Page 3 of Twisted Kings

Eden’s words sank through the swirling morass of chaotic thoughts in my head.

She was right. Thea was strong. She could handle herself.

“Milo,” Kyril barked when he stepped out of the bathroom. “You need to find her.”

“I need to find her,” I repeated, sucking in some deep breaths. It will be OK. I could find her. The cameras would show me what happened. Technology had never failed me yet.

“Where’s Cass?” Kyril asked when we arrived back at our apartment, minus Eden. Thankfully, her cousin had called her, so we parted ways outside.

My clothes stunk of smoke and I was desperate for a shower, but it could wait. There wasn’t time. The need to find Thea crawled beneath my skin like a plague of ants, scratching and biting, chewing away at my sanity.

“Gone,” Landon replied before slugging another mouthful of whiskey. He looked defeated, none of his usual humor in evidence. “His father took him away before the press could show up.”

“Are you not heading home?” Landon’s family home wasn’t far from here. It would be safer there than here. And also less contaminated. My nose wrinkled with disgust at the thought of all the disgusting toxins we’d likely inhaled tonight.

“Nope. Not welcome.” He poured more whiskey down his throat and closed his eyes. Kyril threw me a look that said he thought Lan was pathetic, but I said nothing.

“I’m going to get cleaned up. Call me when you find out where she went.”

I nodded and headed back into my room, shucking off my jacket on the way.

After trawling through the footage from all the cameras positioned around the campus, both inside and outdoors, I frowned.

There was no footage from Thea’s tower. Nothing from the two cameras in the science building. And someone had also wiped the cameras around the delivery entrance.

Thank God I had invested in my own cameras in key locations. There were nowhere near as many as the official system, but they were better quality and more discreet.

I logged into my system and set the search parameters for Thea. It took no time at all to find her leaving the main hall via the back entrance around the time people were being evacuated because of the fire. I picked her up again, entering her tower. The camera outside her room showed her arrival. After about 20 minutes, a man appeared with an unconscious Thea slung over his shoulder.

My heart stopped beating as I watched him disappear toward the rear entrance. He threw her in the back of a van and then left the campus.

Forcing myself not to panic, I focused on the screen. Panicking wouldn’t help Thea. She was in trouble. She needed me.

She neededus.

“Kyril!” I yelled. We couldn’t afford to waste time arguing over what she had done. I doubted any of this was her fault. He burst through my bedroom door naked, water dripping down his chest.

“What? Have you found mykotenok?”

“Kotenok?” I frowned, distracted by the unfamiliar word.

“Kitten. Have you found her?”

Kitten? Thea wasn’t a kitten! She was a queen!

My fingers tapped the keyboard, enlarging the still I’d grabbed of the man who kidnapped Thea.

“She’s been taken and this is the man who took her.”

Kyril leaned over me, not caring that his dick brushed my arm.Gross. I edged away and concentrated on the screen.

“His name is Torrance Asaro. He’s Francesco di Luca’s chief enforcer,” he told me, his mouth flattened into a line. “If he has her, she’s in trouble.”

“Is that his name?” Landon staggered in on a cloud of whiskey fumes.

Kyril’s eyebrow shot up. “You’ve met him?”

“Yeah. He was with her when she arrived on induction day. I assumed he was her father because she called him papa.”