Page 21 of Corruption

I clench my fists tighter around my brother’s collar, wishing more than anything that he’d been the one to die instead of my father. I don’t lose any sleep at night over my father’s death, and, honestly, I hope he’s rotting in hell, but at least he would have had the sense not to blame Addy. Sometimes I wish I could kill Vaughn now, but to do that with no apparent reason would just spark a fucking civil war. And we’re not Addy and Adrian Fantoni. I haven’t got the luxury of fucking time, resources, and being underestimated to meticulously plan a hostile takeover.

“The girl,” I repeat tersely instead.

“I could have left her out in the cold all night. Instead I sent her to your house. Nadia seemed so eager to get to know her. Knowing her, they’re likely best friends by now.”

“She’s your fiancé.”

“She’s a bargaining chip, and, otherwise, a distraction that I have no use for until she’s officially mine and she can give me a legitimate heir.”

“You have an heir. Isaak.”

“He’s got too much of his mother’s softness in him. Besides, an heir that’s the grandchild of Adrian Fantoni will be much more beneficial to us.”

“I can’t believe you,” I mutter, letting go of Vaughn or else I just might choke him. “So what, you want her to distract Nadia and I instead?”

“Now, brother, why would she be a distraction to you and your wife? Are you planning on deflowering my fiancé before I get the chance to?”

The image of her in the doorway to our sex dungeon flashes across my mind. The image of her standing up to me this morning over breakfast, unwilling to back down until Nadia intervened.

“Of course not. But babysitting generally takes up a lot of time.”

“Good thing you don’t have to babysit her. She’s nineteen. You just have to keep her until the wedding.” Vaughn goes back to sit at his desk, deliberately turning his back to me. “Now if that’s all—”

“Where are her things?”

“Things?”

“Her clothes? All the things she brought here? Her phone?”

“I had it packed up with her last night? My men didn’t drop it off with her?”

I’m tempted to snatch him from his desk again and throw him out the window.

“Do you at least have her phone?”

I’m not going to waste time arguing for a bunch of stuff that can be replaced. I’ll tell Nadia to take the girl shopping. But Kiya specifically asked for her phone.

When Vaughn doesn’t answer, I say, “No doubt Adrian has tried to get in contact with her. He’s going to be concerned if he continues to be unable to get through.”

Vaughn starts at that. Then huffs and motions to a drawer on his desk.

I open the drawer and find a phone with a glittering orange case on it and its charger. I grab both before walking out the room without another word because I don’t know that I can control myself further if my brother opens his mouth again.

My driver is waiting for me as soon as I walk out the house, and I waste no time getting in the car before ordering him to take me home. To calm myself down, I tap my thighs as if playing the keys of the piano, having long since memorized the placement of the keys and the exact distance between them.

Before going into the main part of the house, I stop by where my security is stationed and make them check Kiya’s phone for any tracking or listening devices. Kiya is going to be Vaughn’s eventually. But she’s not his yet. So he won’t be tracking her while she’s living in my house.

By the time that’s done and I’m going back to the main part of the house, I’m mostly calm enough.

When I walk through the door, Nadia and Kiya are sitting on the couch facing the entrance watching something on Nadia’s laptop with a half-empty bottle of wine between them and wine glasses. Nadia has a gleeful smile on her face, looking like she’s about to laugh while Kiya is staring wide-eyed and mesmerized at the screen in… Amazement first and foremost with a fair amount of curiosity.

They’re so engrossed in what they’re watching that they don’t notice me until I’m halfway toward them. At which point, Kiya nearly falls off the sofa with her startled jump, while Nadia looks at me and averts her gaze before slowly closing her laptop. But not before I hear a long moan coming from the speakers.

“Were you watching porn?” I ask.

Nadia’s not a particularly good liar when she knows she’s caught, but even if she could convincingly lie to me, all it takes is seeing the flush on Kiya’s skin to know I’m right.

I give Nadia an unimpressed and longsuffering look.

---