Page 73 of Sin & Sapphire

Valentin metme at a hostel downtown, the last place anyone had seen her.

My eyes flicked over his hard expression. “Half a dozen guards on that building, and she managed to fool them all.”

“Fuckin’ brilliant,” I said, dragging his head down so I could plant a hard kiss on his forehead. I straightened, sliding my hand over the gun fostered at my side as I turned toward the entrance to the hostel. “A worthy adversary.”

Valentin slammed his arm across my stomach, arresting my movement. “Interviews only. It’s not the fault of any of the kids in this hostel that she snuck in and out again.”

“Unless—”

“No,” he snapped. “You murdered Dario Fontana. We cut a swath through France when we were looking for her the first time. If we do it again, we’ll never convince anyone to take our side against Tchérnov.”

Fuck.

And beating up innocent kids wasn’t nearly as fun as taking my fury out on mafia whelps.

I pushed into the hostel, looking around at the trendy interior—young people sat on tall stools at tall tables, drinking cheap beer. They fell silent as we walked through the lobby toward a desk, brightly painted with cartoon characters and proclaiming, “Bienvenue.” Welcome.

The kid standing behind the counter couldn’t have been more than twenty. He gulped, his eyes darting around wildly, watching us and the phalanx of men following behind. Fuck subtlety. We had to find her before my enemies did.

I swiped open my phone and revealed a picture of her from her social media—blonde hair, bright green eyes, looking like a movie star at some gala her father had shipped her off to.

My eyes fixed on the bruises on her arm, as if I could do anything about something that happened several weeks before.

Valentin slid the phone out of my hands. “Have you seen this woman?”

The kid shook his head in the negative. “But I just got on shift.” He leaned way back and hollered, “Salman! Viens!”

“Je suis occupé,” a voice whined from a back office.

Busy? He was too fucking busy to answer questions about my angel? I took two steps toward the voice before Valentin’s hard grip on my arm stopped me.

“Tout de suite,” the boy at the desk snapped, his eyes taking in the violence I didn’t bother to conceal from my face, the blood that stained my shirt, and the way Valentin kept me in hand.

A boy stumbled out of a room down a long hallway, zipping up his pants. He pushed curly hair out of his face and sneered. “What the fuck?”

I snatched my phone out of Valentin’s hands and turned the screen toward the boy. “Have you seen this woman?”

He looked at me, looked at Valentin, then looked at the men. “Nope,” he said.

Liar.“If you’re lying to me?—”

“You’ll what?” he interrupted. “Murder me in front of all of these people? We don’t talk to cops, and we don’t talk to the mafia. So take your threats and go somewhere else.”

I admired his audacity, but this wouldn’t do. I advanced, and he paled, no doubt seeing the threat on my face. Thisstronzowouldn’t stand between me and my angel.

“She’s in danger,” I snarled.

He scoffed. I raised my hand to backhand him, only for a young woman to slip between us.

“Why are you looking for her?” she asked quietly.

“The whole fucking country is looking for her,” I said. “Except that if someone else catches her, they’ll hurt her.”

“And you won’t?” she scoffed, eyeing the blood that covered me.

My answering smile should have terrified her, but she stood her ground. “I won’t.”

The young woman scoffed again. “Are you the assholes she was running from?”

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