Page 95 of Greed: The Savage
If Mac Diggory harms her, I’ll drag him to hell myself—then follow him down for letting her be hurt.
Gone. She is gone.
Gone.
Gone.
Christ, what have I done?
Ravaged, he looked at Dynevor’s bored expression. “When?” Who did that harsh, desperate entreaty belong to? Surely not Thornwick.
“Earlier this morning.”
Oh, Christ, help me.
Dragging his hands through his hair, Thornwick backed away from Dynevor. Distance was all that kept him from killing the rat—cutting down Diggory’s son in the flesh would set the war ablaze too soon. Once Addien was in his arms and far from this city on the brink, the devil could come out to play.
A hammering filled his ears. Somewhere in that pounding came the roar of a savage beast—his own—as he launched himself across the desk. Fisting Dynevor’s shirt lapels, he hauled the man forward, set him on his feet, and gave him a brutal shake.
“Where the hell is she?” he hissed, forcing the words past lungs that fought for air.
“I’m not looking to play games,” Dynevor said, his voice still steeped in the cockney he’d slipped into since Diggory’s return—as if the king of the hamlet had come home and the son had remembered his proper tongue. The reckless younger man mocked him with a smile. “Oi offered her places to go. Said Oi’d sent her to the Hell and Sin. Oi suggested she go to any one of my sisters’ houses to do servant’s work.”
Addien as a servant? He’d fucking burn every last townhouse in London before she lifted a finger in anyone’s household.
The panicky rhythm of Thornwick’s heart picked up an even more frantic beat. “Whereisshe?”
Was that pleading voice his? He didn’t beg. Not for anything. Not for anyone.
Who the hell had he become? It was like watching himself from outside his own skin, unable to make sense of any of it.He’d been stripped of his pride. Addien took it with her when she went—
“Snap went somewhere none of us could touch her.” Dynevor smirked. “And by us, I strongly suspect she meantyou.”
Rage surged through him, scorching hot, and he let out a roar that tore from his chest.
“You bloody kept me here—working on an assignment for you—all the while knowing she was gone and I’d go after her.”
Dynevor gave a lazy shrug. “Work first.”
Work first.
Yes. That had been the motto by which Thornwick had lived too.
Work before all. Work before people. Before feeling. Before living.
How bloody shallow. How empty.
How meaningless it all was—until her.
A tortured moan dragged from deep inside his chest. “Bloody hell, tell me where she’s g—”
“Forbidden Pleasures.” All the humor and taunting jeering was gone from the younger man’s voice. This time, there was a trace of something unexpected from Dynevor—sympathy.
“Forbidden Pleasures,” Thornwick whispered, the syllables fraying under the weight of what they meant.
She’d gone to the one place no one at the Devil’s Den could reach her—
And the last place Thornwick could follow.
