Page 73 of Midnight Salvation

“I’m fine,” I replied. “Everyone needs to stop worrying. The doctor said I’m on the mend and just to take it easy for a few weeks. It’s not as if I do wall climbing as a hobby.”

Harold laughed at Ash’s expression. “I’m glad you can joke about it. The rest of us were extremely worried.”

“Let’s get you set up at the table and I’ll call Catarina, then we can have coffee before we look at the progress you’ve made.”

I had left the dressmaker’s dummy Catarina used to hang outfits on in the room ready for his arrival. I thought it would allow us to look at the design before it was modelled. The sunlight hit the bodice when he lifted it from the case, the jewels sparkling.

“It’s stunning,” I gasped.

Harold grinned. “I never would have thought to create something like this, so I put you down as the designer of the piece.”

My heart squeezed in my chest. His acknowledgement touched me more than I had words to express.

“Technically it’s a goldsmith competition, so I doubt it’s against the rules to have a designer help out.” I swore the tips of his ears were red with embarrassment.

“I’ll get the coffee and call Cat,” I said. “Thank you, Harold.”

He nodded once and continued assembling the outfit. I didn’t need to tell Catarina he was here because she bounced into the room and started to ooh and aah over the design.

“How come he gets the caramel squares and we only have cookies?” Jordan asked when I entered the kitchen.

“Because Ash hid the rest of them.” I started to lay out coffee cups as the guys argued about cookies in the background.

“Fuck off,” Ash snarked. “You got brownies for years.”

Xavier laughed at his two friends while chatting to Papa about the meeting earlier.

Ash’s phone pinged and he shoved the rest of his caramel square into his mouth before tugging it out of his pocket. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he muttered as he scanned the screen.

“What’s up?” Jordan demanded.

“Dad’s tracker just pinged. Looks like he’s decided to go on a field trip.”

“Where?” Xavier reverted to their conversation.

“He’s at one of the properties Caleb linked him to. I put some safeguards in place on his original tracker so if he visited certain locations that it notified me.” Ash trailed his fingers through his hair.

“What’s so special about this location?” Jordan asked.

“Michael tended to frequent it a lot. I haven’t been inside as we got distracted these past few weeks.”

He had been distracted because of me. There hadn’t been a night since I got home that I slept alone. He tended to appear after Catarina went to bed.

Papa growled at his phone and I began to think all the phones should be locked away during coffee as they were giving people indigestion. “Nic has found Sofia,” Papa stated. “He’s bringing her home later.”

I spun around. “I didn’t realise she was missing.” She had been home after her trip to Cuba, but left to finish her course at university.

Papa’s brows almost touched in the centre since his frown was so deep. “We didn’t want to worry you.”

“Why would I be worried? She went to finish her course at university. I helped her pack.” All the men stared at me as if I had started to speak a foreign language that they didn’t understand. “What?”

“I told you that you should ask her,” Ash said with a shrug. “Lucrezia knows everything that is going on here.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Not everything,” I defended. “Just the important stuff.”

Harold and Catarina arrived in the kitchen as I started to put cookies onto a plate.

“You guys are always here lately,” Catarina said. “Why do you all not just move in?”

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