Page 49 of Sinful Kingdom

The only problem is, I’ve no idea how to find out where they are to even think about getting there and handing myself over.

I laid in Alex’s bed, staring up at the ceiling for the longest time.

Blake came to check on me. It was the only time I closed my eyes as I pretended to be asleep. I felt awful for doing it, but I wasn’t in the right place to talk to her—or anyone, for that matter.

Voices rumbled downstairs, doors closed, and cars came and went, but I never once stepped out of the room.

Well, that is until the house falls silent and my need to find out more about what’s going on gets the better of me.

With ninja-like skills I didn’t know I possessed, I make my way downstairs. One look out of the hallway window tells me what I already suspect. All the cars in the driveway are gone. The sun is high in the sky, and I can only assume that means Blakely is out sunbathing instead of doing her job while Stefanos is out ruling the city.

The second I hit the ground floor, I dart across the hallway to Stefanos’s office. I don’t knock or even double-check there’s no one inside before I slip through the gap.

I stand there just inside the doorway as memories from the last time I was in here fill my mind. Staring at the desk, the image of the two of us together plays out like a movie.

I knew Alex was dangerous. I didn’t need to hear his angry words to know that. One look at his sinful face alone after what had happened between us the first time we met was enough to know that. I just never could have imagined what an impact he was going to have on my life, and on my heart.

Shaking those thoughts from my head, I focus on the task at hand.

I’m not stupid enough to think that Stefanos will have left a map of their location sitting on his desk, but there could be something. Anything.

Lowering my arse to this chair, I begin searching through the papers.

“Shit,” I hiss when nothing shows me anything useful. I don’t even know what most of this is. Spreadsheets and data and ugh.

I continue riffling through everything before lifting a ridiculously ugly paperweight. Only, I totally underestimate just how heavy it is, and as soon as I’ve lifted it from the desk it slips from my fingers, bouncing on the edge of the tabletop and plummeting to the floor.

It lands on the thin rug beneath my feet with an almighty thud.

My heart jumps into my throat and my hands tremble. If I get caught in here, even if it’s by Blake, then I’m fucked. She’ll make me talk, and my chances of doing this will be less than they are now.

“Hello?” a soft voice calls out. Only, it’s not Blake, it’s Calli.

“Oh, shit, shit, shit,” I hiss, looking for the best place to hide on the off chance she comes in here to check something weird isn’t happening, which of course, it totally is.

“You go, I’ll check it out,” someone says before heavy footsteps, I was clearly too distracted to notice earlier, move closer.

A quick glance at the window shows the arrival of a fancy black car.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I can’t imagine Daemon will be too impressed if he catches me in here.

With my heart in my throat, I drop to my hands and knees and crawl under the desk just as the door creaks open and a pair of black boots and jeans appear merely a few feet away.

‘Oh my God,’ I mouth to myself as my heart pounds so hard in my chest I’m sure he can hear it.

He moves closer before rounding the desk and stopping right beside the paperweight.

Why did you move that, you stupid cow?I chastise.

Trying to curl in on myself as if it’ll make me invisible, I hold my breath as he bends down, but as predicted, long before his fingers connect with the heavy rock thing, his eyes collide with me.

All the air comes rushing out of my lungs, but the fear isn’t quite as potent as I was expecting, because the eyes staring back at me aren’t a pair of dark grey angry ones that belong to the devil. They’re softer.

“Ant?” I breathe, my panic ebbing away slightly.

“Hey, Buttercup. How’s it going?” he asks, holding his hand out to help me out from my hiding spot.

“Umm…”

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