Page 68 of Their Domme

“When was the last time you ate?”

Nic bit her lip, breaking Sacha’s stare to look around the room as if that was going to save her right now. “Lunch when I first got to Millfield?”

Sacha clicked his tongue in annoyance. “Why does that sound like a question, Nic?”

“It isn’t?” she replied with a wide grin, and I started to laugh. Some things never changed. “In my defense, I don’t cook, and there weren’t many places to stop at on the way up there.”

“For three hours?” Sacha asked incredulously.

“If I did, I would have been eating in your precious car,” she shot back, making Sacha roll his eyes.

“It’s been covered in blood before. The food clean-up would have been a good change of pace for the detailer.” With a sigh, he forced himself to stand up and started for the bathroom for clothes.

He quickly got dressed and had started to leave when I spoke up. “Are you bringing food for all three of us?” He shot me an annoyed glare and left without responding while Nic chuckled, turned over, and snuggled into my side.

“Do you want to know a secret, big guy?”

“Oh god,” I muttered, not sure what the hell she was about to say. “Do I want to know, slut?”

“I was the one who hired you all to look for Gabriel after he went missing. He’s the one who hid me in Ashview along with a cabin on the outskirts of the city for obvious reasons,” Nic purred, a cat-who-got-the-canary smile taking over.She what?! How the hell did she pull that off?I knew I shouldn’t be surprised by her capabilities anymore, but this one… This one got me. “A program on my phone changed my voice, and we all know I was around Maeve enough to speak like her. I need an update. Soon.”

“You—” I recalled mentioning to Sacha that we should bring this up with Nic tomorrow.Guess she overheard me.

“So, big guy, what progress did you make on finding my friend before all hell broke loose?”

I ran my hands along her sides, loving the way she shivered when I dug in just enough to give her a hint of my strength. “We don’t have much. Just the hand that was delivered to the Lords’ compound on Sunday, which we already told you about.”

She hummed thoughtfully, lightly running her fingers through my chest hair and scratching me with her nails. “He’ll wish he was dead if they did that. He used to work for Maeve before she turned him into an informant for her network. I don’t know everyone she had under her, but he was a trusted person she introduced me to. He retired from turning tricks to do that, then opened Olive & Grove so he could rub elbows with the rich and privileged of Ashview.” She was quiet for a moment before she asked in a tentative voice, “Are you sure it wasn’t a boy’s hand?”

“It was too big to be your brother’s,” I told her with a shake of my head. “It was the first thing we thought of when we got it. Then another dead body showed up. Not sure if the timing between those two things was a coincidence or not, but it certainly raises the question of whether your stalker could have had Gabriel.”

“Possibly.” She tilted her head back to look up at me, calculation and curiosity in her eyes. “But that means this person has two hostages, one of whom is skilled at getting out. So either my stalker is working with someone else—”

“Or someone else in the trafficking ring has Gabriel?” I finished for her.

I could almost see the gears turning, the jumps she was making with that little bit of information. It was intoxicating to see her mind at work.

“Vas, can you get my phone? It should be in the bathroom with my clothes.”

I grabbed the phone, handed it to her, and climbed back into bed, wanting to keep her close. She unlocked it and selected a contact just as Sacha opened the door. I lifted my eyebrow at his tray of soup and bread, and he looked at both of us with a questioning glance.

“What’s going on?”

Nicholette waved at him to come in and hit the speakerphone button so we could all hear the phone ring. Just as he closed the door. Ansel’s smooth voice answered.

“Liebling, I’m good, but I’m notthatgood.”

Nicholette chuckled, and Sacha put the food down on the dresser and sat down on Nic’s other side.

“I had a thought that could be useful,” Nic replied. “I sent a friend into the trafficking ring to ferret out information on my stalker and my brother. He went missing. There’s a good chance one of his hands was delivered to the Lords’ compound right after a dead look alike was dropped off. My stalker could have him, but that gives them two hostages to contain.”

“Which would be hard… So instead, you think your father could have Gabriel?” Ansel asked, easily following her thought process. My brows raised in surprise, and Sacha clicked his tongue, looking thoughtful.

“The box with the hand was addressed to all of us,” Sacha speculated, “not just Rhodes even though we were at his compound.”

If it threw Ansel that other people were with her, he didn’t show it. I heard an engine rev in the background as though he hadn’t skipped a beat. “It could also just be someone else in the trafficking ring, Nicholette. But he could have your friend considering your stalker is interfering with his business. When was the last contact you had with Gabriel?”

“Two weeks ago. He was supposed to check in and missed the time. I figured something happened to delay him, but we had a back-up plan. He also missed that time as well, so I called the guys to look into it.”

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