Page 15 of Twisted Kings

Since Landon refused to move, I let Eden in. She flew past me like a miniature hurricane in a lilac sweater dress paired with fuchsia tights, her pink hair in braids.

“Christ, your outfit is giving me a migraine,” Lan complained, shielding his eyes with a groan.

Dario snorted from across the sofa, but we all ignored him. Unless he had useful information about Thea, the fucker was effectively dead to us.

“Fuck off, fuckboy.”

“Did you talk to Declan?” Kyril asked. My ears pricked up. So that’s why Eden was here. Of course. It all made sense now.

“Yeah, and he’s willing to help.” Eden looked sad for a moment. “I hope she’s OK. Do you think she’s OK?” Her eyes glittered with tears at the thought of what Thea was going through as we sat in our apartment shooting the shit.

“No, probably not,” I replied. The small amount of research I’d done on Torrance Asaro told me the man was a psychopath. Spending time with a man like that would be deeply unpleasant and probably lead to severe PTSD.

“Oh god!” Eden choked on a sob and dropped onto a chair.

“Milo!” Kyril hissed. “Shut the fuck up!”

“Did she not want an honest answer?” God, women were so confusing. They made my head hurt. Kyril rubbed his jaw and looked like he wanted to punch me in the head.

“No, Milo. She wanted you to make her feel better.”Oh.

Eden sniffed and wiped a tear away. “It’s OK. I can handle your brand of no-filter honesty. I’d rather that than have you treat me like a precious little princess.” From the way she scowled, I suspected she was thinking about her family when she said it.

“So I talked to Declan, yeah? He says he can’t get involved directly, as it would cause too many problems, but he can let us use his private jet and provide weapons and other logistics.”

“There is no ‘us’, Eden. I can’t let you be a part of this rescue mission. Thea would never forgive me if anything happened to you and, more importantly, Declan would kill me.”

“Well tough tits because I’m a part of this. She’s my friend and I don’t trust you assholes not to waste time arguing and wavingyour dicks at each other while Thea is tortured and hurt and…” She broke off in another sob. Since I felt bad for my earlier comment, I handed her a tissue.

“Thanks, Milo, you’re a good friend.” She smiled through her tears before blowing her nose on the tissue.

“Um, we’re not friends,” I felt compelled to point out.

“Yeah, you freak, we are.” She reached out and squeezed my knee, grinning at my look of horror. “Get over yourself. We all need more friends.”

“No, we fucking don’t,” Lan muttered, throwing me a sympathetic look.

“Can we skip the hair-braiding shit and get to the fucking point?” Dario snapped, deciding, finally, to contribute to the group chat. “Thea’s most likely in Francesco’s dungeon. We’ll need a lot of fucking firepower to get past the guards. The place has a fuck ton of security.”

“Just as well we have you, then, isn’t it?” Kyril said. “And if you give us false intel, I’ll make it my mission in life to kill you as slowly as possible.”

“This is exactly what I meant!” Eden threw her hands in the air in frustration. “Stop with the stupid testosterone bullshit and get your heads in the game!”

Kyril and Dario paused in their mutual stare-off and turned to look at the pink pixie.

“Do you have a plan, Eden?” Even I heard the sarcasm in Kyril’s voice, but Eden just grinned.

“No, but if we all stop arguing and put our heads together, I’m sure we can come up with one.”

8

Cassian

The days since my return to Blackwood Manor had felt like a life sentence in some god-awful prison. Not even the comforts of home helped lift my mood.

Dad had barely spent any time here. He was much too busy cleaning up my ‘mess’ as he liked to call it, to bother showing up for family meals. I figured my mother was probably thrilled. Not that I saw much of her, either.

On the few occasions I’d seen her leave her bedroom, a glimpse of her ghostly pallor and spaced-out demeanor had rung some serious alarm bells. The hard-faced woman who acted as her personal maid/nurse refused to tell me what medication my father currently had her on, and when I tried to check for myself, I discovered my father had changed the locks on her suite.

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