My feet turn to lead, and I stop in my tracks. It’s not the hulking mass of a man that has me going still. Don’t get me wrong. He’s scary as hell. It’s the chair he is dragging behind him and the body tied to it.

What the holy hell? Air seizes in my lungs. I don’t scare easily, but seeing my mother bleeding and defenseless has me questioning why I never carry a loaded gun.

Someone out of sight draws the large curtains and the shadows grow deeper in the living room. But where I stand, everything turns pitch black. It’s a design flaw my parents hate about this small space, but for once, I use the deep shadows to my benefit and melt against the wall.

Do they know I’m here? I parked on the south side, hoping for a fast getaway once I dropped the bomb of leaving town after I blew the birthday candles out.

I risk taking my phone out and pulling up my cousin’s number. I kill the brightness level. One ring and he picks up.

“What?” I hear my cousin’s muffled voice, but I can’t talk. I can’t say a word. My brain is frozen as I hear someone with a deep Russian accent speak just outside my line of sight.

I know that voice.

“Did you not like your cake?” Harlon sounds distant, like he’s put me on speaker.

“Unicorn,” I whisper my secret panic word. “Someone’s in the house.”

“¡Diablos!¿Quien?” Damn! Who?

Santi.

“Big fucking Russians and they don’t?—”

“It’s going down.”

Cassius cuts me off, but he’s not speaking to me.

Confusion drags my brows from a scowl into a shocked look halfway up my forehead. “What?” I hiss. What the hell is going on here? Did they know about this…this whatever it is?”

But I don’t get answers. A man speaks from the living room and I hold my phone out so Harlon and his men can hear.

“I don’t enjoy repeating myself. Your wife must like it rough to not give me what I want.”

I hear gagged groans and my heart falls to the floor.

“All you had to do was come to me. You don’t need to involve her. She’s weak, but fiercely protective of the slut she birthed.”

My father.

“Either way, I’m here and I need the debt you owe me paid.”

---