Page 117 of Coerced Queen

“Do you have anti-inflammatories?”Nicole asks.

“I have some.”Livy pushes to her feet.“I’ll go get them.”

She shoots me a worried look as she scurries past me down the hallway in the direction of her room.

“Rosemary,” Nicole says a little louder.“What happened?”

I go closer.

Rosemary looks between Anya and Nicole, frowning.Her voice is groggy.“Did I fall asleep?”

I’m about to shake some answers from her when, close to the eleven o’clock mark on the feed, the front door opens and a thick-set woman with a bundle in her arms steps out.

My heart jerks to a stop.The bundle in her arms is wrapped in Claire’s pink blanket, the one with the white polka dots.

“Where’s Claire?”Anya asks in a teary voice.

Rosemary blinks.“What?”

The hand in which I clutch my phone shakes.The woman turns to the guard at the door and says something.He nods.

“Claire is missing,” Nicole says.“You have to tell us what happened.”

“But…” Rosemary coughs.“What’s going on?”

The woman climbs down the steps and walks to a car that’s parked in the driveway with the cars of the guests.I asked them to park down the street before we arrived because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise for Anya.Once we were inside the gazebo, a couple of trusted valets brought the vehicles into the property where the fancy models would be safe from car thieves.

Rage mounts inside me as I watch the woman open the back door and put the bundle on the seat.Like a fucking sack of potatoes.No car seat.

“You were out cold,” Nicole says.“What happened?Who took Claire?”

“I don’t understand,” Rosemary whines.

“Claire is gone,” Anya bites out, her voice thick with grief.“You have to tell us who took her.”

Rosemary stutters, her tongue tripping over the words.“What do you mean Claire is gone?”

The woman gets behind the wheel.She starts the engine and drives toward the gates.The man who smoked his cigarette earlier lets her out.

Motherfucker.

My whole body is wired for war.Every muscle is geared for battle.

I’m willing to bet the one eye I have left that bundle on the backseat was our baby.And if that’s the case, the woman who took her is dead.

Nicole flicks her fingers in front of Rosemary’s face.“Rosemary, focus.”

I zoom in on the license plate and take a screen shot.Then I fire off a message to Dante, sending him the license plate number and instructing him to bring the guards in question—the one who manned the door as well as the gates—to my study.

The babysitter touches her temple.“My head.It hurts.”

“We’ll give you something for your headache in a minute,” Nicole says.“Think, Rosemary.What’s the last thing you remember?”

My pulse hammers out an unsteady rhythm as I stare at my phone.I suppress the fury and bottle it up for later because I’m going to find out who that woman is and then I’m going to savor her screams while I peel off her skin right before I snap her spine like a twig.

Nicole’s words come through to me.

“Rosemary, youhaveto focus.”

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