Page 4 of Twisted Kings

“He’s not her father,” Kyril said.

“He’s not,” I agreed, deciding it was time to share what I knew about Thea. “She’s Francesco di Luca’s daughter.”

“But he doesn’t have a daughter,” Kyril said, folding his arms across his chest and staring at me like I was a complete moron.

“Can you put some shorts on, please?” Nobody needed to see his dick. The thing deserved its own fucking zip code. Naturally, he ignored me.

Landon sniggered and sank onto the bed with his bottle tucked into his chest. Any moment now and he’d be asleep. In my bed. While wearing his contaminated clothes. Was it any wonder I hated people?

“My father is well acquainted with di Luca. I’d have heard about it if he had a daughter.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course you don’t believe me,” I muttered.

“He’s right. Francesco does have a daughter,” Dario interjected. “In fact, he has two daughters.”

“You have a fucking nerve showing up here,” Kyril yelled, his desire to kill Dario overruling his concern about Thea.

“Enough!” I yelled. “Can we stop and have a rational conversation?”

“Nah, I’m not in the mood.” Dario spun on his heel, but he didn’t get far. Kyril launched himself at the stupid Italian and they both ended up on the floor, trading punches for the millionth time.

Fuck my life. I was done with this bullshit. Landon snored loudly from my bed, where he’d passed out. The last dregs of his whiskey slowly seeped into my quilt.

For a moment, I contemplated packing my bag and leaving. I could find her myself. Be her knight in shining armor riding to the rescue before we sailed off into the sunset.

Dammit.Mixed metaphors made my head hurt.

After a few moments, I scrapped that idea. If I was beingcompletelyhonest with myself, I needed help. More specifically, I needed Kyril’s help. I had the brains, but he was the brawn. There was no doubt in my mind that I could find her, but the rest of the rescue operation was hazy at best.

Inflicting violence was second nature to Kyril. And if Thea was back with her father, we’d have to shed a lot of blood to rescue her.

2

Kyril

Landon lay on Milo’s bed snoring. Every few seconds, Milo threw him a venomous look, but Lan was too out of it to care. I debated moving the idiot and tossing him in a cold shower, but I already had a headache. Carrying Lan’s dead weight would only make it worse.

Torrance Asaro was a sadistic fucker. He killed for fun. Murdered and mutilated because he enjoyed inflicting pain. Rumors of his twisted predilections had circulated for years.

My father had a reputation for being a cold-hearted bastard. I knew from experience that he’d happily kill anyone who stood in his way, but he didn’t kill for fun. He was also too busy keeping his wife happy these days to spend time out in the field dealing with his enemies. If someone needed eliminating, he delegated the task to Krasi, his second. Or me.

I didn’t understand why di Luca had hidden a daughter.Two daughters. It made no sense.

Daughters were valuable currency. A mafia princess could be used to forge alliances. Two daughters meant the opportunity toform two potentially powerful alliances. Yet none of the mafia families were aware di Luca had daughters.

From what I’d heard, di Luca was old school. In some ways, it made sense he thought daughters were a waste of space, but I’d have expected him to flaunt them once they came of age.

Thea was beautiful. The sort of woman my father would choose as a bride for his son and heir. Not that he wanted an alliance with di Luca. He hated that fucker.

“We need to talk to Dario,” Milo said in a low voice. I nodded. Milo was right. “He knows more than he’s saying.” Dario hated Thea, yet had refused to say why. If the two of them were childhood friends, then he was well aware of who Thea really was, which meant he probably knew who the man in the audio clip was.

We needed to figure out what was going on. If only to reassure Cassian that Thea wasn’t the enemy.

I walked back into my bedroom and pulled some pants on before heading for Dario’s room. He was busy throwing clothes into a bag when I entered.

“Going somewhere?”

“None of your fucking business.” I watched for a few moments as he emptied his closet. Something told me he wasn’t coming back, which led me to believe his presence here tied into everything going down right now.

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