Page 92 of Savage Hunter

“Hey, sweety. What’s wrong?”

I don’t care what danger it put me in, I’m not about to let a little girl be scared.

The enforcer throws me into a chair, gun at my head.

“Don’t leave your seat.” He grabs my face painfully and turns my head.

A cold sweat breaks out over my forehead. “I won’t.” I don’t want my actions to put the girl or baby in danger.

His smile turns wicked as he wipes off specks of his friend’s blood. “I hope you try.”

Lord help me, I can’t wait to shoot him like I did his friend. I shrug with an indifference I don’t feel.

He walks off to join my mother, and I turn my focus on the little girl. I recognize the pale blue eyes and the ash white hair of Ghost instantly.

His baby girl. She can’t be five or six.

Someone has stuck her into a dress and pulled her hair into a painfully tight bun. I recognize the style. My mother.

“Gabrielle?” I ask the woman with the baby, but I have my doubts. She’s much older than Persephone described her. Any hope I had of finding Persephone’s sister fades to zero.

Sad, red rimmed eyes find mine. “No, senorita. Gabrielle está muerta.”

Oh, no.Now my tears want to fall. It takes all my strength to keep them at bay. This woman must be the nanny if Persephone’s sister is dead.

“Is that her baby,” I ask in Spanish, keeping my tone low.

Salt and pepper curls bob up and down.

I angle my head around to find my mother in Polaris’ face saying something that has my friend turning every shade of red imaginable.

“I knew your levels of depravity hit new lows, but this?” Disgust swirls in the pit of my stomach.

My mother leaves Polaris and heads my way.

“Meet your replacement. Antonov blood will unlock new doors for me when the time comes.”

“You make me sick.”

She moves swiftly, bloodying my lips with the back of her hand. The diamond on her finger catches soft flesh. The taste of copper on my tongue is raw, animalistic. I use it to ground me to the here and now when it used to throw me into the past.

“You didn’t get enough by betraying me once that you have to do it again?”

“I see no reason I can’t have what I want. What does it matter what it costs someone else as long as I win.”

My life literally meant nothing to her but a fat dollar sign and power. I wish I could lie and say I am immune to her cruelty, but I’m not. My heart hurts more than my busted lip. Using the back of my hand I wipe away the blood. “You no longer have a soul do you? What more could you want? You have wealth and power.”

“You naïve little girl. I won’t stop until I am dead. There’s always more to take. I built this empire on three things. Sex, money and power. I control all three. Men and women come to me for all three. I give them a little of what I have and they return it triple-fold.”

She pats my hand like this is a pleasant family reunion and she’s not completely detached from her humanity.

“The Volkovs had no right to sell you. But once I found out where you were, I led you there and used you. You thought you were free when the Antonov traitor bought you? Naïve indeed. You were the last chess piece I needed moved in place. I’ll give the Volkov brothers that much. They did me a favor.”

“You’ve lost all threads of sanity.”

Denial glitters in her blue eyes. Eyes the same as mine. “Have I now? Because of you the Savages and the men from the Genesis club ride to save you and that one.” She gestures toward Polaris. “In a matter of a few minutes my men will eliminate them and then I will have not only Club Genesis under my rule, but New York City too.”

She lowers herself next to the nanny and pulls back the blue blanket to reveal a sleeping baby. “I always wanted a son.”

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