Page 18 of Point of No Return

Aleks laughs, blonde hair tousled from running his hand through it. “Yeah. Can you imagine if I’d been the eldest?”

Can I imagine if he was the one marrying her instead of me?

I huff a laugh at that. “Things would be a lot less complicated,” I sigh, doing my best to ignore the clatter of dishes behind us. Glass shatters, dishes clattering from a tray, and I turn just in time to see a flash of white as it falls to the ground.

Charlotte.

“I think that’s all you, brother,” Aleks says but there’s the slightest quiver to his voice. Like he and I both know what just happened isn’t a casual accident. We both run over in an instant, pushing through the clamor of people to find Charlotte on the ground, covered in glass and-

Blood.

I haven’t talked to Charlotte all night. The doctor left just after two this morning, and I’ve still hardly seen her. Luckily, all she needed were stitches, but the other guy is going to need a hell of a lot more than that by the time I’m done with him. No one saw him come in, let alone knew how he’d gotten past security, but one thing is clear: The attack wasn’t random.

Lincoln’s voice replays in my head:“If I die, you’ll never know the truth about Hydran… She’ll never be safe.”

No, I tell myself.They weren’t after her.

Charlotte’s still asleep by the time Eva Orlova comes storming through the door just before eight. It’s the first morning Charlotte has actually slept in, and I know from sitting outside the door all night that she was tossing and turning for most of it.

“Where is she?” Eva demands when the door slams open. She sees me standing over the sink in the kitchen and then comes marching over to me, jabbing a finger in my direction. “Where is my daughter? Have they done something to her?”

“She’s safe,” I tell her, rolling the sleeves of my button-up over my arms, but Eva’s eyes look ready to bulge out of her head.

“I wouldn’t be here if that were true!” she shrills.

“Right this way,” a servant says from behind, and I send a silent prayer to whatever gods there are for ending the insanity.

“Well?” her arms fall to her sides. “Aren’t you coming with me?” Eva motions toward the rest of the house.

“She made it clear she doesn’t want me near her.”

If slamming the door in my face as soon as we’d gotten home was any indication.

Eva rubs her temple as if she’s got a particularly bad headache coming on. “Damn that girl,” she murmurs, waving me off. “I’m sure she’ll be down soon. She’s probably just spooked.”

Spooked isn’t the right word I’d use for her.

Furious, maybe.Ready to light the nearest person on fire, definitely.

She hardly looked at me the entire ride home, despite me telling her countless times to let me help her. She was bleeding everywhere- all over her dress, all over the nappa leather seats, all over me.

Not to mention, her blood is still literally on my hands.

I make myself busy scrubbing my hands beneath the kitchen sink. Tyson came by earlier this morning, but he is likely still lecturing Aleks on the drunken show he’d put on last night. Aleks was drunk enough that he was stumbling around on the way to the car- very nearly tripping Charlotte.

My father, despite his faults, is better tasked at handling Aleks. At least while I handle the aftermath of last night. I’m not surprised when my phone rings for the sixth time in the past hour.

I answer it, preparing for the worst when I hear Crew’s voice across the line. “He’s dead.”

I curse, fisting my hair and dragging it back just so I have something to do with my hands. The information isn’t surprising, especially coming from my head of security, but I hoped to drag the information out of the bastard myself, at least.

“Who was he?”

“I’m still looking into that. We found traces of some kind of hydrocarbon on his hands. Poison probably. Died before we got anything from him.”

So any hopes of finding a lead on who he was working for died with him.

I try not to let it bother me.

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