Page 7 of The Billionaire and the Nanny

I couldn’t see her anywhere. Where the hell was she?

I took a moment to slow down and think about what I was doing. What was the plan here? And more importantly, why was I doing this? I didn’t feel sorry for Tia. If anything, I felt sorry for the poor bastard who thought he was getting the upper hand in his deal with Arjun Monani. This wasn’t the first time, Monani had used his sister as a weapon, after all. The only difference was that the last time she had been a willing accomplice. This time, she looked unwilling as hell.

And why did that disturb me so much? Pimping his sister out for his gain seemed to be the Monani business model. God knows how many shmucks had gone down the same way. For all I knew, the siblings had a plan to take Jeff Sabri down. Why was I interfering with their plan?

The only reason that made sense to me was that I knew what was at stake here. If Tia did not hold up her end of the bargain, the Monani house of cards was going to come crashing down around them. And that would be a pleasure to watch.

That’s all it was, I told myself firmly. Pure vengeance. I wanted to destroy Arjun Monani and everything that he stood for. This had nothing to do with Tia or the fact that I couldn’t bear the thought of another man touching her. Maybe if I repeated that to myself a thousand times, I’d believe it, too.

When I spotted the fire exit slightly ajar, I discounted it at first. Surely, she wasn’t foolish enough to try and walk out of here. Then I remembered that Tia wasn’t a ‘damsel-in-distress’ fairy princess. She was Cleopatra. She liked to solve her own problems even if she had to commandeer a superhero to do so.

I walked up to the door stealthily. She stood just outside the door, looking up at the sky. I wondered if she was making a break for it, but her shoulders slumped and she sighed heavily.

Her phone rang, and she answered.

“Hi, Celine. I’m still at the fundraiser at the art gallery. No, it’s happening tonight. My brother made that crystal clear.”

There was a pause as she listened to the woman on the line.

“Thank you, but I can’t drag you into this mess, sweetie. I know you’d hide me, but I don’t want you to have to face my brother’s wrath. I’m not putting you at risk, Celine. So, stop asking.”

Her friend was still arguing with her.

“Sweetie, I can’t hole up in a hotel, either. My brother will track down my credit cards. And he’ll be watching all of you to see who’s helping me. No! You can’t go to the police, Celine! Don’t do anything stupid. Look, I need to go back in now before he comes looking for me. I’ll call you in a couple of days, okay? Bye, honey.”

She hung up, and I realized that this was the only chance I’d get. I texted my chauffeur to meet me outside the alley behind the art gallery, and I walked up behind Tia.

I clamped one hand around her mouth, and one around her neck as I pinched the carotid artery in the side of her neck. She struggled a little, but within a few seconds, she slumped into my arms, unconscious. I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder in a fireman’s lift as I strode down the dark alley. My brothers would have to clean up the surveillance footage in the area.

The limo was waiting for me at the mouth of the alley

I threw her into the car and followed her in, slamming the door shut behind me.

“Go,” I snapped at Sam, who had been driving me around since I was in high school.

After one surprised glance at Tia’s unconscious form, he kept his eyes firmly on the road as he drove us away.

I called Marcus and told him to wipe the security footage of the camera in the alley. Luckily, there had only been one.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I’ve got her. Find me a safe house fast. We need to keep her out of sight until this dies down. No, not our house! Asafehouse,” I snapped.

“We don’t have one,” he replied.

“Marcus Finn Donovan, are you trying to tell me that we cannot use one of our many rental properties as a safe house?” I low-key roared.

Tia stirred in my arms.

“Leo, I can’t find you a safe house in five minutes. Because that’s all you have before Tia’s brother starts looking for her. You don’t want to be caught driving around in Manhattan with her hiding in your car until I find the right house.”

“So what am I supposed to do with her?”

“Take her home. Luke and I can find a cab.”

“Home? To our home? Are you out of your mind?”

“You’re wasting time, Leo. Tick tock,” he said, before he hung up on me.

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