Page 38 of Caged By the Ruthless Thief

Thanks.

Fucking Eros. “Leave your coffee. I know where Belle is.”

“What?” Castor puts the cup on the glass coffee table.

“Eros Herod.”

“What about him?”

I’m shaking. Because I fucking led him to her. And he had the audacity to touch her. That is, if I’m right. “You have Nole’s logins, so you can track people, right?”

“I can, but I don’t. I’m not going to abuse Nole’s power.”

“Right, give me your block. Because I sure as fuck am.”

Castor crosses his arms over his chest. And damn, I’m going to have to tell him more to get him to see where the Zaffiro player has been for the last few days.

“Before you came to tell us that Nico was being taken away, Eros dropped by.” My heart thumps. “He had a gift for Belle. It’s here somewhere still. I moved a few things when I came back to the city.” I find it under a box on top of the counter.

“It’s a science book. A rudimentary one at that.”

“Yes, but it was Richeal’s. Nico’s mother. My intended mother.”

Castor freezes momentarily.

“I know, right? He says he got it at the shops. From a bookseller. The thing is, Alder didn’t sell any of her things. It took decades for him to even pack away her clothes that were hanging in the pod closet. Someone stole it from his apartment.”

“Maybe she sold it before she died?” Castor’s flipping through it. “But why do you think Eros has her because he brought her a gift? I’ve brought her plenty of gifts, and I don’t have her tucked away in my apartment. I wish I fucking did.”

“I wish you had her too. Yeah, let’s not repeat that to Nico.” I take the book back from him and put it carefully on the one shelf in the room. “No, Eros came around. Let me back up a little. Eros cornered me outside of the furniture store. He wanted to meet Belle, and he asked me to bring her to the tea shop on the south side of the shopping district. At that point, Nico wanted her to meet other males. And while Eros isn’t a perfect male to add to her pod, I could see the chemistry between them when they danced at the ball. I also know how she can get, so I thought for practice’s sake I would let him talk to her. It went well. When he came to drop off the book, her mermaid hormones were going full-steam.” I raised my hand. “And one thing led to another.”

“And he spent some time in her pod bed like he’s done with a dozen other mermaids.”

“Exactly, only when he left, he didn’t have the Eros swagger of checking something off a list. It was more...”

“Obsession. I’m well-aware of the feeling.” Castor gripped the edge of the kitchen island counter. “I wonder how Lucius is doing with the video.”

Castor spends long enough on his block that I walk to the other side of the room, staring out at the two remaining sharks. I raise my eyebrows at Castor.

He looks from his block to me. “It’s a merman, from what they can make out. But he can’t put a name to him.”

“I think I can. And if you don’t want to access your government tech, let’s head over there.”

“Fine.” Castor fiddles with his block while I stay on the opposite side of the room. I’m curious, but I also know well enough that the less I know about how some of our government systems work, the better it is for my health. The whole thing smells of rotten shrimp shells. Castor is typing furiously and swearing under his breath. When he finally looks up, he’s sweating.

“What?”

“I don’t get it. It’s not Eros. We’ve picked up a DNA signature at home. We have him heading out to the far side of the Veiled City. He’s there for a night and then goes back to his dome where he hasn’t moved. The shades on his garden dome haven’t moved for the last two days. And the video of him at Calypso’s Depth, the kraken bar, has him drinking enough that it’s amazing he’s alive. He punched a security guard and left, driving, hissoloweaving all over the place before he gets to Zaffiro. It’s not him. He wasn’t in Athens.”

“Calypso’s Depth, that’s a shithole.” Something doesn’t sit right with me. He was so in with Belle. And heading out to Calypso’s? I still think it’s him in Athens. And if he’s obsessed enough to follow Belle to Athens, he’s not going to hang out at Calypso’s. “I don’t buy it. It’s him. I just have a gut feeling that it’s him.” And I always trust my gut.

There’s a knock on the door. Castor and I stare at each other.

“Did you tell anyone you were coming down here?” Castor asks.

“I didn’t know this was where I was heading until I was in the elevator.”

The second knock is louder. “I’m looking for Castor.” The voice is deep and sounds like...

---